Creating Repository

Preparing the Repository

In order for the tools to parse the repository correctly, you need to prepare the repository to have a certain structure. This is what you need to do:

  • The repository has to follow the structure. Please go to this page that explains about it
  • Create the correct metadata for the repository. For that, please read this page
  • Once you have it prepared, you can check if the repository is all good by trying it using file system handler. In the plugin, go to Settings tab and add a new repository pointing to the root of the repository in your local file system. The repository URL might look like this on Linux: file:///home/pointing/to/repository_root or in Windows it looks more like this: file://C:/home/pointing/to/repository_root

Where can you share it?

There are some options where you can put your repository: on Github, Bitbucket (they need to be public repositories), local file system (if you want to share the collections with your colleagues on the network), or in your own server with http(s) protocol.

Github and Bitbucket

So you decided to put your repositories on this platform. There is nothing complicated here if you are already familiar with git. After preparing the repository in your local machine, you can make it as git repository like usual. In general, you can do:

cd <repository root>
git init
git add .
git commit -m "Created a cool repository for cool users."
git remote add origin <remote repository URL>
git push origin master

Note that right now you need to use branch master for your repository.

Local File System

Well, this one is even simpler. After preparing the repository, you can use it right away. In the Settings tab, try to add a repository with URL pointing to the repository root in your local machine. It’s as simple as that. If there is a problem with metadata or other issues when adding the repository, the tools will tell you.

Your Own Server

This option could be useful in some cases e.g you want to make private collections available for your customers. There are some additional requirements that you need to be aware of if you choose this option:

  • The URL structure of the repository. Let’s say your base repository URL is http://www.akbargumbira.com/repository. You need to put the metadata available on this URL: http://www.akbargumbira .com/repository/metadata.ini
  • The collections must be in zip format. For example, if you have a collection named test_collection, the collection must exist in: http://www.akbargumbira.com/repository/collections/test_collection.zip
  • The preview images are relative to the collection base URL. As an example, if you define the preview images in the metadata preview=preview/prev1.png, preview/prev2.png, it is needed that you have to make the previews available for collection test_collection in this URL: http://www.akbargumbira.com/repository/collections/test_collection/preview/prev1.png and http://www.akbargumbira.com/repository/collections/test_collection/preview/prev2.png

You can also put authentication to this repository as you wish. In the plugin, users can configure authentication details so that they will be able to fetch the repository and the collections inside.