Adding an App

Adding a new app to the GoW system is a very straightforward process. The easiest way is to follow the examples that already exist; one particularly good option is the RetroArch app that is bundled with GoW. Once you have your app working as you like it, consider submitting a pull request to add it to the official repo!

The Container

First you’ll need a Docker container for your app. It’s possible that one may already exist, but if not, creating one is pretty easy. Copy the images/retroarch directory and all of its contents to a new directory for your app; let’s call it images/myapp.

Configuration

Inside the configs directory, you can put default versions of any configuration files that may be needed by your app. If there aren’t any, you can simply delete the configs directory.

Scripts

In the scripts directory, edit the startup.sh script. Here’s an example of a minimal startup.sh script; you can modify it for your app as much as necessary.

#!/bin/bash
set -e

source /opt/gow/bash-lib/utils.sh

gow_log "Starting myapp"

exec /usr/bin/myapp

Dockerfile

Our Docker images are based on the latest Ubuntu LTS release, and you should be able to easily repurpose the RetroArch Dockerfile for your application as long as it can be installed on Ubuntu. Here are a few specifics that you’ll definitely want to update:

`REQUIRED_PACKAGES`

Be sure to update the REQUIRED_PACKAGES variable to include all of the packages your app will need to have installed when it’s running.

`add-apt-repository`

You can use the add-apt-repository tool in your RUN command to add any extra package repositories you might need to install from.

`COPY`

Be sure to change the line that installs the configuration file to install the files required by your app.

The Compose file

In the compose/apps directory, copy retroarch.yml to myapp.yml. Make sure the build context is pointing to images/myapp, and also be sure to set the image: appropriately.