[Soc-2017-dev] Weekly Report #04 - Package Manager

[Ellwood Zwovic]

== Week 4 ==

What I did this week:

* Pushed addon code to https://developer.blender.org/diffusion/BPMA/
* Implemented a "make repo" script which creates a JSON repository index 
from a directory of addons

The metadata stored in the index is still subject to change, depending 
on what exactly a "package" ends up being.
For now there are a number of unknowns, e.g. Do all packages have 
bl_info? Or just addons? Do they have an explicit "type" which should be 
stored?
The answers to these questions will hopefully become clearer as the rest 
of the design falls into place.

=== Questions ===

My plan to use subprocesses for asynchronous operation remains more or 
less unchanged.
That said, exactly how best to communicate with these subprocesses on 
the blender end is not entirely clear.
So far it seems the most promising possibility is to use a modal 
operator to busy-wait for messages from the subprocess, and limit the 
time spent busy-waiting as much as possible. If I'm not mistaken, it 
looks like the cloud addon took this approach.
However, especially as I'm not restricted to an addon, I'd be interested 
in hearing about other ways this might be accomplished.

=== Plans for next week ===

Start on networking stuff, namely repository and package fetching. Also 
begin UI work; get the aforementioned fetching operations working from 
within blender.