#510 Provide AppStream metadata
When an application like Fuse is packaged it is up to each distribution to provide things like a description of the software, screenshots, links to the home page, bug tracker, and so on.
AppStream is a cross-distro metadata specification that allows software projects to provide information about themselves. This makes it easier to create user-friendly app centers which show consistent and distribution-independent information about installed and available packages. AppStream is used by applications like GNOME Software and KDE Discover and is also used by other packaging systems like Flatpak, Snap or AppImage.
Flatpak uses AppStream to provide the information that you see in flathub.org, in the case of Fuse this is the URL:
https://flathub.org/apps/net.sourceforge.fuse_emulator.Fuse
That AppStream metatada was however added by me to the Flathub repository when I uploaded Fuse there. The recommended thing to do (and this is the reason why I'm writing this) is to put the AppStream metadata directly in the upstream repository, as this is meant for applications to describe themselves and have control of that information.
The metadata itself is just an XML file so adding it to the Fuse repo is only two lines in a Makefile.am. The other implications are:
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It is recommended that the AppStream file is updated with every new release of Fuse to include a brief list of changes. This should not be as detailed as our ChangeLog file and it should only contain a couple of lines listing the most important changes. Example: for Fuse 1.6.0 I added "New 4X scalers", "Added TTX2000S emulation" and "Several UI fixes and improvements". You can see that in the Flathub link I pasted above.
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In AppStream every app is expected to have an ID that uses the reverse-DNS format. In the case of Fuse that is
net.sourceforge.fuse_emulator.Fuse -
That ID should be reflected in the name of the
.desktopfile and its icon, sofuse.desktopwould becomenet.sourceforge.fuse_emulator.Fuse.desktopandfuse.pngwould becomenet.sourceforge.fuse_emulator.Fuse.png. This has no user-visible changes so everything will keep working the same as before.
And I think that's it.
Here is the patch.