Date: Wed, 13 Oct 2004 12:38:40 +0000 From: Eivind Eklund <eivind@FreeBSD.org> To: Frank Laszlo <laszlof@vonostingroup.com> Cc: Sebastian Schulze Struchtrup <seb@struchtrup.com> Subject: Re: alternative options for ports Message-ID: <20041013123840.GB1301@FreeBSD.org> In-Reply-To: <416C35A5.4040703@vonostingroup.com> References: <416C0DE8.3000004@struchtrup.com> <416C35A5.4040703@vonostingroup.com>
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On Tue, Oct 12, 2004 at 03:51:01PM -0400, Frank Laszlo wrote: > Sebastian Schulze Struchtrup wrote: > > >I would like to poll if there is any need for an extension to the > >current menu-driven config frontend. > >My idea was to implement a kind of alternative options, like > >radio-buttons in a gui, using "dialog --menu" or something like this. > >Not enable/disable options, but a way to select one option out of a > >few others. > >For a new port (the lxr source code cross referencer) I will need a > >selection of one of three database clients to use and one of two > >indexing/search engine. > >Please correct me if if there is yet a way to achieve this other than > >coding directly in the ports' makefile. > > > >Will there be any use for some other ports (in the future?). > >I would go to implement this in bsd.port.mk if this is favoured and > >would make sense for others. > >Otherwise, I would implement a way in the ports makefile or using a > >command line/environment option like WITH_DB=xxxx. > > > >I would be pleased to get some feedback. > > I personally do not like dialog's in ports, period. It makes unattended > builds a pain, mostly when compiling large ports with an extensive list > of depends, you never know which dependency is going to pop up a dialog > in the middle of an all-night build. This is resolvable :-) Presently, you can set BATCH for your batch builds. This already disables the option requesters, falling back to the old behaviour. As more of a long-term solution, We can add a 'make config-depends' target, a la 'make fetch-depends'. > I would suggest implementing your idea specifically for your port. I > dont see any reason to hack up bsd.port.mk with anymore dialogs. We need to resolve the overall sitation around compile time configuration of FreeBSD ports. The important thing here is IMO not really the requesters - it is that the ports go towards normalized representation of the options. With normalized representation, it becomes possible to do various forms of option manipulation - including disabling the requesters for ALL ports that come up with them, instead of having to deal with them for those ports that hack them up themselves, but not those that didn't bother. If you've got more *specific* problems with usability (like the batch build problem above), I'm very interested, as I'm trying to collect these for doing a new round of fixes for the options support in bsd.port.mk. Eivind.
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