Re: [gentoo-soc] Graphical portage front-end

[Patrick Lerner]

On Sat, 2010-03-20 at 09:02 -0700, Brian Dolbec wrote:
> [..] As for it not being pushed in the main tree, Zac
> informed me that there were some problems with it that needs a proper
> API in portage for it to be stable and reliable.  He also intends to
> implement it ( as have others in previous years), but he is only one
> person, already busy with the core development of portage.
>
> If there is to be a project to with portage it should be the
> implementation of a proper public API for apps to use such as porthole,
> portato, himerge, etc..

Is there like any information out on how the communication between
client and portage would work? As in "Portage Daemon" or something along
the lines of python bindings?
In case I can help (with no previous experiences on creating public
APIs), I'd be glad to do so even outside the scope of SoC.

> If you want to work on a gtk
> interface, I could always use more help with porthole, Necoro is
> extremely busy with schooling and could use help with portato.  I
> haven't talked with araujo enough to know if he needs help with himerge.

I've looked into Porthole, which looks pretty similar to what I had in
mind when proposing a GTK portage front-end, so I'm going to look into
it a bit more.
Something I've actually wanted to do is having some kind of
background-process which would take care of syncing your tree and inform
you about outstanding updates similar to the update managers of Ubuntu
or Windows (systray icon + notify, like evolution does it with new
mail).
In Porthole all I found was the big upgrade button which immediatly
installed everything without even giving me a list of which updates are
there.
Nevertheless, kudos on the project, I'll look into contributing
something to it if I can, too.

--Patrick Lerner