| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
dol-sen
Retired Dev
Joined: 30 Jun 2002
Posts: 2805
Location: Richmond, BC, Canada
|
 Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 5:05 am Post subject: |
 |
|
I was on the gnucash user and dev lists for a few years and there were numerous posts about help not working. In most of those cases it was because the docs were made as a separate package from the main package (most rpm distros).
What should happen in those cases is that a popup window appear saying that "the docs are not installed" when the help is activated.
_________________
Brian
Porthole, the Portage GUI frontend irc@freenode: #gentoo-guis, #porthole, Blog
layman, gentoolkit, CoreBuilder, esearch... |
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
Carlo
Developer
Joined: 12 Aug 2002
Posts: 3356
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 1:51 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| dol-sen wrote: | | What should happen in those cases is that a popup window appear saying that "the docs are not installed" when the help is activated. |
Valid remark. Same issue with KDE's KHelpcenter. We simply do not depend on it, the user doesn't get any feedback to install it, when requesting help, though. Minor issue, but still...
Misusing the doc use flag is even worse than using a use flag for optional runtime dependencies in the first place, imho.
_________________
Please make sure that you have searched for an answer to a question after reading all the relevant docs. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Dominique_71
Veteran
Joined: 17 Aug 2005
Posts: 1877
Location: Switzerland (Romandie)
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 4:47 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| sponge wrote: | | Isn't yelp toggled on/off by USE=doc? |
No, gentoo policy about documentation is to always have it when it is related to users documentation. The doc use flag is used mainly for developers documentation as the description of the API of a program or a library.
EDIT: | Code: | $ euse -i doc
global use flags (searching: doc)
************************************************************
[- ] doc - Adds extra documentation (API, Javadoc, etc)
local use flags (searching: doc)
************************************************************
no matching entries found |
_________________
"Confirm You are a robot." - the singularity |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
killfire
l33t
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 618
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:09 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Carlo wrote: | | dol-sen wrote: | | What should happen in those cases is that a popup window appear saying that "the docs are not installed" when the help is activated. |
Valid remark. Same issue with KDE's KHelpcenter. We simply do not depend on it, the user doesn't get any feedback to install it, when requesting help, though. Minor issue, but still...
|
so isn't this really an upstream problem? I mean, considering gnucash does not depend on it (compile time) isn't it there issue to let you know when it is missing?
and if it has already been done with kde, then isn't it valid?
also, couldn't the 'gnome' flag trigger the help to be built? as it is an integration with gnome, no?
either way. I think the real problem is with the yelp people, they need to get their act together and not depend on firefox. that is just unnecessary and useless. if they need specific libs, they should rip them out of firefox and include them themselves...
on another note, another piece of accounting software, command line and supposed to be light, depends on emacs (which kind of takes away the lightness). I never really figured out how to use ledger, so perhaps the dependency is valid, but that is another situation where a non-compile time dependency is marked as required. and it builds and seems to run without it....
maybe this is just my personal vendetta, because I hate when things require all sorts of unnecessary libs, or imho unnecessary.. I really like relatively self sufficient programs. and it makes me even more heated when they pretend they require it when they dont....
_________________
my website, built in HAppS: http://dbpatterson.com
an art (oil painting) website I built a pure python backend for: http://www.lydiajohnston.com |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
PaulBredbury
Watchman
Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 7310
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:20 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| killfire wrote: | | all sorts of unnecessary libs |
The dependency on libs is done for a reason. For example, take a libpng vulnerability - do you want to upgrade just libpng, or all of the ones affected from the potential list of:
| Code: | $ equery depends libpng
[ Searching for packages depending on libpng... ]
app-editors/geany-9999 (>=media-libs/libpng-1.2.8)
app-emulation/fuse-0.7.0 (png? media-libs/libpng)
app-emulation/vice-1.20 (png? media-libs/libpng)
app-office/abiword-2.4.6 (>=media-libs/libpng-1.2)
app-pda/pilot-link-0.12.2 (png? media-libs/libpng)
app-text/ghostscript-gpl-8.54 (>=media-libs/libpng-1.2.5)
app-text/wv-1.2.3-r1 (media-libs/libpng)
dev-games/gtkradiant-1.5.0_pre20050626 (media-libs/libpng)
dev-libs/DirectFB-0.9.25.1 (png? media-libs/libpng)
games-action/d2x-rebirth-0.51 (media-libs/libpng)
games-action/d2x-xl-1.9.134 (media-libs/libpng)
games-action/gusanos-9999 (media-libs/libpng)
games-arcade/diameter-9999 (>=media-libs/libpng-1.2.8)
games-fps/actioncube-0.92 (media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/demonquake-0.16.1 (media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/fteqw-9999 (media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/joequake-0.15_beta1329 (media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/kmquake2-0.19.2 (!opengl & !sdl & !dedicated? media-libs/libpng)
(!opengl&sdl? media-libs/libpng)
(opengl? media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/q2p-0.2 (media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/qrack-1.60.1 (media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/qudos-9999 (!opengl & !sdl & !dedicated? media-libs/libpng)
(!opengl&sdl? media-libs/libpng)
(opengl? media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/sauerbraten-20061204 (media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/tremor-3.2.4.1 (media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/tyrquake-9999 (media-libs/libpng)
games-fps/vavoom-1.22 (media-libs/libpng)
games-sports/xmoto-0.2.6 (media-libs/libpng)
gnome-base/gnome-panel-2.16.3 (media-libs/libpng)
media-gfx/fontforge-20061220 (png? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2.4)
media-gfx/gimp-2.3.14 (png? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2.2)
media-gfx/graphviz-2.12 (>=media-libs/libpng-1.2.5)
media-gfx/icoutils-0.22.0 (media-libs/libpng)
media-gfx/imagemagick-6.3.0.5-r1 (png? media-libs/libpng)
media-gfx/xloadimage-4.1-r4 (png? media-libs/libpng)
media-gfx/xsane-0.991 (png? media-libs/libpng)
media-gfx/xv-3.10a-r12 (png? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2)
media-libs/gd-2.0.34 (png? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2.5)
media-libs/imlib-1.9.14-r3 (>=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
media-libs/libsvg-0.1.2 (media-libs/libpng)
media-libs/libwmf-0.2.8.4 (media-libs/libpng)
media-libs/netpbm-10.37.0 (png? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
media-libs/sdl-image-1.2.5-r1 (png? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
media-video/mplayer-1.0_rc1-r2 (gtk? media-libs/libpng)
(png? media-libs/libpng)
net-libs/gecko-sdk-1.7.13 (>=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
net-print/cups-1.2.8 (png? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
www-client/links-2.1_pre26 (X? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
(fbcon? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
(png? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
(svga? >=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
www-client/mozilla-firefox-2.0.0.2 (>=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
x11-apps/xcursorgen-1.0.1 (=media-libs/libpng-1.2*)
x11-libs/cairo-1.4.0 (media-libs/libpng)
x11-libs/fltk-1.1.7 (media-libs/libpng)
x11-libs/gtk+-2.10.11 (>=media-libs/libpng-1.2.1)
x11-libs/qt-3.3.8 (media-libs/libpng)
x11-libs/qt-4.2.3 (png? media-libs/libpng)
x11-misc/xaos-3.2 (media-libs/libpng)
x11-themes/xcursor-themes-1.0.1 (=media-libs/libpng-1.2*) |
And that's just the deps on my PC 
And of course, if they were "independent" of libpng and just copied its relevant bits, then a security appraisal (and patching where appropriate) would have to be performed on all of them. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Carlo
Developer
Joined: 12 Aug 2002
Posts: 3356
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 9:59 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| killfire wrote: | | so isn't this really an upstream problem? I mean, considering gnucash does not depend on it (compile time) isn't it there issue to let you know when it is missing? |
$Upstream as well as $distributor can tell you a newbie needs the help, therefore it is considered a hard dependency and if you don't think so, please fork. I mean, when you seriously think about it, bitching about a few megabyte of dependencies in these days nearing terabyte harddisks is quite a bit petty, isn't it!?
| killfire wrote: | | and if it has already been done with kde, then isn't it valid? |
It is a subjective decision. Sometimes decisions get revised, sometimes not. Personally I wouldn't care, if the whole KDE would depend on the 3 MB khelpcenter takes.
| killfire wrote: | | also, couldn't the 'gnome' flag trigger the help to be built? as it is an integration with gnome, no? |
No. I won't link the need for help to a specific desktop.
| killfire wrote: | | either way. I think the real problem is with the yelp people, they need to get their act together and not depend on firefox. that is just unnecessary and useless. if they need specific libs, they should rip them out of firefox and include them themselves... |
This is a bad idea. Sharing libraries means sharing development ressources, sharing the needed memory for libraries and being able to fix vulnerabilities in one place, instead time-consuming and error-prone in multiple applications.
| killfire wrote: | | maybe this is just my personal vendetta, because I hate when things require all sorts of unnecessary libs, or imho unnecessary.. I really like relatively self sufficient programs. and it makes me even more heated when they pretend they require it when they dont.... |
See, I try to limit my exposure to - especially "less" maintained - software, too, but with your idea, that you're better off with applications including all and everything, you're totally off track.
_________________
Please make sure that you have searched for an answer to a question after reading all the relevant docs. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Gergan Penkov
Veteran
Joined: 17 Jul 2004
Posts: 1464
Location: das kleinste Kuhdorf Deutschlands :)
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 11:21 pm Post subject: |
|
|
There are some problems here:
1. QT has only one DE - KDE, but gtk+ has at least 3 Gnome, XFCE and Rox. If I'm using the last two - I am doing it on purpose and do not want to install Gnome (I have Gnome and Xfce - so I really do not care about this dependancy, but overall Gnome is bloated with really bad apps and there are much better alternatives to them. Not to begin sth but evolution and nautilus are some of these, which should be thrown away).
2. If yelp should be such dependancy on all the packages, which have yelp docs, so let it be, in this case, there are some packages, which should be revised (if $distributor has $policy)
- balsa
- galeon
- gnochm
- stardict
- and probably some others
3. Yelp is not on par with KHelpSth (if I remember correctly, this was there even in kde-1 and had the possibility to show man and info pages at this time, now yelp has gained these magic powers in it last incarnation. Not to speak that for the dev-documentation, one uses devhelp and not yelp, so its usefulness is rather symbolic).
_________________
"I knew when an angel whispered into my ear,
You gotta get him away, yeah
Hey little bitch!
Be glad you finally walked away or you may have not lived another day."
Godsmack |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
steveL
Watchman
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 5153
Location: The Peanut Gallery
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 11:48 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| killfire wrote: | on another note, another piece of accounting software, command line and supposed to be light, depends on emacs (which kind of takes away the lightness). I never really figured out how to use ledger, so perhaps the dependency is valid, but that is another situation where a non-compile time dependency is marked as required. and it builds and seems to run without it....
maybe this is just my personal vendetta, because I hate when things require all sorts of unnecessary libs, or imho unnecessary.. I really like relatively self sufficient programs. and it makes me even more heated when they pretend they require it when they dont.... |
I totally agree with that sentiment. What you mention in the first paragraph I quoted, is PDEPENDS being declared as DEPENDS. (If it doesn't run at all it's an RDEPEND aiui.) In that case you should file a bug as the ebuild is incorrect, stating that it is a PDEPEND listed as a DEPEND. To my knowledge, some of the gentoo devs work on embedded systems, so this is the kind of thing they need to know. Other devs I'm sure feel the same as you about bloat. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
PaulBredbury
Watchman
Joined: 14 Jul 2005
Posts: 7310
|
| Posted: Sat Mar 17, 2007 11:53 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Gergan Penkov wrote: | | evolution and nautilus are some of these, which should be thrown away |
Removing Nautilus from Gnome? That's like removing Internet Explorer from Windows
People are far more interested in removing Evolution from Gnome - here's a thread list:
I seem to recall some longer threads also, which typically I can't find  |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
killfire
l33t
Joined: 04 Oct 2003
Posts: 618
|
| Posted: Sun Mar 18, 2007 3:45 am Post subject: |
|
|
| Carlo wrote: | | killfire wrote: | | so isn't this really an upstream problem? I mean, considering gnucash does not depend on it (compile time) isn't it there issue to let you know when it is missing? |
$Upstream as well as $distributor can tell you a newbie needs the help, therefore it is considered a hard dependency and if you don't think so, please fork. I mean, when you seriously think about it, bitching about a few megabyte of dependencies in these days nearing terabyte harddisks is quite a bit petty, isn't it!?
|
I meant that upstream should put a little message up showing that yelp is missing. it seems a little funny that it just silently does nothing....
and on the topic of size space- my main machine that I work on (and am on currently) has a 10gb hd, of which 4gb is /home, so 'bitching about a few megabytes' is pretty important to me... one of linux's chief strengths- running on old hardwar.
| Carlo wrote: |
| killfire wrote: | | either way. I think the real problem is with the yelp people, they need to get their act together and not depend on firefox. that is just unnecessary and useless. if they need specific libs, they should rip them out of firefox and include them themselves... |
This is a bad idea. Sharing libraries means sharing development ressources, sharing the needed memory for libraries and being able to fix vulnerabilities in one place, instead time-consuming and error-prone in multiple applications.
|
I was merely trying to point out that they should not have to require the entirety of firefox.... it just seems absurd.
| Carlo wrote: |
| killfire wrote: | | maybe this is just my personal vendetta, because I hate when things require all sorts of unnecessary libs, or imho unnecessary.. I really like relatively self sufficient programs. and it makes me even more heated when they pretend they require it when they dont.... |
See, I try to limit my exposure to - especially "less" maintained - software, too, but with your idea, that you're better off with applications including all and everything, you're totally off track. |
no, I don't think everything should be totally self sufficient, it is a waste of man-hours, I just appreciate it when libs are small, self sufficient, and apps only include libs they need to use.
_________________
my website, built in HAppS: http://dbpatterson.com
an art (oil painting) website I built a pure python backend for: http://www.lydiajohnston.com |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Carlo
Developer
Joined: 12 Aug 2002
Posts: 3356
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 1:36 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| killfire wrote: | | I meant that upstream should put a little message up showing that yelp is missing. it seems a little funny that it just silently does nothing.... |
As I said, it's upstream's opinion that matters. When they consider the help functionality as an integral part of the application, they'll say flat NO. You can find out, by filing a bug upstream. Problem on their side is, that a proper message what to do is distribution dependent, so it's not unlikely they point you back to your distributor.
| killfire wrote: | | and on the topic of size space- my main machine that I work on (and am on currently) has a 10gb hd, of which 4gb is /home, so 'bitching about a few megabytes' is pretty important to me... one of linux's chief strengths- running on old hardwar. |
Uh, space constraints aside, I wouldn't trust such an old harddisk at all.
_________________
Please make sure that you have searched for an answer to a question after reading all the relevant docs. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
steveL
Watchman
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 5153
Location: The Peanut Gallery
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 4:43 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Carlo wrote: | | killfire wrote: | | I meant that upstream should put a little message up showing that yelp is missing. it seems a little funny that it just silently does nothing.... |
As I said, it's upstream's opinion that matters. When they consider the help functionality as an integral part of the application, they'll say flat NO. You can find out, by filing a bug upstream. Problem on their side is, that a proper message what to do is distribution dependent, so it's not unlikely they point you back to your distributor. |
Um how on earth is "yelp not found" distro-dependent? If it's that critical to their app, I'd think they would want such a msg. Personally I would never put out software that wouldn't do that. (I am aware that the counter-argument is well, it can't be installed without yelp; what happens if a user accidentally deletes a file?) |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Carlo
Developer
Joined: 12 Aug 2002
Posts: 3356
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 4:52 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| steveL wrote: | | Um how on earth is "yelp not found" distro-dependent? |
Distro dependendent is telling the user what exactly he should do to fix the situation. I do not consider "yelp not found" really user friendly.
_________________
Please make sure that you have searched for an answer to a question after reading all the relevant docs. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
steveL
Watchman
Joined: 13 Sep 2006
Posts: 5153
Location: The Peanut Gallery
|
| Posted: Mon Mar 19, 2007 7:02 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Carlo wrote: | | Distro dependendent is telling the user what exactly he should do to fix the situation. I do not consider "yelp not found" really user friendly. |
Sure, but it's a lot more useful than doing nothing. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
Dralnu
Veteran
Joined: 24 May 2006
Posts: 1919
|
| Posted: Wed Mar 21, 2007 8:35 pm Post subject: |
|
|
| Carlo wrote: | | steveL wrote: | | Um how on earth is "yelp not found" distro-dependent? |
Distro dependendent is telling the user what exactly he should do to fix the situation. I do not consider "yelp not found" really user friendly. |
user-friendly is person-dependant.
Hating to take sides here, from what I know of Gnome, it pretty much HAS to include everything otherwise I think you take a chance on losing upstream support on said app since you don't have everything built in that it needs. The better suggestion would to either be to have its dep moved to something lighter, or to be smart and submit a bugreport based on poor coding habits by not coding into the system a check to make sure the dependency is there and usable. In a DE, while it SHOULD be in there, you can't gaurantee it is there 100% of the time. This would help solve the yelp dep to a point, and make a USE-flag a bit more easy to handle.
_________________
The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck, is the day they make a vacuum cleaner. |
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
|
|
Gentoo Chat
