• Hi!

    This seems to have been a bit of a sore point, but I know a few people have complained about having to edit the large apps.json file to add their app, and instead wanted a single metadata.json file inside their app's folder that contained all the info about their app.

    There was some discussion on https://github.com/espruino/BangleApps/issues/46 and https://github.com/espruino/BangleApps/issues/1020 with the reasoning either way.

    I've been a bit on the fence about this as it increases complexity, but adamschmalhofer on GitHub has come up with quite a neat solution with: https://github.com/espruino/BangleApps/pull/1221

    Basically it uses jekyll (which GitHub pages uses behind the scenes) to ensure that any time the app loader is published on GitHub Pages, apps.json is automatically created from the separate files.

    So...

    • You'll no longer have to mess around with apps.json. Every file you need to change will be in the apps/yourapp folder.
    • If you're hosting with GitHub pages there's no change, everything 'just works'
    • If you're hosting locally or with some other web server, you'll have to run a script before you publish changes - either via jekyll or I'll add a python/bash script to do it do you don't have to install Ruby/etc in order to use it.

    What does everyone think about this? I'm inclined to do it, but it is a step away from the complete simplicity of the current app loader.

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