5.8 Extension

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5.8.1 Additive changes #

The following are additive, and a consumer or provider built to this version behaves correctly in their presence:

  • A new key in a declaration (§5.3). A consumer built to this version ignores it, and a declaration that carries it is usable by that consumer as far as the keys it knows go. A new key MUST be optional, and its absence MUST mean what this version's consumers do.
  • A new kind of consumer. A provider has nothing to do for it.
  • A new declaration in the catalogue, and a new provider.
  • A second place for declarations, consulted after the catalogue, such as a person's own. A consumer built to this version does not see it, and shows the system's applications where a newer one would show more.
  • A subkey of a key of §5.7, or a new key beside Defaults under either Applications key. A consumer built to this version ignores them, and finds the same defaults as before.

5.8.2 Changes requiring a new version #

  • A change to the catalogue's directory, or a subdirectory a consumer is meant to look in (§5.4). A consumer built to this version does not find what is there.
  • A new file format or extension for a declaration (§5.3).
  • A meaning for any sequence of characters in arguments, such as a placeholder for a file. A consumer built to this version passes it through as it is, so an application that relied on it would be started wrongly.
  • A place for the file's path other than last (§5.6).
  • A change to what makes a declaration unusable (§5.3), or to the match rule (§5.5). Two consumers on one system would then disagree about what is installed, or what a program is.
  • A change to where choices are kept, to the form of a choice, or to the order they are tried in (§5.7), including a place for choices consulted between the person's and the machine's, such as a group's. Two consumers on one system would then open one file with different applications.

5.8.3 Reserved #

The directory /usr/share/apps/ is this chapter's, and so is the .toml extension within it. The keys named in §5.3 are this chapter's: a specification or a provider that wants a declaration to carry something else MUST use another key, and SHOULD prefix it with a domain it owns.

The registry keys Machine\Generic\Applications and CurrentUser\Generic\Applications, and everything in them, are this chapter's. Nothing else may keep anything there.

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