Marking default variants (was: [MacPorts] #14178: Feature Request: show default_variants in "port variants foobar")

[Ryan Schmidt]

On Feb 4, 2008, at 11:13, Rainer Müller wrote:

> MacPorts wrote:
>
>> #14178: Feature Request: show default_variants in "port variants  
>> foobar"
>> -------------------------------- 
>> +-------------------------------------------
>>  Reporter:  themolok at gmail.com  |       Owner:  macports- 
>> tickets at lists.macosforge.org
>>      Type:  enhancement         |      Status:   
>> new                                   Priority:   
>> Normal              |    
>> Milestone:                                       Component:   
>> base                |     Version:   
>> 1.6.0                                  
>> Keywords:                      |  -------------------------------- 
>> +-------------------------------------------
>>  I tried to write a patch for it, but I failed (I never wrote a  
>> single line
>>  of tcl, and I'm a pretty lame programmer), anyway, I think it's  
>> really
>>  trivial for who knows the port (the tcl script) codebase.
>>  Now, for example, "port variants git-core" returns (note that doc  
>> is in
>>  default_variants):
>>  {{{
>>  git-core has the variants:
>>          universal
>>          doc: Install HTML and plaintext documentation
>>          svn: Bi-directional subversion repository support
>>  }}}
>>  I'd like to have something like:
>>  {{{
>>  git-core has the variants:
>>          universal
>>          doc: Install HTML and plaintext documentation (default)
>>          svn: Bi-directional subversion repository support
>>  }}}
>
> I also thought about marking default variants some time ago, but I  
> think this should not only be added to port variants, but also to  
> port info. Where the latter will be more difficult, as  
> default_variants are currently not stored in PortIndex.
>
> It would be good to e.g. mark them with a star.
>     git-core 1.5.3.7, devel/git-core (Variants: universal, *doc, svn)
>
> And this could also be used for port variants.
>     git-core has the variants:
>             universal
>            *doc: Install HTML and plaintext documentation
>             svn: Bi-directional subversion repository support
>
> I don't like that (default) behind the description as it is not  
> clear if it is part of the description or not.

I have been adding "(default)" to the ends of descriptions of all  
variants which are enabled by default. I think it's very clear --  
much clearer than an asterisk.

> The star (or another symbol) could also be behind the variants  
> name, that's open for discussion. That's why I put this up on  
> macports-dev@ instead of adding a comment to the ticket.