Newbie to this kind of thing - some basic help please

[John Arbash Meinel]

First, for "no responses" you only waited 10 hours, which isn't very 
long for email. Especially considering all the timezones of the people 
active on this list. (We certainly have people active in Europe, US, and 
Australia, which covers the whole 24-hour spectrum.)


Donn wrote:
> Hi, I sent this to feedback at launchpad but have had no response. I just joined 
> this list to see what I can learn here. So here it is again. (with a few 
> edits.)
> 
>  I hope this is not a FAQ, I have been reading the various docs.
> 
> First off, I am totally new to versioning systems. I have another project on 
> LP called 'fontypython' but it has never been used. I thought I'd get to know 
> things and I have a tutorial/overview of pyCairo that I am using as a test 
> case. It's not actually code, but an SVG file with related images.
> 
> Second, I chose a Creative Commons Att NC licence (custom option) which caused 
> a message to the effect that I would be 'contacted'. I hope I did not choose 
> a bad licence! Anyway, that might be why things are not working.

I think it is more that you chose the "custom" option, which means that 
LP doesn't know what license you are meaning. I personally haven't done 
anything but GPL/etc. I'm not positive, but I'm pretty sure LP requires 
it to be an Open Source license. CC probably falls under that.

> 
> Third, I am sure I have the wrong conception of what LP is an offers - I hope 
> the answers put me right :)
> 
> I created a project called "cairoglyphics". I followed the steps to make 
> a .bzr directory and all that. I ended-up using push to send a bunch of files 
> to the LP hosting. All seems fine.
> 
> I now want to provide a tarball of the 'final' product (what you term 
> releasing a project, I think) and I used bzr export to make one. I then did 
> another push (not knowing any alternatives) and I think it's all on your 
> server.

'bzr export foo.tar.gz' will create a tarball on your machine, it 
doesn't do anything on Launchpad. It also won't change anything for "bzr 
push". "bzr push" pushes committed changes, what you want to do is go to 
the "Download Project Files" link, and upload the tarball.

I find setting up download files to be a bit tricky. They have to be 
associated with a release series, so you have to start by registering a 
release series, and then you need to add a milestone.
After you have that, you can then go to the milestone which has an: "Add 
download file" link.

Once you've uploaded it, it will show up in:
https://launchpad.net/cairoglyphics/+download

(which is also available from the main page "Download Project Files" link.)

> 
> (I actually made one branch, then deleted it and made another.)
> 
> If a user were to visit:
> https://launchpad.net/cairoglyphics
> and click on 'Code' (because there is no obvious "Click here to download X" 
> option) then they get to:
> https://code.launchpad.net/cairoglyphics/
> which shows a page that has no code, no links, nada.
> 
> If they had clicked 'trunk' on the home page, they'd get to:    
> https://launchpad.net/cairoglyphics/trunk
> which is also pretty much blank. And why joe-user would click 'trunk' is like 
> asking an elephant why they'd click 'fingers.'
> 
> But, if I go to the URL:
> https://code.launchpad.net/~donn-ingle/+junk/cairoglyphics
> then I see this:
> ~donn-ingle/+junk/cairoglyphics
> Download URL: http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~donn-ingle/+junk/cairoglyphics
> Example:        bzr branch 
> http://bazaar.launchpad.net/~donn-ingle/+junk/cairoglyphics
> Upload URL:     
> bzr+ssh://<name>@bazaar.launchpad.net/~donn-ingle/+junk/cairoglyphics
> Example:        bzr push 
> bzr+ssh://donn-ingle@bazaar.launchpad.net/~donn-ingle/+junk/cairoglyphics

Well, so far you uploaded your branch into your "+junk" project, which 
means it isn't linked to cairoglyphics at all. It is just a random 
branch of code. What you want to do is :

bzr push 
bzr+ssh://donn-ingle@bazaar.launchpad.net/~donn-ingle/cairoglyphics/trunk

The breakdown is:

bzr+ssh://bazaar.launchpad.net/~USER/PROJECT/BRANCH_NAME

If you had used anything with a PROJECT of cairoglyphics, then it would 
have showed up on the Code tab.

If you had actually uploaded a tarball, then it would have shown up on 
the "Download Project Files" link.

You should also associate your "trunk" series with your "trunk" branch. 
Which you can do by clicking on the series, and then clicking on "Change 
Details" which lets you associate the series with whatever Bazaar branch 
you've uploaded.

I don't know if you can associate it with a "+junk" branch, but there is 
no reason to use +junk when you've registered a project.

I think you can also edit your existing branch to be associated with the 
project after the fact.

If you go to:

https://code.launchpad.net/~donn-ingle/+junk/cairoglyphics/+edit

you should be able to change the project from "+junk" to 
"cairoglyphics". At that point you can chose whether you want it to be:
~donn-ingle/cairoglyphics/cairoglyphics

or if you want to change it to
~donn-ingle/cairoglyphics/trunk


> 
> I must assume this is not for end-users at all. Heck, I don't savvy it. I 
> copy/pasted (!) the top link (the download) one and it gest me to a blank 
> page that says:
> Not Found
> The requested URL /00/00/21/be was not found on this server.
> 
> So, I am very confused -- I am sure this is all quite sensible but from my pov 
> right now it's opaque.
> 
> How do I provide a link for users to get the tarball of the pycairo tutorial?
> 
> Thanks for reading all of this.
> Help! :)
> 
> \d
> 

In general, Launchpad isn't designed around hosting tarballs. It is more 
designed around tracking version control details. So that people can do:

bzr branch lp:cairoglyphics

And get a local copy of your code, under version control, with history 
available.

A few things you pointed out are known bugs, like the "404 URL 
/00/00..." stuff. I believe that is going to be improved in the next 
month or so. As the "bazaar.launchpad.net" pages will get merged with 
the "codebrowse.launchpad.net" pages that look like:
http://codebrowse.launchpad.net/~bzr/bzr/trunk

However, Launchpad is not Sourceforge. It is slowly building up some 
features as they are deemed necessary. But its focus is on helping 
developers work together and work with users. So it has bug tracking, 
and source control tracking. To a lesser extent it allows you to release 
project files. Which will probably improve over time. But yes, it has 
been focused on being a great developer tool, before being polished for 
end users.

I think you do raise some good points about usability for Downloads.

I would also say that this should have been sent to 
"launchpad-users at lists.canonical.com" not Bazaar. As all of your points 
are related to Launchpad, and not Bazaar.

John
=:->