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

[Jeremy Lavergne]

Crown was a lovely autocorrect for cron

Ian Wadham <iandw.au at gmail.com> wrote:

>
>On 25/02/2013, at 12:54 PM, Jeremy Lavergne wrote:
>> There are issues on all fronts: crown job updates, distributed
>installs, etc. No one size fits all :-)
>
>Notes that flash by are one of  my pet (only) gripes in Macports.  May
>I suggest:
>
>4) Macports remembers, on a temp file, which ports in the run had
>notes,
>   then, at the end, puts out a reminder about the "port notes" command
>and a list of the ports that might require follow-up action, assuming
>you
>    have not covered all those notes after earlier Macports runs.
>
>Would that cover all bases?  (Sorry, dunno what a "crown job update"
>is.)
>
>I am considering doing something like that in the Macports GUI I am
>working on.
>
>> 
>> Craig Treleaven <ctreleaven at cogeco.ca> wrote:
>>> 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.
>
>This was my biggest problem on first installing Macports 20 months
>ago, when there were fewer binary packages.  The first port I asked
>for was kdegames4, but first came qt4-mac and all ITS dependencies
>(i.e. large parts of Linux).  Those took all night … and I had to
>sleep.
>
>Again, a warning about how many dependencies need to be built
>could be produced right at the start by Macports, with options to
>proceed or start again another time.  I certainly plan to do something
>like that in the Macports GUI I am looking at.
>
>>> 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
>
>All the best, Ian W.
>
>
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