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Re: Changes I've been thinking of...
From: |
David Chisnall |
Subject: |
Re: Changes I've been thinking of... |
Date: |
Thu, 8 Oct 2009 12:46:47 +0100 |
On 8 Oct 2009, at 12:22, Richard Frith-Macdonald wrote:
You are right, I did misunderstand ... I understood the term
'packager' to refer to the person/people responsible for providing
GNUstep with a distribution ... ie for a set of packages which are
all intended to work together as part of an entire system (such as
Ubuntu) and where the 'packager' would reasonably be expected to set
policy for all users of the system.
On most systems I've looked at, the same person is responsible for
maintaining the core GNUstep packages and a number of application /
bundle packages.
I think what you are suggesting is probably (usually at least)
undesirable ... a person providing a single package of their own
piece of software should probably *not* be setting policy for the
system and therefore should not be setting global defaults.
Not at all. If a person installs a theme, for example, or something
like WildMenus then it is generally understood that they will want to
use it. If this person is installing it systemwide, then it is
generally understood that they will want to use it for all users. If
you install any systemwide GNUstep bundle then the package should
enable it by default for all users.
I am not talking about someone installing a bundle in their home
directory after compiling from source, I am talking about someone
installing a package. Someone wanting to install a GNUstep-based
environment will typically just select a metapackage in their package
manager and install everything (GNUstep core, bundles, frameworks, and
apps) in one blob; they should not then be expected to configure
things by hand, and they especially should not be expected to
configure things by hand per user.
However, for the scenario you are suggesting the answer is still
pretty much the same ... the packager could do it the same way as
with most other software ... edit the file using standard unix tools
such as sed and awk. Of course, we could provide specific
utilities like plmerge, but 'standard' unix techniques of marking
sections of the file with comments and removing/inserting stuff
between those comments would work just fine.
Adding an entry to a dictionary that may or may not already exist in a
plist file is... nontrivial with sed / awk. You will note that other
software these days generally does not modify files like this.
Instead, they provide a configuration directory. A good example is
Apache, where various modules are generally installed as separate
packages. In the bad old days, things worked exactly as you
describe. Packages modified the configuration file, and if you were
lucky installing or removing a module package would not trash your
httpd.conf (although good luck if you ever tried to upgrade a module
package). Now, each module installs a separate configuration file.
I used the appkit user bundles as an example, but this problem equally
applies to any app that supports plugins which might be distributed in
separate packages.
David
-- Sent from my brain
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., (continued)
Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Stef Bidi, 2009/10/07
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Matt Rice, 2009/10/07
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., David Chisnall, 2009/10/07
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Richard Frith-Macdonald, 2009/10/08
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., David Chisnall, 2009/10/08
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Richard Frith-Macdonald, 2009/10/08
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., David Chisnall, 2009/10/08
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Richard Frith-Macdonald, 2009/10/08
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of...,
David Chisnall <=
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Richard Frith-Macdonald, 2009/10/08
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., David Chisnall, 2009/10/08
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Richard Frith-Macdonald, 2009/10/08
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Matt Rice, 2009/10/08
- Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Richard Frith-Macdonald, 2009/10/08
Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Nicola Pero, 2009/10/08
Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Richard Frith-Macdonald, 2009/10/08
Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Stef Bidi, 2009/10/08
Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Gregory Casamento, 2009/10/09
Re: Changes I've been thinking of..., Lars Sonchocky-Helldorf, 2009/10/08