Re: Future capability: Package management via gui?

[Nicholas Jankowski]

On Thu, Nov 12, 2015 at 12:44 PM, Carnë Draug <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 4 November 2015 at 14:03, Nicholas Jankowski <address@hidden> wrote:
>> [...]
>> Along with this is a question (stemming from an admitted ignorance of
>> how the package install mechanics work) of why we need the
>> auto-loading function to be set up along with a full package
>> install/rebuild?  Does that provide something that a simple pkg load
>> XX in a global startup script would not?
>
> The only difference by setting autoload is that if you start Octave
> without reading the initialization file, then packages will still be
> loaded.  But I'd argue that's actually a bad thing and not desired.
>
> I'm all in favour of completely removing the -auto flag from packages
> and require users to place them in the octaverc file instead.
>
> Carnë

I think that would make it easier to incorporate in a gui based
package interface, where checking the 'auto' box could effectively be
removing or adding a comment character.  I guess the question then
would be: is it ok to have a 'system managed' config file (does one
exist now?). That could get very messy if the user is modifying the
same file, or conflicts could develop with separate 'system managed'
and user config file. I notice the GUI 'Preferences' mentions
specifically that "These preferences are applied after any .octaverc
startup files', but those settings seem pretty GUI specific. What
would be the best way for pkg preferences to get stored and applied by
the gui?