Date: Thu, 04 Jan 1996 01:26:35 -0800 From: "Jordan K. Hubbard" <jkh@time.cdrom.com> To: ports@freebsd.org Cc: doc@freebsd.org Subject: `make run'? Don't hit! Message-ID: <27370.820747595@time.cdrom.com>
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OK, maybe I'm taking the "hold the user's hand" approach too far with this, and I won't hold it against anyone if a few shots are fired.. :-) There are a couple of ports (well, actually a LOT of ports, but let's not go into that) where the traditional `configure build install' sequence doesn't really work, more often than not because the original port's build process simply wasn't *designed* to be front-ended like we do. Your average port instead expects you to read a README, type `./config -init demo', or whatever highly specific sequence of commands is required to actually make it DO something. For those cases, the ports collection isn't very good. There has to be, at the very least, some sort of hooks for implementing slightly higher-level behaviors that a port can set. I can think of a number of ports just off the top of my head which would really benefit from the ability to launch into full tutorial mode! I'm not quite sure what you'd call this target.. Perhaps just one isn't enough. How about: demo: [optional - just whines about no demo being available by default] help: [optional - print some help. Could be a README, could be a man page, could be a lynx tutorial. By default, just print the one-liner or nothing] run: [optional - distinct from demo so that if the port has a "normal" run mode as well as a "demo" mode, you can still invoke them both. By default, just whine in the same fashion as demo] Comments? Oh yeah, I'd also like to introduce a new variable - DOC_URL. It should point to whatever port specific page of doc exists (since many ports now have online HTML docs associated with them) or the FreeBSD ports page by default. Perhaps the help target itself could conditionalize off of two variables to enable this: WWW_HELP If YES, invoke webhelp target instead of standard default. WWW_BROWSER Set to browser string to invoke on DOC_URLs. Should be in printf style syntax, e.g.: WWW_BROWSER="lynx %s" or WWW_BROWSER="netscape -remote 'openURL(%s)'" So, assuming that you had WWW_BROWSER set to the netscape example and WWW_HELP=YES in your environment, doing: cd /usr/ports/www/apache make help Would cause your running netscape to flip over to the Apache home page automagically (sound of trumpets). More paranoid types could simply set WWW_BROWSER="netscape %s" to start netscape every time. Any heart-felt agreement or dissent? Satoshi - don't worry, I'll do the actual work, assuming we have general agreement. I've already done it anyway.. :) Jordan
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