= DRAFT Guidelines for 3rd-party software =

The idea is a lot of software is either obsolete and running only on BeOS ; or weakly ported and using unixish style stuff. We want to avoid that. To help 3rd paty developpers improve their software, here is a list of things to check before releasing an application.

= What rules should software follow =
 * It should work on the latest stable release of Haiku
 * It should work on gcc2 hybrid - other flavours of Haiku may be ignored
 * configuration files should go in home/config/settings; and the path should be obtained by the appropriate functions & constants, not hardcoded - use find_directory ([http://ports.haiku-files.org/wiki/FindDirectory Examples]).
 * The app must not write anything to the hard disk except in its own directory (/boot/app/appName, or whatever the user installed it), the configuration directories (home/config/settings, common/), unless the user explicitly asks for it (a save dialog is a good example).

 * HIG compliance : it's better if your application fits in the look&feel of the whole system.

= Similar documents elsewhere =
 * Apple App Store Review Guidelines has a checklist we may borrow some entries from.

= Other helpful resources =
 * [http://ports.haiku-files.org/wiki/PortingTips HaikuPorts Porting Tips]