Octave-Forge
Octave-Forge is a community project for collaborative development of GNU Octave extensions. If you have a large package that you want to open up to collaborative development, or a couple of m-files that you want to contribute to an existing package, Octave-Forge is the place to do it. Tiny helper functions (the equivalent of e.g., shell aliases) should go in the Tips and tricks page.
GNU Octave also needs the equivalent of CPAN so that packages such as epstk which have been developed elsewhere can be archived. Agora Octave is a fledgeling proposal to do that (talk to JordiGH about it). Before that is possible we need a packaging system which works for both Octave and Matlab (and maybe Scilab if you are feeling ambitious) without too much work on the either the developers or the users end, even for users working in a tool desert such as Windows. Feel free to expand on the definition of such a system on this page.
Installing packages
You can find the list of packages on the Octave-Forge website. The recommended method for package installation is using your system package manager. See also the FAQ for the most common issues.
If for some reason you need to install a package from the Octave Forge, simply type at the Octave prompt pkg install -forge package_name. If your Octave version is too old (before 3.4.0), you'll have to download the package file manually, and use pkg install package_file_name.tar.gz.
Contributing via the Agora website
This is work in progress.
You can upload your code to Agora. The code is classified according the following criteria.
- Single file
- The file is full responsibility of the uploader.
- Octave and Agora do not check or support this submissions.
- Bundle of files
- The file(s) is(are) full responsibility of the uploader.
- The bundle passes a structure check to see if it is compatible with the builtin Octave installer. This doesn't mean the bundle with install flawlessly.
- Octave and Agora do not check or support this submissions.
- Forge
- The file(s) is(are) responsibility of its maintainer and the Agora maintainers community.
- This package will install using the builtin Octave installer.
The Forge packages have must comply with
- At least one package maintainer.
- Must install and work with the latest Octave release.
- The must be released under a GPL compatible license.
- All functions (except private ones) must be documented using Texinfo.
- The package must have all the required files.
- If the package has a doc folder it should be written in Texinfo.
These packages are also recommended to comply with
- No shadowing of Octave core functions.
- No direct inclusion of external dependencies.
Suggested new features
- Install directory
- Install from URL
- Build HTML / PDF docs