"Publisher" pages: How many exist? How to find them? And could they be auto-created?

I notice that the snapcraft.io website includes a page where all snaps published by KDE can be easily found. See: https://snapcraft.io/publisher/kde

How many publishers have such pages? And if not all publishers have “publisher” pages, where can I find a list of those publishers that have “publisher” pages?

SUGGESTION: I’d like suggest that minimal publisher pages be auto-created for each publisher. Ideally, each publisher should be provided an easy means for editing the auto-created page, such as to add a link the publisher’s website, etc. Having such pages would allow the publishers to showcase their entire portfolios more easily by means of a single link to their respective “publisher” pages.

And please forgive me if I’ve missed something obvious, such as the current existence of (and an easy way to find) more than a few such “publisher” pages. :slight_smile:

5 Likes

This sounds like a request for a website change which would be better off filed as an issue. There’s a link at the bottom of every store page to the issue tracker, here. https://github.com/canonical-web-and-design/snapcraft.io/issues

There are only a small number of hard-wired publisher pages. You can see the code for them below.

2 Likes

Thanks, @popey. Yep, I was mostly thinking along the lines of a change to the snapcraft.io website. So I’ll try to file a request where you suggested.

But while I’m here, I’ll just mention that I noticed another way to accomplish, in part, what I had in mind, namely providing a way to display/review a publisher’s entire portfolio.

Using your publisher name as an example, I searched “popey” in the snap store with the following result:

https://snapcraft.io/search?q=popey

The good news is that, of the 50 snaps returned in the results, you’re the publisher of 49 of them. But the search also returned the Popeye snap (published by Fernand Galiana) among the results.

Similarly, a search of “kde” yields 106 results, with 99 results corresponding to snaps published by KDE and 7 corresponding to snaps published by others.

https://snapcraft.io/search?q=kde

QUESTION: I’m not sure what database you’re using, but could you provide a means to restrict searches to particular fields, such as to a particular publisher?

If so, then a publisher could embed on the publisher’s website a link similar to the following:

https://snapcraft.io/search?publisher=popey [not currently functional] or
https://snapcraft.io/search?pub=popey [not currently functional]

Links such the above wouldn’t be quite as pretty as the “https://snapcraft.io/publisher/popey” approach, but could at least provide similar functionality.

2 Likes

That would be cool, yes.
Would be nice if the publisher was just a link to all snaps by that publisher.
One for @noise and @toto as they may already have thoughts here.

1 Like

The current pages were done as one-offs to validate the idea, and do the initial web design. We plan to then add APIs to support and allow a publisher page for any publisher. It’s not just as simple as a query on the publisher however, as we want to surface some level of curation control for the publisher to allow omitting test and works-in-progress, and control some of the look and feel.

4 Likes

:+1: Awesome! Thanks! :+1:

Just to clarify, regarding my proposal that you could provide a means to restrict searches to particular fields (such as to a particular publisher, etc), I proposed that as a possibly easier way to provide some of the functionality of “publisher” pages. But of the two approaches, I greatly prefer the “publisher” page approach. So I’m happy. :slight_smile:

The above in mind, although not urgent, I still feel it may be useful to provide an “advanced” search option that would allow restricting searches to particular fields, such as publisher, license, etc Of course, such “advanced” searches should not reveal more than a basic search reveals. That is, if implemented, an “advanced” search would limit search results, not expand them. But again, not urgent. Just something to consider. :slight_smile:

An old wish, but still waiting for…

https://forum.snapcraft.io/t/clicking-on-developer-name-should-show-other-snaps-from-same-developer/8271

1 Like

@jsmolka

Yep, I vaguely remembered this discussion from years ago. And that’s why I was excited to notice that a “publisher” page had been created for KDE at https://snapcraft.io/publisher/kde. Let’s hope more publisher pages will be created soon. :slight_smile:

I’m curious, what would you think of (in addition to having “publisher” pages) also having an “advanced” search option that would allow for restricting searches to particular fields, such as publisher, license, etc?

For example:

https://snapcraft.io/search?publisher=popey [not currently functional]

https://snapcraft.io/search?license=gpl [not currently functional]

If much interest exists, maybe a new request could be submitted as a new thread (or an old thread updated if already out there).

1 Like