Re: Octave 4.4 Proposal: make --no-gui the default

[edmund ronald]

I understand the arguments and support the decision, but generally I believe that top-level argument defaults should remain fixed for the life of software, that is the Unix philosophy.

Because user scripts depend on the behavior. 

I have hundreds of users I am supporting who run an Octave launch script. 

Edmund

ᐧ

On Wed, Mar 14, 2018 at 11:53 AM, Carnë Draug <address@hidden> wrote:

On 13 March 2018 at 21:42, Mike Miller <address@hidden> wrote:
> Maintainers,
>
> I propose that Octave 4.4 should make the default behavior be equivalent
> to "octave --no-gui".  This would run Octave as a command-line
> interpreter with the Qt toolkit loaded and usable as the default
> graphics toolkit.
>
> I also propose that we add a new "--gui" option, possibly with a short
> equivalent of "-G" or "-g" or both.  The option "--force-gui" would
> remain as an alias for "--gui", can be deprecated and removed
> eventually.
>
> Justifications:
>
> * The "octave" command in a terminal would appear to behave as it did in
>   3.8 and prior versions of Octave.  It would actually be running as a
>   Qt QApplication with full access to the Qt toolkit and runtime, just
>   without the GUI.  Users who run Octave in a terminal will get
>   consistent behavior, whether their environment is headless or not.
>
> * We switched the default behavior in 4.0 to start the GUI, but that
>   default behavior does not actually help most GUI users.  Most GUI
>   users are going to click on a launcher that was provided by their
>   distribution, and that launcher runs "octave --force-gui".  So what is
>   the point of the current default?
>
> * This would clear up the confusion around how to start the GUI.  The
>   simple and clear answer would always be "octave --gui".  Today, the
>   answer is "if you are in a terminal, just run octave, but if you are
>   making a launcher or hitting Alt+F2, then run octave --force-gui".
>   This has already been a significant source of confusion among users
>   who create their own desktop launchers or menu items.
>
> Impacts:
>
> * This does not impact who I expect are the predominant GUI users at
>   all, those who start Octave by clicking on a launcher.  The launcher
>   must already use the "--force-gui" option as things stand today.
>
> * This does not impact Windows users at all.  The octave.bat script can
>   be updated to accept "--gui" for consistency.  The default behavior
>   can remain the same if that makes sense for Windows users.  But that
>   logic is entirely within the mxe-octave project, not octave itself.
>
> * This *does* impact terminal users who start Octave from an interactive
>   terminal session and expect to get the GUI.  These users would be able
>   to get what they want with a shell alias or other simple wrapper.
>   Terminal users are also more likely to know what they want and how to
>   get it to work (e.g. "octave --help | grep -i gui").
>
> * This *does* impact developers.  To test the GUI, "./run-octave --gui"
>   would need to be used.
>
> --
> mike

Hi Mike

We discussed it this morning.  We all agreed this makes a lot of sense
and will simplify our input checks and want it for 4.4.

Carnë

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