ports structure and improvement suggestions

[Frank Laszlo]

Serge Gagnon wrote:
>   
>>>>>> On Thu, 11 May 2006, "martinko" == martinko wrote:
>>>>>>             
>
>   martinko> Fernan Aguero wrote:
>
>   +> +----[ martinko <martinkov at pobox.sk> (10.May.2006 16:01): | | Shaun
>   +> Amott wrote: | > | > There is also no space for detailed descriptions
>   +> of what knobs do inside | > the OPTIONS dialog. It is often easier to
>   +> make the user look at the | > Makefile for a description and/or print
>   +> out a message before installing. | > | | the problem with messages is
>   +> imho that they are basically all the same | level and once you run make
>   +> or portupgrade you won't usually have a | chance to read any of them.
>   +> many times i noticed something only because | of pure luck and then
>   +> often i had to stop the installation process so | that i could read the
>   +> message. :( | +----]
>
>   +> use script(1)?
>
>   +> Fernan
>
>   martinko> sure. the problem is that if you compile something bigger script
>   martinko> output would likely be huge. big size, hard to check and look
>   martinko> for important information. also, it happened to me a few times
>   martinko> that i stopped installation because of a message i noticed. had
>   martinko> i not been lucky and/or watched the screen i would have found
>   martinko> too late, if at all.
>
> If you're talking about message that the port is saying about KNOB, try 
> grep ECHO Makefile and if you're talking about message while the port is 
> installing stuff, try cat pkg-message before installing this port ;-)
>   

As I said before, a simple method to fix this problem would be to extend 
the way OPTIONS works, where we create a new target to list possibly 
options for the port, and require maintainers to keep it up to date. i.e.

# make options
===> Options for foo/bar.
WITH_BAR     Build port with support for bar
WITH_FOO    blah
WITH_A          blah blah...

This would be fairly simple to implement using the current way OPTIONS 
are handled, I'll add this to my list of todo items.

-Frank