About This Guide

The purpose of this document is to provide web application developers and application distributors with recommendations for creating application packages in accordance with the Application Packaging Standard. The guide includes:

Packaging Instruction section provides step-by-step packaging instruction.

Packaging Scenarios section contains examples of packaging real applications.

Validating Application Package section provides information on validation tool (APSLint utility) and possible operations performed over application package by Controller.

Appendices with metadata files of application described in Packaging Scenarios section.

Abbreviations, Definitions and Conventions

APS is used instead of Application Packaging Standard in some long sentences where using it will not change the meaning of the sentence.
Web site is a collection of web pages, typically common to a particular domain name or sub-domain on the World Wide Web on the Internet.
Control panel or CP is hosting provider software designed for managing user accounts, web sites and site applications.
Site application or application is a Web application that can be hosted on a web site.
Application Package or Package is a site application in its distribution format which includes all application and application-related files created, structured and packed according to the APS.
Application Instance is a site application installed from application package on a particular web site and accessible via a unique URL.
Controller is APS engine, a control panel part responsible for processing application packages and instances.
Aspect is an additional specification that declares how to describe in the application package metadata: file technologies used by an application, application management scripts, and how these descriptions must be processed by Controllers. The technologies include any software or executable code.
Qualified technology means any software or executable code described in an aspect included in the APS: Package Format Specification.
XPath notation is used to describe the structure of XML documents, and to refer to XML elements and attributes in the text.
APS: Package Format Specification is referred to as the Specification.