Pick apps from a configration file

[Yuren Ju]

Hi folks,

I sent a pull request for picking apps from a configration file instead of
pick apps from all directories of GAIA_APP_SRCDIRS, it's more flexable for
adding or removing apps.

https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=848604

in this pull request, I use
build/apps-[production|engineering|demo|dogfood].list to pick apps from
apps and external-apps directories. by default, I use wildcard to pick all
apps from apps and other directories, eg build/apps-produciton.list:

apps/*
external-apps/*
outoftree_apps/*

if you want a customization build only with system, homescreen & settings
apps, create a file like this:

apps/system
apps/settings
apps/homescreen

and |GAIA_APP_CONFIG=<path-to-apps.list> make reset-gaia|, you will have a
gaia only contain those three apps LOL

finally, we also support GAIA_DISTRIBUTION_DIR, you can put apps.list to
your GAIA_DISTRIBUTION_DIR/ for picking apps both from GAIA_DIR &
GAIA_DISTRIBUTION_DIR.

feedback welcome on bugzilla :-)

[Donovan Preston]

Yes! This is really great news! I only have one question: Why a
newline-separated list of paths instead of a json file like the other
distribution configuration files?

Donovan

> _______________________________________________
> dev-gaia mailing list
> dev-...@lists.mozilla.org
> https://lists.mozilla.org/listinfo/dev-gaia

[Tim Chien]

I had a few lengthy discussions with Yuren on this.

The original idea was to simply amend the build/util.js and have it to
take a JSON file. However, he found that |profile| is not the only
make target that consumes the SRCDIRS variable -- so the only place to
centralize the handling would be in the Makefile itself, with shell
script.

Given the fact parsing JSON in shell script is extremely hard, a plan
text list file became the obvious alternative choice.

--
Tim Guan-tin Chien, Engineering Manager and Front-end Lead, Firefox
OS, Mozilla Corp. (Taiwan)t

[Donovan Preston]

Makes sense! Thank you :-)

D