Ports with GUI configs

[[LoN]Kamikaze]

Garrett Cooper wrote:
> Chuck Robey wrote:
>> RW wrote:
>>> On Mon, 12 Nov 2007 08:14:02 -0800
>>> "Mark D. Foster" <mark at foster.cc> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Vince wrote:
>>>>> Ashley Moran wrote:
>>>>>  
>>>>>> Hi
>>>>>>
>>>>>> I was just wondering, what is the motivation behind the GUI
>>>>>> configuration for some ports?  Simply put, they drive me up the
>>>>>> wall. I've lost count of the number of times I've come back to a
>>>>>> big install to find it hanging on a config screen.  Possibly I'm
>>>>>> missing something. 
>>>>> I agree though, I often suffer the same problem, coming back after
>>>>> a few hours to a build that should have finished to find its
>>>>> sitting on the first dependency.
>>>>>   
>>>> Maybe it's been suggested before (in which case I add my vote) but a
>>>> timeout mechanism would solve this... give the user 10s to provide a
>>>> keypress else bailout and use the "default" options.
>>>>
>>>
>>> That would involve standing-over the build for hours or days in case
>>> you miss a 10-second window - it's just not practical IMO.
>>>
>>>
>>> Setting the menus is pretty easy to script, and you can also set BATCH
>>> to take the default options
>>
>> A suggestion I recently made on the ports list would, as a side
>> effect, make a better solution.  You see, allowing a default timer
>> does get things built, but then it allows no user input to let users
>> avoid installing software  that they either have no ise for, or do not
>> want for other reasons.  I have enough input now, so I'm going ahead
>> and coding up the Makefile mods to allow my system, but it looks
>> somewhat like the Gentoo Portage "USE" flags system.  Not identical,
>> and I am only proposing to use their USE flags, not the rest (I very
>> much like using Makefiles as FreeBSD ports does, and wouldn't change
>> that.)
>>
>> If you want to see what it is, go look at recent postings on ports
>> list.  It'll probably get changed, as I get something for folks to
>> look at and discuss.
> 
>    USE flags are a pain in the ass (former Gentoo user of 3 years).
> Introducing that type of complexity into a ports system isn't necessary
> and does unexpected things at times for end-users when developers change
> variable names or behavior, which happened quite often with Gentoo.
>    make config-all or something similar to have people fill in their
> desired config info in all of the ncurses config sections would however
> be a much better idea I think..
> -Garrett

Are you talking about make config-recursive?