Alias for maven-central-search

store-requests
1

Hi all,

I’m authoring a small command-line utility to query the Maven Central Repository. I’ve named it “mcs”, for Maven Central Search. I would like installation to be as convenient as possible on popular platforms, which is why I dove into Snaps.

Now the “mcs” name is a reserved snap name, as it turns out. When I politely asked for it, I was advised to request an alias rather than a Snap name.

So here I am :slight_smile: and I’d like to ask if I could have an alias so that mcs would in fact invoke maven-central-search.mcs.

Thanks for considering!

2

I believe this alias could conflict with the cmd mcs of the https://packages.ubuntu.com/search?keywords=mono-mcs universe package.

Can you please try to look for another non-conflicting alias? what about maven-cs?

3

Can other @reviewers please vote?

4

Thanks for bringing that one to my attention!

Given the conflict with mono-mcs, would maven-central-search be acceptable as an alias, too? I think that is easier to remember than maven-cs, and it doesn’t abbreviate certain parts of the name while writing out other parts.

5

Sorry for being so impolite to bump this thread… Any news? Any thing I could do at this point?

6

As your snap is called maven-central-search if you specify the app as maven-central-search then you get the alias maven-central-search automatically. However, given that the existing mcs is a compiler for Mono (aka C#) whereas this is a tool for Maven (Java) - is it likely there will be developers who have both installed at the same time? I personally think this is unlikely, hence +1 from me for the mcs alias as originally asked for if that is preferred to maven-central-search.

7

Hey @mthmulders apologize for the delay.

As @alexmurray mentioned, if your app is called maven-central-search then you get the alias maven-central-search automatically (https://snapcraft.io/docs/commands-and-aliases FYI).

So are you still willing to get the mcs alias?

8

apologize for the delay

No worries!

are you still willing to get the mcs alias?

If it were possible, I’d love to. It’s short, concise and easy to remember. If people install it on other platforms (Chocolatey for Windows, SDKMAN! or Homebrew) they’d get mcs as the name of the executable.

if your app is called maven-central-search then you get the alias maven-central-search automatically

I may have done something wrong, then. On all the systems where I installed my own snap, I could only run it using maven-central-search.mcs and that is a bit tedious and error prone :slight_smile:

Finally, to answer @alexmurray’s question

is it likely there will be developers who have both installed at the same time

I don’t think the overlap will be big, but there will certainly be people having both snaps installed. I can’t really judge how often that will happen; and I can’t judge the impact of a naming collision either.

1 Like
9

+2 votes for, 0 votes against, granting the requested auto-alias mcs. This is now live.

10

This is because your app is still named mcs. If you rename it to maven-central-search then you will be able to run it using maven-central-search only. Please if you do that let us know since I have just configured the alias to the app name mcs and if you change it this will break :). Thanks!

11

Thanks a lot! I’m very happy users can use the much shorter “mcs” now :smiley:

Should I mark this thread as “solved” then?

12

Hey @mthmulders it is not necessary at all. But feel free to do so if you want to :slight_smile: