Re: [gentoo-user] why gentoo doesn't have long description?

[Fernando Canizo]

El 24/ago/2005 a las 04:01 -0300, Jonas me decía:
> >Second, the whole idea is to do this for non-connected systems. Meaning, a
> >solution not involving the Internet... =)
> If you're refering to the fact that the person doesn't have an internet
> connection when he wants to view this information throught the emerge
> interface, then you're wrong. When you want to install or you're just
> searching for a package you're using the emerge interface , when you
> need more info you have to 1) open your browser 2) type in the url (if
> you're lucky you know the url or it's in your browsers cache) 3) search
> for the package on the website , while instead you could just do
> something like emerge --desc package. Now what's quicker and makes more
> sence ?

Exactly! That's what i'm refering to. It's not an issues of connection it's an
issue of lazyness! It's like: "-- hey what are you doing this weekend? -- don't
know, it's cold and raining, i think i'm gonna sit in my throne and check what's
new on 'app-vim' to improve my vimyness, if find something interesting i'll
check the package webpage."

For now i'm using 'questo':
=== script ====
#!/bin/bash
# lun may  2 20:57:24 ART 2005
# conan - GPLed
#
# script to check for apps on rainy sunday morning

BASE_DIR="/usr/portage/"

[ $# -ne 1 ] && echo "Uso: questo <category>" && exit 0

cd $BASE_DIR$1
for package in * ; do
	eix "^$paquete\$"
	echo "Looking for: $1/$paquete. ENTER to continue..."
	read
done
=== end script ====

Now i took sugestion from Ciaran to look in metadata.xml, i check a couple by
hand and see the 'longdesc' field but... with short descriptions! Now maybe i
just choose two with bad luck, but i got a feeling that gentoo maintainers
doesn't like to provide longdesc, although there is the posibility.

I was thinking of doing a little script that gives longdesc found in metadata to
confirm this, but since i don't know nothing about xml, think it gonna take a
little bit more that if there were already an application to check 'metadata.xml'
fields. 'emerge', 'equery' and 'eix' wich are the administration tools i use
everyday don't say nothing about this, i think all of them use de description
field in ebuilds. I wonder if somebody knows another app to do this?

If not, the idea of the script is more less this:
lslongdesc package|category|all

where:
- 'package' gives longdesc of package
- 'category' gives longdesc of all packages in category
- and 'all' gives them all flooding your screen with info you never gonna eat...
  but that is there.

It's so simple that i'm sure there must be an app (or compound of them) that
already do this.

-- 
Fernando Canizo - http://www.lugmen.org.ar/~conan/
Olmstead's Law:
	After all is said and done, a hell of a lot more is said than done.
-- 
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