Re: [Synaptic-devel] experimental task support added

[Panu Matilainen]

On Fri, 2004-07-16 at 03:17, Michael Vogt wrote:
> Dear Friends,
> 
> 
> as discussed some weeks ago with Panu I added experimental task
> support for synaptic. It works pretty well on debian already, but you
> need a bleeding edge tasksel (get it via "svn co
> svn://svn.debian.org/tasksel/trunk") to make it work. 
> 
> Here is a screenshot of it in action:
> http://people.debian.org/~mvo/synaptic/synaptic-with-tasks.png

Hey, super cool :)

> 
> The GUI needs a bit more love, I hope Sebastian can have a look at it
> :) The Tasks are currently under "File/Tasks", this is likley to
> change.
> 
> The design should make it easier for other distros to add there own
> task (or whatever it is called there) support. The current code uses
> the following "protocol":
> 
> Please note, that we can easily change /usr/bin/tasksel to something
> different or make it configurable via synaptic.conf or -o
> Synaptic::taskHelperProg or something.

Attached patch changes it to -o Synaptic::taskHelperProg, defaulting to
/usr/bin/tasksel and also fixes build on rpm-systems (please
sanity-check, I only made it build, didn't check if it makes any sense
:) 

And here's the obligatory proof from FC2 :)
http://laiskiainen.org/stuff/synaptic-tasks-fc2.png

> 
> Please also note that the --task-descr function (and the properties
> button in the current GUI) does not work yet. 
> 
> As always, feedback about this feature is welcome!
> 
> 
> bye,
>  Michael
> 
> Task support for synaptic
> -------------------------
> 
> 
> Synaptic works on quite a few distributions. To make support for the
> various task systems easy synaptic needs a helper application called
> "/usr/bin/tasksel". It has to support the following commands:
> 
> --list-tasks: returns a list of the format
>               "$taskname\t$task-short-description"
> 
> --task-packages $task: list the packages included in the given task
>                        this option can be used more than once for
>                        different tasks
> 
> --task-descr $task: print a long description about the given task

Ok, apt-groupinstall needs to be modified talk this protocol then. Not a
big deal, the operations match 100% it's just syntax which differs
somewhat.

> 
> 
> Examples:
> 
> $ tasksel --list-tasks
> database-server SQL database
> desktop Desktop environment
> dns-server      DNS server
> file-server     File server
> mail-server     Mail server
> print-server    Print server
> web-server      Web server

Hmm.. I'll need to add --pretty or such to provide sane formatting for
apt-usage, the <group>\t<description> formatting looks <cough> hideous
on FC:
---
address@hidden pmatilai]$
/usr/lib/apt/scripts/groupinstall-backend-comps.py --list-tasks
graphical-internet      Graphical Internet
sql-server      SQL Database Server
ftp-server      FTP Server
smb-server      Windows File Server
compat-arch-support     Compatibility Arch Support
office  Office/Productivity
gnome-desktop   GNOME Desktop
engineering-and-scientific      Engineering and Scientific
compat-arch-development Compatibility Arch Development Support
x-software-development  X Software Development
kernel-development      Kernel Development
graphics        Graphics
kde-software-development        KDE Software Development
---

Anyway these are trivial issues to sort out.
        
Nice work Michael and huge thanks for this feature!

        - Panu -

synaptic-taskhelper.patch
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