Hey folks. There are certainly a lot of things that can be done to improve Gramps and the Gramps website, but I’ve been seeing this slick new way of telling Ubuntu to install a program via a hyperlink in a website and I wanted to introduce it to you. This goes a long way to making the installation of software on Linux very simple.
The little script or application that makes this possible is called ‘apturl’. All it does is instruct the visitor’s local version of apt-get to install a specific package. From a security standpoint this initially sounds pretty dangerous, but the user still has to provide their system password to confirm the installation. So it’s no different than providing a downloadable install script that eventually asks for the same credentials before installing the software.
Here’s how to construct the hyperlink:
<a href="apt://gramps" title="Click to Install Gramps">Install Gramps Now</a>
Here is an example: Install Gramps Now
Of course, the only reason this looks like a ‘button’ is because of the CSS on this site, but you get the idea. I think it would be great to employ links like this on our ‘Downloads’ page whether it be on the WP site or the Wiki site. Ubuntu is a very popular distro, especially for folks new to Linux, so I think it is reasonable to offer a special feature that only applies to one Linux distribution.
What do you all think?
