CPAN Sidekick is an Android application for searching and viewing CPAN (the Comprehensive Perl Archive Network). This application is now available on Google Play.
The feature list is not very long yet. We are focusing on getting each feature implemented cleanly before moving on to add more features, but a useful core is already present:
- Search for CPAN modules
- See search results with the author's picture, module abstract, ratings, and favorites.
- Tap on individual results to see the documentation for that module.
- Tap on the module header on documentation to see the release details
- Follow links within the documentation to see the documentation for other modules.
- Any link to something other than a module will work, but will go to a browser, even if that link is within CPAN. (Eventually, we hope to change this.)
- Two panel view for tablets.
These are not formally spec'd or anything yet, just vague intentions at this point:
- Provide in-app features that mirror all the basic functionality provided by
the MetaCPAN API:
- Author information
- User profiles
- Favorite voting
- Etc.
- Provide the ability to load portions of the documentation or even entire release archives for offline use. (A CPAN::Mini mirror currently sits around 2GB, so someone could conceivably load all of the POD for CPAN onto a tablet or a larger SD card.)
- Integrate with SL4A to do on device scripting (maybe?)
- Provide tools for other applications/developers to hook in if they so desire.
- Port to iOS or other OSes?
You may wish to take a look at the issues if you want to see anything like an actual roadmap. It's not that format at this point.
Copyright 2012 Qubling Software LLC.
CPAN Sidekick and its source is distributed under the terms of the Artistic License 2.0 (same as Perl 6).