Native Depictions

THIS PAGE IS SUBJECT TO CHANGE AS THE DEPICTION FORMAT EVOLVES. SOME STANDARDS COULD CHANGE IN FUTURE VERSIONS OF ZEBRA.

Zebra 1.2 introduces a new format for rendering depictions outside of a web environment. This isn't targeted at major repositories that depend on ad revenue to survive and we are not trying to eliminate web depictions in favor of a new format. This is more targeted at smaller developers who would like to improve their depictions but don't want to fiddle around with HTML/CSS and hosting.

Here is the basic format on how Zebra will choose which depiction to render

• If you have a Depiction: tag in your control file at all Zebra will prefer loading the web depiction as opposed to a native one so that no advertisement revenue or analytics are lost.
  • If you want to add Zebra's native depiction format in addition to maintaining web depiction format for other package managers, you can add the Prefer-Native: Yes tag to your control file and Zebra will choose to use the native depiction instead.
• For the time being, the SileoDepiction format will not be converted but that could change in the future.
  • Ad revenue is our major concern with Sileo Depictions and unless a better solution is found, Sileo Depictions with ad views will not be rendered and will default back to the web depiction.
• If the package does not include a Depiction tag or Prefer-Native is set to Yes then the native depiction will be rendered.

Features

We've introduced some new tags for a package's control file and have brought some new life into older ones that have fallen out of use. Here is a list of the features as of 1.2~beta1a. More could be added and specifications could change as the depictions evolve. I'll come back through and add example images for each of the features soon.

Header

Using the Header tag, you can display a banner image to be displayed above your depictions.

Header: https://getzbra.com/depictions/xyz.willy.zebra/header.png

For optimal display, your header image should maintain an aspect ratio of 4:1. We recommend using a size of 2000x500px.

Previews

To display screenshots for your package, you can use the Previews tag which accepts a list of image links separated by a , all on the same line.

Previews: https://getzbra.com/depictions/xyz.willy.zebra/ss1.png, https://getzbra.com/depictions/xyz.willy.zebra/ss2.png

The recommended size is iPhone X resolution.

Taglines and Descriptions

Zebra expands upon the normal dpkg multiline descriptions for a new display style.

Description: A Useful Package Manager!
  Zebra is a modern package manager built for iOS 11 and up.
  .
  "Frankly, it is the coolest package manager I have ever used." - Steve Jobs, probably

The first line of your description will be used as a "Tagline" and displayed underneath your package's name in the depiction's header. If your description is not multi-line, no tagline will be shown. In the example above "A Useful Package Manager!" is Zebra's tagline.

The rest of the multi-line description will be used as the description of the package. Descriptions can now display markdown elements such as bold, italics, lists, etc. The only main thing to note about these multi line descriptions is that a single period . on a line of its own indicates that a newline should be placed there because empty lines are not allowed in debian control files.

Cydia also has support for multi-line descriptions so information will be preserved between the two package managers.

Changelog

The new changelog tag behaves very similarly to multi-line descriptions.

Changelog: 1.2~beta1a
  New in this version:
  - Added new depictions
  .
  Fixed in this version:
  - Removed all bugs

The first line of your changelog tag is the title for this particular version. If you choose to leave this line blank, no title will be displayed.

The rest of the changelog serves as the notes for that release of your package. It uses markdown elements just as the description does and follows the same rules about using periods as newlines.

Only one changelog will be shown on the depiction page but the user can view all of the changes for that package in a separate view. If your repository is configured to keep previous versions of your package, all of the changelogs for previous versions will be shown automatically.

Developer Website

We've repurposed the Homepage tag to point to "Developer Website" instead. This link will appear in the "Information" table below your package's depiction whether web or native.

Homepage: https://getzbra.com/

Support

There is a new "Support" button that will show up in the "Information" section if a package has an author email or a maintainer email but we also plan to support the Support tag that Cydia has so that developers can have a separate support site instead of their email.

For now, we show a temporary UIAlertController popup to email either the author or the maintainer but a better support view is coming in the future betas.

Icon

To specify an icon to be used instead of our default section icons, you can specify a URL that can point to a local or remote image.

Icon: https://getzbra.com/depictions/zebraicon.png

We recommend a size of about 180x180px for these icons.