[HEADSUP] New make config UI

[Baptiste Daroussin]

Hi all,

Since the work on the new options framework has been started more than 2 years
ago, we faced a problem with the make config interface.

dialog(1) is too limited to be able to represent in a simple UI all the features
proposed by the new framework.

The idea of writing a new UI was born at that time, eadler step in and wrote a
first attempt called dialog4ports using ncurses, but never get into completion.

A few month ago Ilya A. Arkhipov decided to jump in that problem and restart
from scratch a new version of dialog4ports, with the help of danfe, eadler and
I.

The new version is based on dialog(3), adding to it a new widget (which is
planned to be contributed upstream) and a new UI using that widget.

After months of thinking/coding/testing we have been able to switch to this new
UI and get rid of the old dialog(1) for make config.

dialog4ports will live forever within the ports tree allowing to fastly
improve/fix it if needed and getting the exact same version on all the
plateforms.

What it currently does:
- represtend all kind of options in a clean way including
  RADIO/GROUP/MULTI/SINGLE
- provide a beta quality help dialog (via F1/^E) if a ports provide a pkg-help
  file
- Able to represent description instead of the KNOBS name in section titles for
  RADIO/GROUP/SINGLE/MULTI name

Huge thanks to Ilya A. Arkhipov (M1cRO on irc :))

regards,
Bapt
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 196 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-ports/attachments/20130319/56cc7895/attachment.sig>