Re: [gentoo-osx] Followup to: The road ahead?

[Grobian]

On 26-11-2005 00:08:02 +0100, dirk.schoenberger@×××××××××.de wrote:
> > > The idea is to provide GUI frontends to Gentoo applications using
> > > Python
> > > bindings to AppKit/Cocoa, and the use of Renaissance, a declarative
> > > GUI approach implemented as part of the GNUstep project
> > > (http://www.gnustep.org)
>
> > Where 'Gentoo applications' == the portage UI itself ? Or are you
> > talking about actually wrapping arbitrary packages in a GUI?
>
> In fact, both. the first step would obviously be to build some basic GUI
> around some interesting console applications.

Like?  What kinds of applications are you thinking of here?  Just help
me with ideas here, because I wouldn't see the use of a GUI wrapper for
sed.  A GUI for pdflatex on the other hand is nice, but already exists
(TeXshop).

> The wrapper could be written in Python (or another scripting language
> which has ObjC bindings, which I have not further investigated, yet) and
> calls the console commands. Additional points for parsing the tools output
> andshowinfg the result in the wrapper GUI.
>
> The next step would be to implement Gento specific backends, for querying
> the Gentoo database and installing / deinstalling / reinstalling packages.
> This could be implemented by calling Gentoo scripts, or a C / Python /
> whatever level, as soon it is available.

Interesting at this point may be extending/porting the GUI around
libconf, a Gentoo-ish project by dams.  But that is only one of course.
If I recall correctly there is some daft portage GUI as well now, but I
think something like FinkCommander would look better (although
FinkCommander is anything but intuitive).

> The advantage against the current manual installation would be that you
> can rely on the Gentoo package management facilities, which I came to miss
> after my last experiments. Things like automatic version updates,
> dependency management, the possibility to actual unistall stuff....

Maybe I misunderstand you here, but what were your last experiments?  As
far as I know, Portage can do updates, dependency management and
uninstall packages.  What would you like to add here?

> By using renaissance as your frontend system, you can achieve some nice
> cross platform abilities which leads to less code needed to be maintained
> by the gentoo-osx people.

dirk++ :)

> > The former, should definitely wait until portage 3 (saviour) is here,
> > as that will be the first portage to actually have an API.
>
> I assume there already exist some scripts which could be used to query the
> Gentoo database? Something like gentoo-toolkit?
> Now all is needed is a way to exec a shell script via Python.

Using equery, or eix (a C implementation of portage which should be much
faster -- I'm not sure if it completely works) you should be able to get
a lot of data you need.  Using some sane interface model, you'd be able
to use the Portage (Python?) API lateron very easily I presume.

> > The latter, is a completely crazy idea, but if you think you can pull
> > it off, more power to ya ;)
>
> It is possibly to implement the actual script without using Gentoo, so
> this I could do without help. For integrating this stuff and porting the
> needed prerequisites, I think I would hae to ask for help from Gentoo
> developers... ;)

Hmmm... Interesting!

I'd like to see your plans here, like what you envision, and what you
think would be necessary to do.  Where exactly you'd need help, and what
you can deliver. :)  You can always do your own thing, and I'd like to
encourage that.  Keep us posted!

-- 
Fabian Groffen
Gentoo for Mac OS X Project -- Interim Lead
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