Developer take up of "Develop Your Own App" initiative

Discussion on apps, protocols, APIs, specifications, and more. You are welcome to join us as a TOS app developer!
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yerc1
Posts: 85
Joined: 30 Oct 2020, 15:50

Developer take up of "Develop Your Own App" initiative

Post by yerc1 »

I would very much like to see developers embracing Terramaster products. More developer involvement means wider and better options for me, an ordinary TNAS user.

A few things I noticed:
1. Terramaster does not have a Github (or equivalent platform) presence. If they do, the search services I use have definitely failed me. :shock:
2. The source code for TOS and the developer tools are available only on the Terramaster website.
3. Apart from this post, we have no developer activity going on in this forum.
4. The number of applications available at the moment is so low that it could correlate to low developer interest :(

Questions playing in my head right now:
1. How many apps have we seen added to Applications as a result of the "Develop your own app and run it on TOS" initiative announced in June 2020?
2. If the answer to Question 1 is negligible, is there a Terramaster strategy in place to lift developer interest including rectifying Observations 1 & 2 above?
3. If there really is low developer interest, could it be because developers are happy in their usual environment, example Github and the like, and can't be bothered checking unconventional sites (product sites for example)?

Again, as a TNAS user I would like Terramaster to succeed.

I hope somebody up in the Terramaster heirarchy could see this.

Your move Terramaster.
F2-221
is my first NAS, bought in October 2020
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JayBlingham
Posts: 98
Joined: 04 Oct 2020, 10:34

Re: Developer take up of "Develop Your Own App" initiative

Post by JayBlingham »

I love this post.

I'd love to see some traction on this as well. I'm not a developer, but I am an I.T. guy who understands how software is put together, and understands code structure etc. If the source/methodology for building apps on the TOS platform was easily accessible, marketed better, with tutorials, tips, tricks etc - I'd be very inclined to look into it as a passion project, or at least to get a better understanding and better be able to troubleshoot the apps/platform.
Jay
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F5-221, 5.0.171-00221
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titanrx8
Posts: 222
Joined: 17 Jul 2020, 06:17

Re: Developer take up of "Develop Your Own App" initiative

Post by titanrx8 »

I concur. The rate of development and diversity of apps continues to be low. I am a long time IT person but not Linux knowledgeable. I bought the NAS for 3 reasons:
1. Media server
2. Backup pc's
3. Connect security cameras and store the surveillance videos

The 4th reason was I was replacing an old windows server which did all of the above but died and couldn't be repaired.

I even had lengthy correspondence and a phone consult with Terra-Master to be assured that these functions were already implemented or were available within months. This conversation happened in May of 2019.

As a user, I've discovered that PC backups have to be pushed from the PC rather than automagically pulled from the server as the Win server did faithfully. Also, even if a system image is pushed from the PC, it cannot be used by the PC because apparently the image backup has to be in a native Win format, not BTRFS. I've resorted to writing my own scripts and copying directories to the NAS.

Going on 2 years later, there's still no camera software. I have a dedicated PC collecting the video feeds and saving them to the NAS.

If I knew the software was so immature/unavailable, I'd have gone with another windows server. I could have re-used the drives from the old Win server and not even have to rebuild the file system.

I'm not dissatisfied with the hardware or the operating system, just the lack of apps.
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