Ports with GUI configs

[Garrett Cooper]

Chuck Robey wrote:
> RW wrote:
>> On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:14:02 -0800
>> "Mark D. Foster" <mark at foster.cc> wrote:
>>
>>> Vince wrote:
>>>> Ashley Moran wrote:
>>>>  
>>>>> Hi
>>>>>
>>>>> I was just wondering, what is the motivation behind the GUI
>>>>> configuration for some ports?  Simply put, they drive me up the
>>>>> wall. I've lost count of the number of times I've come back to a
>>>>> big install to find it hanging on a config screen.  Possibly I'm
>>>>> missing something. 
>>>> I agree though, I often suffer the same problem, coming back after
>>>> a few hours to a build that should have finished to find its
>>>> sitting on the first dependency.
>>>>   
>>> Maybe it's been suggested before (in which case I add my vote) but a
>>> timeout mechanism would solve this... give the user 10s to provide a
>>> keypress else bailout and use the "default" options.
>>>
>>
>> That would involve standing-over the build for hours or days in case
>> you miss a 10-second window - it's just not practical IMO.
>>
>>
>> Setting the menus is pretty easy to script, and you can also set BATCH
>> to take the default options
>
> A suggestion I recently made on the ports list would, as a side 
> effect, make a better solution.  You see, allowing a default timer 
> does get things built, but then it allows no user input to let users 
> avoid installing software  that they either have no ise for, or do not 
> want for other reasons.  I have enough input now, so I'm going ahead 
> and coding up the Makefile mods to allow my system, but it looks 
> somewhat like the Gentoo Portage "USE" flags system.  Not identical, 
> and I am only proposing to use their USE flags, not the rest (I very 
> much like using Makefiles as FreeBSD ports does, and wouldn't change 
> that.)
>
> If you want to see what it is, go look at recent postings on ports 
> list.  It'll probably get changed, as I get something for folks to 
> look at and discuss.

    USE flags are a pain in the ass (former Gentoo user of 3 years). 
Introducing that type of complexity into a ports system isn't necessary 
and does unexpected things at times for end-users when developers change 
variable names or behavior, which happened quite often with Gentoo.
    make config-all or something similar to have people fill in their 
desired config info in all of the ncurses config sections would however 
be a much better idea I think..
-Garrett