Build-from-branch coming soon
Thanks to the excellent work from the Launchpad Code team and others (James and William, to name just two), here’s a preview of how easy it will soon be to build a branch into published binaries in your PPA:
(I’ll update with the inline flash version once it’s been converted).
Something-driven development 
Does the branch have to be in a particular format for you to use this feature? I assume you still need to do some work yourself (dependencies, makefile, etc.).
mpiroc
June 10, 2010 at 7:39 pm
Yep, the packaging information must be available – but it doesn’t need to be in the branch itself.
In the example in the video, the branch included a debian folder with all the packaging, but that was just for simplicity. Another example would be to have a separate branch that contains the packaging (basically, the debian directory) which can be re-used for lots of different branches for the project. The recipe simply says: “Build this branch using the packaging from here.”
Recipes can compose your tree very flexibly… you can read more recipes.
Michael
June 10, 2010 at 9:35 pm
This look like a great feature. If it did rpms too I could take up another hobby with all the time saved!
Please reassure me though that, in the final version, pages like /~ppa-user/+junk/test_hello_bzr will use the standard English “based on” rather than the colloquial “based off of”. Using metaphors correctly doesn’t just please those pesky pedants. It also greatly helps those of us who don’t read so well and/or have a different first language, which then leads to higher quality translations.
Marc
June 11, 2010 at 4:36 am
Hi Marc. Yes the wording for “based on” was picked up and noted as part of bug 591613 yesterday.
Michael
June 11, 2010 at 6:20 am
[…] I just wanted to share this awesome new feature with you which is coming to Launchpad soon: https://micknelson.wordpress.com/2010/06/10/build-from-branch-coming-soon/. You can now easily convert your code branches to a ppa without using dput etc. The video shows […]
Easily convert code branches to ppa coming to Launchpad « Ubublogger's Blog
June 28, 2010 at 12:56 pm
[…] Michael Nelson, announcing the feature on his blog, provided a short video of the wizard in action, along with a brief statement: […]
Easy branch-to-package creation coming to Launchpad
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