Re: mingw-get GUI

Keith Marshall schreef, Op 29-1-2013 14:43:
> On 28/01/13 23:02, Erwin Waterlander wrote:
>> Keith Marshall schreef, Op 28-1-2013 23:05:
>>>   $ mingw-get install mingw-get-gui
>> I tried it. At first it was stopped by the virus scanner (F-Secure). I
>> had to turn off 'Deep Guard'. See
>> http://waterlan.home.xs4all.nl/tmp/mingw-get-gui.jpg
> This is unfortunate, but there's really not much I can do about an
> overly zealous virus scanner reporting a false positive; perhaps you
> could take that up with your supplier?

Perhaps it will go away with the next version. I have seen this also a 
few times on intermediate versions of my own software.


>
>> After that mingw-get gui ran fine. I installed several packages without
>> problems.
> Good.  (I guess you didn't trip over the critical bug, which I've since
> tracked down, and fixed; time for a new snapshot, methinks).
>
>> It would be nice if I could select a specific version to install.
> You can do this already, from the CLI.  It's on my round tuit list of
> GUI features to be added, but there are more critical issues to address
> first.
>
>> I would also prefer a more compact list of packages, by hiding all the
>> different classes. By default one check-box per package that installs
>> all classes, to keep it simple.
> The as yet unimplemented tree view, (in the left hand pane), will offer
> a more fine grained selection of packages, (but this will be filtered by
> package category, rather than by component classes).
>
>> I think it is good to install by default
>> the accompanying documentation and so on. You could have an switch to
>> turn on an "expanded view" in which you can see and select all the
>> individual classes of a package.
> The CLI does this, if you specify a package name without a qualifying
> component class, but that capability doesn't fit so cleanly within the
> GUI paradigm; (how do you display installed version, if the user has a
> mismatch within a set of components for a given package?)  I'll give it
> some thought, but it may languish on the "too hard pile" for some time.

I think that the gui version does not need all the features of the cli 
version. I would say: leave the complex stuff to the cli version, and 
keep de gui version simple (in the beginning). A simple gui version will 
save you a lot of work to create a stable version, and will not scare 
off first time users. You can extend later when you get more user 
feedback when people start using it.

Perhaps you can keep mingw-get gui as it is now. Perhaps the problem is 
that the xml catalogue files are in many cases overly complex, and we 
have too many lzma packages. For instance: what's the point in having a 
separate bin, doc, and lic class for dos2unix? I could as well put all 
of them together in a single bin package. This way the list in 
mingw-get-inst becomes smaller. For some packages it is natural to have 
a separate packages like bin and dev. But for many a single bin package 
would suffice. In Cygwin it is done the same way. For many packages 
there is only a single bin package that includes binaries, 
documentation, license files and so on. There are no separate "lic" 
packages in Cygwin.

regards,

-- 
Erwin Waterlander
http://waterlan.home.xs4all.nl/


------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Master Visual Studio, SharePoint, SQL, ASP.NET, C# 2012, HTML5, CSS,
MVC, Windows 8 Apps, JavaScript and much more. Keep your skills current
with LearnDevNow - 3,200 step-by-step video tutorials by Microsoft
MVPs and experts. ON SALE this month only -- learn more at:
http://p.sf.net/sfu/learnnow-d2d