This page is for details of packaging RISC OS software for use with PackMan.
PackMan uses a back end created for the RISC OS Packaging Project, but has been enhanced it to provide additional functionality requested by RISC OS users.
The enhancement to the back-end of the packaging system (LibPkg) have been fed back to the source code, but the original front-end to the packaging project (RiscPkg) has not been rebuilt to use these features.
The RISC OS Package Project site sees very little activity (except updates to existing packages) and it has proven difficult to contact the owner of the site. However the people at RISC OS Open (ROOL) now provide the ability to upload and maintain packages which are hosted by them. This is now the recommended way for a developer or package maintainer to distribute their packages.
The details of how to contact create packages and getting them uploaded to the ROOL repository can be found here.
My PackIt application makes it easy to create most packages using a graphical front end.
Alternatively you can build them by hand or using an obey file, make file or similar. The only tools required is a zip program to create the final package and a text editor to create the control files.
The packages themselves are just zip files with a special layout and the addition of some control files. The layout and details of the package file format are given in the policy manual. The latest policy manual can be viewed online here.