Filename "Portfile" is evil

[Landon Fuller]

On Aug 22, 2007, at 13:29, Ryan Schmidt wrote:

> Since we're already on the topic of changes to the dports dir (see  
> "Categories are evil"), I'd like to propose that having 4000+ files  
> named "Portfile" is evil, too.
>
> In Mac OS X, I can associate files with applications based on the  
> filename's extension. Filenames that have no extension cannot be  
> associated with an application. Therefore, I can never double-click  
> a Portfile and have it open into my preferred text editor; it  
> always opens into the awful TextEdit. I want to be able to  
> configure it to open in TextWrangler. Currently, I'm forced to  
> either laboriously drag the Portfile to the TextWrangler icon, or  
> type "port edit <portname>" in the Terminal, which is what I  
> usually do. But being able to double-click in the Finder would be  
> nice.
>
> Also, editors like TextWrangler will do syntax highlighting of  
> files, based on the filename extension. Since Portfiles have no  
> extension, no syntax highlighting is provided.
>
> Finally, it's also inconvenient that every Portfile's name is  
> "Portfile". It makes them harder to distinguish them when several  
> are open in the editor. Related: when I've downloaded a file  
> "Portfile.diff" that someone has attached to a Trac ticket, and if  
> I'm working with several tickets at once, I often forget which  
> portfile the patch was meant for.
>
> ==> What if we used the name of the port, with an extension, like  
> "apache2.macport"? I feel this would solve many problems at once.
>
> (I was initially going to suggest the extension ".tcl" but the tcl  
> syntax highlighting in TextWrangler is highlighting various words  
> in port descriptions and such which we don't want, and which would  
> probably get annoying.)

I always wanted ports to be bundles, so I think anything down this  
road is probably a good idea.

-landonf
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