Easy access to external repositories.

[Clemens Lang]

Hi,

----- On 1 Jun, 2015, at 11:27, Artur Szostak aszostak at partner.eso.org wrote:

> At the moment there does not appear to be any defined mechanism for an end user
> to easily select or de-select optional 3rd party repositories. In a ticket I
> opened some time ago (https://trac.macports.org/ticket/46954), I proposed a way
> to use a Portfile to update the configuration files sources.conf,
> archive_sites.conf and pubkeys.conf in a controlled manner, to allow inclusion
> of such a 3rd party repository. I would like the Portfile in that ticket to be
> added to MacPorts, which I believe would make it much easier for the average
> user to include an optional 3rd party repository if they so wish.
> 
> Could we get the core developers to have a look at this solution and get some
> consensus on the idea. It would be nice to get some closure on the ticket.
> Thanks.

I'm in favor of simplifying the inclusion of 3rd party repositories. The Portfile
proposed in the ticket is hack, but since we don't have a standard mechanism to
do this at the moment, I think we should accept it.

The problem I currently see with an automated approach to add a new repository
is the order or priority selection. How would you easily decide (in a user
interface) whether the new repository supersedes the standard one or not?

In the long term, this may become easier when (and if) we finish the SAT-solving
based GSoC project currently running, because that would allow us to have
multiple versions of the same port provided from different repositories along
with proper priorities.

-- 
Clemens Lang