New category - ports/packages specific tools?

[Randy Pratt]

On Tue, 16 May 2006 12:35:26 +0100
Matthew Seaman <m.seaman at infracaninophile.co.uk> wrote:

> Randy Pratt wrote:
> > On Mon, 15 May 2006 23:28:16 +0100
> > Shaun Amott <shaun at inerd.com> wrote:
> > 
> >> There are lots of nifty tools in ports for handling ports and packages.
> >> It would be nice if they were all in one, easy to find place.
> >>
> >> I think there are enough of these kind of ports to warrant a new
> >> category. What does everyone think about this?
> >>
> >> I'm not sure on a name yet -- "freebsd", "ports", "tools", and
> >> "portutils" are my initial ideas.
> >>
> >> Possible candidates for the new category:
> >>
> >> devel/portcheckout
> >> devel/portlint
> >> devel/portmk
> >> devel/porttools
> >> misc/porteasy
> >> misc/portell
> >> security/portaudit
> >> security/portaudit-db
> >> sysutils/newportsversioncheck
> >> sysutils/pkg-orphan
> >> sysutils/pkg_cutleaves
> >> sysutils/pkg_install
> >> sysutils/pkg_install-devel
> >> sysutils/pkg_remove
> >> sysutils/pkg_rmleaves
> >> sysutils/pkg_trackinst
> >> sysutils/pkg_tree
> >> sysutils/pkgfe
> >> sysutils/port-authoring-tools
> >> sysutils/port-maintenance-tools
> >> sysutils/portbrowser
> >> sysutils/portdowngrade
> >> sysutils/portmanager
> >> sysutils/portmaster
> >> sysutils/portsearch
> >> sysutils/portsman
> >> sysutils/portsnap
> >> sysutils/portupgrade
> >>
> >> Plus maybe (not ports-specific, so perhaps not):
> >>
> >> net/csup
> >> net/cvsup
> >> net/cvsup-mirror
> >> net/cvsup-without-gui
> >>
> >> Have I missed any?
> > 
> > sysutils/p5-FreeBSD-Portindex
> > 
> > I think this is an excellent idea.  It would make it much easier
> > to point new users to a category for ports tools.  I'd vote for
> > this to go ahead regardless of the number of ports.
> 
> The first step surely is a virtual category.  I'm happy if anyone wants to
> add 'ports-mgmt' to the CATEGORIES line of p5-FreeBSD-Portindex

Another one:  sysutils/pib

The value of a virtual category is not intuitive on a local system.
For example, hamradio is a virtual category but if you look in
/usr/ports there is nothing that indicates that it exists.  This
is what most new users would do if they don't know to cd /usr/ports &&
make search key=hamradio.  If you don't know that a virtual
category exists, then its pretty hard to find.

I could be mistaken but I don't believe there is even a mention of
virtual ports categories in the Handbook (Porters Handbook, yes).
Man 7 ports doesn't mention virtual categories either.

I'm sure there's some good reasons for doing a two-step category
addition and I don't want to start a bikeshed (we've seen enough of
those lately).  I'm just not sure how a user finds out about them.

Randy
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