Segregated subports (was Re: Should I expect a +quartz variant to propagate to dependencies, and overrule existing variants?)

[Langer, Stephen A. (Fed)]

On 6/2/22, 12:11 PM, "macports-users on behalf of Eric Gallager via macports-users" <macports-users-bounces at lists.macports.org on behalf of macports-users at lists.macports.org> wrote:

    > Ultimately this nonsense will all be eliminated, by migrating from variants to segregated subports. That’s a big effort, given the number of ports involved. But it’s something I’m finally starting to work on, as it also frustrates me as the maintainer!
    >
    > The first big win was completed a few days ago, and that’s segregation of the various ‘gtk-osx-application-xxx’ subports. This allows users to finally be able to install Quartz apps for both gtk2 and gtk3 side-by-side, which wasn’t possible previously. (So folks can have GIMP Quartz and Inkscape Quartz installed at the same time, for example.)
    >
    > More to follow over the coming weeks, but we’re finally making slow and steady progress!

    > Cheers,
    > -Chris


How do segregated subports work, from the user's perspective?  I have been somewhat clumsily maintaining two macports installations, one for x11 and one for quartz, so that I could test programs in both environments.  Will segregated subports make that easier?  That would be great.

Thanks,
 
-- Steve