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

[Grobian]

On 27-11-2005 01:43:29 +0100, dirk.schoenberger@×××××××××.de wrote:
> I agreeg TeX is too complicated for my ideas, and grep is not really
> useful. At least currently I don't see no way to implement OpenStep
> services via Renaissance , which would change this.
>
> Applications I would like to GUIfy include
> - wget (downloaders are useful outside outomated scripts, too)
> - WordNet resp. queequeg
> - image to vector applications like autotrace resp. potrace

Ok.  Now I get what you want.  For the image converting applications,
you might want to go for some 'drop file on' solution, like 
Photoshop has.  You simply drop a file on the icon, and it's being
converted somehow.  I think this is quite generic somehow.  Interesting!

> More complex GUIs I could imagine e.g for
> - ImageMagick

For sure!  But aren't there attempts for this yet?  I mean, is this idea
brand new, or are there already a few apps that are some sort of skin
for ImageMagick, but just written in something that doesn't work very
well on OSX?

> (the latter would need a new kind of GUI, not so much form based, more
> task based - you could have a list of taks, where you could e.g add a task
> like "resize" or "reduce colours".

This sounds exactly like the properties of Automator.  I never toyed
with it, but it it sold as ultimate tool for 'intelligent' task
automation.  Maybe generating Automator scripts would be a first step?

> The given task list could be applied to one or more images, in some kind
> of "batch mode operation"

Like the drop thing I described before, it's easy to select multiple
files and drop them at once on the icon, of course.

> > 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).
>
> Thats way I would like to retain a Gentoo User Interface until later.
> Basically I could see three possible GUIs
> - a form based GUI around emerge commands, in a complex multi-tab dialog

I think this already exists, just an extensive form with options, bells
and whistles.

> - a simple list where you can see the list of latest ebuild changes,
> something like "keep your system uptodate"

Like the FinkCommander screen, right?

> - a complex application with multiple buttons, lists, text entries where
> you can see a see all ebuild and their metadata (version, licence, USE
> flags...)
>   Something like a rich client application for packages.gentoo.org, with
> the added functionality to start a emerge, emerge -C, emerge -u for the
> selected packages

Ok, so that's the full FinkCommander functionality.

> The last two GUIs you can see in some apt frontends, like e.g in Ubuntu
> (written in C / Gtk)
>
> I have never seen FinkCommander

Good, good, good!!!!  :)  However, you should take a look at their
screenshots, because it's exactly what you describe.

> > 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?
>
> I don't intend to criticize portage her, on the contrary. Gentoo is a
> shining example for dependency management done right ;)
> But because some applications I played around lately either were not
> available in Gentoo (Renaissance framework for OSX, py2app, Python wrapper
> for Objective C), or were not really useful (I tried a GUI TeX frontend,
> where I needed to install a LateX distribution, where I could choose
> between fink, darwin ports and some tool called iInstaller, Gentoo was not
> supported)

Ok, like that.  I think this is partly an image and availability issue.
We know not everything is right and works, and many packages have never
been tried/keyworded.  We're a bit unknown, and as long as we're not
really able to be a worthy alternative for Fink, we'll never grow beyond
it.  I deliberately chose to keep things a bit quiet right now, since we
need to get ourselves on the rails (and organised) here first.  Though
your point is valid, but the docs should all say that we're
'experimental'.

> For the former I had to resort to .mpkgs, .dmgs with readmes to copy some
> files to /System/Library, or downright hand crafted python install
> scripts.
>
> All of these way have no idea about having a running, maintainable system,
> with components which can depend upon, and which can be removed.

Nice, eh? :)

So, conclusion is, we have a long way to go.  Any help is welcome!

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