2013-01-04, 19:26
I recently developed my first addons for XBMC. The whole experience was wonderful. XBMC is a great platform for which to develop. It allows for great flexibility and easy delivery of content.
However, from this developer's standpoint, there is one glaring weakness with XBMC's addon system. I have no idea how my addon is being received, whether anyone else is using it, what native languages are using the addon, or even if the dang thing works at all outside of my house.
Enter, my new idea. What if we had an app store for XBMC? We sort of do already, with the repository system, but a true app store would have more features. Don't get me wrong. Everything should remain free and open source, so no credit cards, but I envision a system that will track the addons you've installed, sync addons between XBMC installs (settings too if the user desires), rate addons, report bugs, and comment on addons you've tried. My initial thought was to start off by leaving the XBMC interface as is and making most of these advanced features web based. So you would visit a website and manage your installed addons from there. This could allow you to go to the webpage, log in, and install an addon onto any of your XBMC boxes. It could even be made such that you can setup the addon from the webpage and push your settings to your XBMC boxes.
The biggest advantage, in my eyes, would be that you could install XBMC on a new box and have it sync to the cloud to download all of your usual settings and addons.
I was going to start working on a system like this, but I wanted to get some feedback first. What does everyone think about this? Good idea? Waste of time? What kind of enhancement features would you like to see to the addon system? A lot? None at all? Lets talk about it.
However, from this developer's standpoint, there is one glaring weakness with XBMC's addon system. I have no idea how my addon is being received, whether anyone else is using it, what native languages are using the addon, or even if the dang thing works at all outside of my house.
Enter, my new idea. What if we had an app store for XBMC? We sort of do already, with the repository system, but a true app store would have more features. Don't get me wrong. Everything should remain free and open source, so no credit cards, but I envision a system that will track the addons you've installed, sync addons between XBMC installs (settings too if the user desires), rate addons, report bugs, and comment on addons you've tried. My initial thought was to start off by leaving the XBMC interface as is and making most of these advanced features web based. So you would visit a website and manage your installed addons from there. This could allow you to go to the webpage, log in, and install an addon onto any of your XBMC boxes. It could even be made such that you can setup the addon from the webpage and push your settings to your XBMC boxes.
The biggest advantage, in my eyes, would be that you could install XBMC on a new box and have it sync to the cloud to download all of your usual settings and addons.
I was going to start working on a system like this, but I wanted to get some feedback first. What does everyone think about this? Good idea? Waste of time? What kind of enhancement features would you like to see to the addon system? A lot? None at all? Lets talk about it.