ports structure and improvement suggestions

[martinko]

Pav Lucistnik wrote:
> Shaun Amott píše v po 08. 05. 2006 v 22:24 +0100:
> 
> That's a good summary.
> 
>> Unfortunately, the OPTIONS framework is somewhat limited in its current
>> state. One problem is that OPTIONS needs to be defined before including
>> bsd.port.pre.mk, but then the processing of WITH(OUT)_* variables has to
>> be done afterwards. For example, www/horde has a huge list of knobs, but
>> only a handful could be converted to OPTIONS because they set variables
>> that need to be defined before bsd.port.pre.mk is included. As a
>> sidenote, I submitted a simple patch to "fix" this some time ago, but it
>> doesn't appear to have had much interest. :-)
>>
>> Another issue is that the framework only includes support for simple
>> checklists: no submenus, no "radio" controls , etc. There's no
>> reasonable way - other than spitting out an error message and asking
>> the user to try again - of dealing with mutually exclusive knobs in
>> OPTIONS.
>>
>> There is also no space for detailed descriptions of what knobs do inside
>> the OPTIONS dialog. It is often easier to make the user look at the
>> Makefile for a description and/or print out a message before installing.
> 
> When a set of OPTIONS change between the port versions, user is not
> presented with the dialog screen again.
> 

i noticed there's a variable saying which port version read or set the
options. couldn't this help the ports system decide whether it's time to
display options menu once again ?