afschwartz

The package.json [1] and bower.json [2] share a lot of the same information: `name`, `version`, `authors`, and `description` are duplicated properties in both. Furthermore, updating the `version` property in a file in Git isn’t always necessary when you can create tagged releases with version numbers.

`install.json` doesn’t have the “Ugh, now I have to add the same information in a new place”-problem because it introduces two new root properties, namely `resources` and `options`, which do different (and very useful) things from the properties in these other json files. These properties define respectively the resources to include in a page when “installing” the app, and the JSON options to provide the app upon its initialization. They allow for a common way that JS and CSS resources be included in pages, which is a useful thing for the community to start to standardize around, even if this isn’t the perfect thing yet.

When building this page, I definitely struggled with what to put where. The Steps 1, 2, 3 are hopefully clear about what action to take, but I agree that more motivation at the top would be great.

Here’s the thing we believe can be made easier:

When my co-founder and I built Pace [1], Offline [2], Shepherd [3], etc. [4], one of the problems we came across was that while we could get stars on GitHub, non-developers struggled to get the benefit from these projects. Often, the step they struggled with was adding the `<script>` or `<link>` tags to their page, and configuring any of the options these apps/widgets/plugins had.

Our About page [5] explains something to this effect, but bringing some of that motivation to this landing page seems like a good place to start. Thanks again! I hope this was helpful.

Perhaps in addition to:

“Anything you can include in a <script> tag can be installed through our UI.”

We could add:

“Example: You wrote a JavaScript library which works by having the user paste a `<script>` tag in their page. With Eager, instead you users can install your library by simply clicking a button.”