+x11, and +quartz variants (or a dangerous idea)

[Randall Wood]

On 12/1/07, Ryan Schmidt <ryandesign at macports.org> wrote:
>
>
> On Nov 30, 2007, at 05:10, Randall Wood wrote:
>
> > I would like to suggest that the variants +quartz and +x11 should
> > be supported where relevant, eliminating the use of the +no_x11
> > variant:
> >
> >
> > +quartz       Enable building the port to render graphics using the
> > quartz engine and aqua user interface
> > +x11  Enable building the port to use X11
> >
> >
> > Furthermore, I would like to suggest that these variants should
> > never be default variants and that we should modify the macports
> > base to recognize that a port has these variants and if neither is
> > selected (either at the command line or in variants.conf) that an
> > error message should be displayed explaining that the port may be
> > installed with either: +quartz, +x11, or +quartz+x11, although some
> > ports may result in unpredicatable behavior if +quartz+x11 is used.
> >
> >
> > Furthermore, I would like to suggest that the +no_x11 variant and
> > the +no_quartz (if it is used at all) variants should be actively
> > discouraged.
>
>
>
> I wouldn't make this generalization. There are ports, like
> ImageMagick, that have a +no_x11 variant, which I believe should
> continue to have them. ImageMagick can build with support for some
> X11 things, or not. By default, we want to build the most featureful
> software possible, so X11 support is on by default. Users who do not
> wish this support can use the +no_x11 variant. I'm not aware of any
> Quartz support in ImageMagick.
>
> Unless you would like to redefine our default installation goals to
> no longer be "most featureful" but instead be "most featureful
> excluding X11 things". I'm not saying we should or should not
> redefine this, just point out what our current status is, and that
> you seem to be proposing a change to that.
>
> Actually, I guess our current guidelines are to build a port to be
> the most featureful while not including huge libraries as
> dependencies which most users won't want. Thus far, I think we've had
> an unspoken agreement that the X11 features are useful, and indeed
> our installation docs require the user to install X11 and the X11SDK.
> I guess you're proposing a change to that as well.
>
>
This is not a case of selecting features, but of having to make *mutually
exclusive choices* between the Aqua (quartz rendering) and X11 user
interfaces. In this case, I think we should make the default behavior be
Aqua, but I am aware that pushing that now will break what already works
during an upgrade, so I have made the default behavior to fail without
explicit instructions from the user.

-- 
Randall Wood
randall.h.wood at alexandriasoftware.com

"The rules are simple: The ball is round. The game lasts 90 minutes. All the
rest is just philosophy."
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