The “Portland Project,” the collaborative venture that simplifies the process of porting and integrating applications for Linux desktops,  announced the Beta release of its programming interfaces for GNOME and KDE environments. Several of the global Linux distributors have indicated a commitment to support their application vendors with early versions of the Portland Project tools.

"The success of the technical previews leading up to a 1.0 release has demonstrated how the Portland Project is effectively addressing the real-world needs of ISVs,” said Aaron J. Seigo, KDE Alliance Director. “It is an example of how industry and community can come together to provide tangible open source solutions that work for everyone. We hope to see even more industry/community interaction to come of this and are looking forward to software releases that take full advantage of the Portland Project."

Open Source Development Labs (OSDL), a global consortium dedicated to accelerating the adoption of Linux® and open source software and home to the Desktop Linux (DTL) initiative, and freedesktop.org, the open source project focused on interoperability and shared technology for X Window System desktops, posted the Portland Beta at portland.freedesktop.org.

The Portland Project’s Beta includes a suite of command line tools that help Independent Software Vendors’ (ISVs) install their applications in the major Linux desktop environments. Portland’s programming interfaces will build upon established freedesktop.org specifications to provide developers with easy-to-use tools that automate implementation. In addition to installation support, Portland automates the most commonly used integration tasks such as activating a web browser and starting an email composer. The Portland interfaces augment toolkits such at Qt and Gtk+ and allows ISVs to chose a development toolkit that meets their own needs the best without having to take into account their customers’ choice of desktop environment.

Portland Project Beta tools include:
Installation Toolsxdg-desktop-menu: command line tool for installing desktop menu items
xdg-desktop-icon: command line tool for installing icons to the desktop
xdg-mime: command line tool for installing file type descriptions
xdg-icon-resource: command line tool for installing icon resources
Runtime Toolsxdg-open: opens a file or URL in the user’s preferred application
xdg-email: command line tool for sending mail using the user’s preferred e-mail composer
xdg-screensaver: command line tool for controlling the screensaver
xdg-su: run a program as root after prompting for the root password