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

> > - 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!

Nice idea, but currently not doable, I am afraid. My ObjectiveC / Cocoa
knowledge is not upto task to do something as complicated as drag-and-drop
programming ;)

> > 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?

Most (GUI) attempts I know try to wrap around the Image Magick API and try
to build a document centric (or a type manager / image database)
For document centric there exists GraphicConverter, while for type manager
there exist iPhoto.
Both are not really interesting to me.

What I miss on Mac is something like IrfanView's (on Windows) batch
conversion GUI.

> 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?

I think Automator is a dead end, at least currently.
- Tiger only
- only linear workflows
- I have not so many recurring tasks which would require building automator
  like workflows.

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

> Like the FinkCommander screen, right?

In fact more something like that ;) http://www.gnomejournal.org/images/45.png

> >   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.
Yes.

> > 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.

FinkCommander seems to be a good candidate for a "data waste / information
overload"  type application. I don't think such a GUI is really suitable
for a large repository like Gentoo, with thousands of applications.
Besides, I am more a fan of icon list views or OpenStep like multi-column
lists, instead of table based lists...

> OT: did you install Python 2.4 in the end?

No. If I currently need source packages which are not available for
Gentoo, I either install manually into /usr/local, or into really parallel
branches like /gnu.
progressive mode, or a Fink style managed /sw hierarchy, ar currently no
option for me.

> > 1) a port of Renaissance to cocoa. Because there already exist a binary
> > distribution, porting must be possible. Perhaps a special USE flag is
> > needed, for somebody who want to keep parallel versions for GNUstep/X
> > and Cocoa in parallel.

> The keyword aqua comes to mind...   Kito and I had a discussion about it
> the other day, but the idea is right I think.

Fine. What is needed to get this started? I could try to compile / emerge
Renaissance and try to extract suitable flags for a Cocoa based ebuild.

> > good if they are not Macos specific, but could be used in Gentoo / Linux.
> > Possbly of interest for GNUstep.

> Sure.  Objective-C is just something which you should have compiled when
> emerging gcc, but GNUstep users (like me, surprise, eh?) will probably
> be able to benefit from these efforts.

I would much prefer to be able to use a package.provided ObjectiveC
compiler...

> Question remains who else could benefit from it, because the number of
> Gentoo/GNUstep users is rather small, IMHO.

Good question, but something I cannot answer. My Python knowledge is
nearly zero.

> If I recall correctly, there are special eclasses that for instance
> allow to place an icon on the desktop of the user (transparently to what
> window manager the user uses).

If you use py2app, you get a app folder in the dist sub folder of your
python app root. I thought it was a good idea to copy this app folder
application into something like /Applications/Gentoo, in the installation
step of emerge.
No need to toy around with links, at least not on OSX, I think.

> The GentooUI (pronounced as 'gentoo-e' ? :p ), or iGentoo can be
> developed in a separate track from the others.  However, it would be a
> waste if it would be developed such that nothing of it can be reused for
> other Gentoo/X projects.

Agreed on the "separate track".
I am not quite sure about the other part. From what I see, a GentooUI tool
(or at list something like a FinkCommander clone) is not much more than a
emerge output parser and pretty printer ;)
This means that the interesting / backend parts are already re-useable
(even more so if there exist an API instead of having to grep console
output), while the frontend part mostly are toolkit specific and not
useable.

Regards
Dirk
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