Notes...that flash by and are gone...(was Re: any good audio/video editing apps in macports?)

[Craig Treleaven]

At 5:23 PM -0600 2/24/13, Jim Graham wrote:
>On Sun, Feb 24, 2013 at 11:03:54PM +0000, Chris Jones wrote:
>>  On 24 Feb 2013, at 10:59pm, Jim Graham <spooky130u at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>>  There is nothing wrong with KDE, as long as you properly install the
>>  dependencies it requires. My reading of this rather long thread is all
>>  of the problems would have been avoided if the OP had followed the
>>  instructions as presented to them. You cannot blame KDE for the
>>  problems that arose because they didn't.
>
>But as the OP in question, I didn't KNOW about any of the KDE stuff
>AT ALL.  I didn't know that I needed this, that, and the other bit.
>I didn't know that I needed to run other stuff first, or that macports
>does not actually install aoo of the dependent stuff for KDE as I'd
>assumed it did.  The errors I saw were completely alien to me.  I'd
>never run into stuff like that before.  So excuse me if I can't read
>minds.  Oh, and I didn't install KDE.  It was installed by something
>else (maybe it was kdenlive, maybe something a long time ago...I don't
>know).

Jim likely missed some important info while installing kdenlive but 
it is easy to see how it happened.  If you look at the rdeps for 
kdenlive, there are _270_ lines!  I don't know how many of those 
dependencies use Notes to inform the user of some important fact or 
other.  I *do* know that they scroll by very quickly in the midst of 
what may be a long, unattended install.  Important information is 
interspersed amongst reams of output that requires no action.

Right now, some ports use basic text formatting to try to draw 
attention to these messages (lines of asterisks, etc).  That's good, 
but could we do more?

Options:
1) Make users acknowledge messages:  ie, "Press any key to proceed". 
(Shades of CPAN!)  My take:  please God, no!!!

2) Make such messages stand out more:  use more distinct visual cues 
such as colour or font.  Could definitely help but I don't know what 
is supported by all the versions of Terminal.  (Let alone other apps 
or remote connections.)  What do others think?

3) Deliver the messages in another manner:  eg, cause them to open in 
TextEdit or a browser window.  I think a few lines of Applescript 
would be enough to create a new window and display all the Notes 
messages from an install.  (We would even have the option to use rtf 
or html to format the messages to improve delivery.)  The user would 
essentially have an action list after the install.  Drawbacks: 
doesn't work for ssh-type connections to remote machines.  I think 
this could be very helpful

Unfortunately, I lack most of the skills to actually implement 
anything like this.  :-(

Thoughts?

Craig