Haiku Depot - Filtering Packages for Desktop and Native Desktop

Haiku packages provide desktop GUI applications, command line applications, source code, tools, documentation or a mix of the above. A majority of end users would be looking for desktop software and not wanting to be distracted by other packages that they are unlikely to understand.

Previously, HDS implemented the ability to allow a human operator to nominate packages as being “haiku native” and a small icon was used to indicate which packages carry this attribute.

Now HDS is also able to automatically identify those packages which are desktop application by nature. It does this by parsing the package HPKG file and identifying a link that will eventually be made to /boot/system/data/deskbar/menu/Applications. If it finds such a link then the package is marked as being “desktop” and this information is included in a payload of bulk data about packages to the HaikuDepot desktop application.

It’s now possible to filter for both the native desktop and regular desktop applications in the web…

…as well as desktop interfaces.