Re: Don't implement config functionality

Am Sonntag, 11. Januar 2004 23:20 schrieb Simon Edwards:

> > each new thing that one wants to configure. So that no time needs to be
> > used hardcoding any package specifics.
>
> The problem with this approach is that as far as usability is concerned, it
> only gets you as far as a "windows style" registry editor. Which is to say,
> not very far at all and certainly not very usable.


Certainly not. However if it would not be better than a tree of keys and 
values. This seems to me a better ground to build on than on the /etc tree to 
make it more supportable.


> But as a way of producing high quality and usable system tools it will
> just never work. Auto-generating GUIs from config file schemas alway
> produces poor interfaces.
>
> I've seen this idea many times in the past, and many people have tried, all
> have failed. Sorry.

There are however some significant differences. Support to define "forms" and 
"wizard" _logic_ in meta-config-definitions has been build into the framework 
already.

The logic of configurating a package is mostly defined by the package, but 
from within the config4gnu framework you have access to all system 
configuration. So many variables that normaly need to be configured per 
package can just be filled from the system (think hostname, choice of ip 
address to bind to, printers, shares, ...) and it doesn't end with that. 
External scripts or test/probing tools could be invoked and return variables.

I could picture good definitions and frontends that can produce high quality 
interfaces with that. Don't need to use nodes on the left but have nice clean 
icons for them on the sceen instead that open up dialogs (forms and wizards) 
is possible I think. And since the meta-config-definitions are in xml it 
should be possible to even add icons or other things  and get them thru the 
middlelayer if present.


The gtk sceenshot are not the latest eye candy but they show that the xml 
definitions can be used to generically reference radio buttons, drop downs 
etc.

http://config4gnu.sourceforge.net/screenshots

-Christian