bzr-mac team mailing list archive

[Jean-Francois Roy <bahamut@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

On Sep 27, 2009, at 02:57, Ian Clatworthy wrote:

> Jean-Francois Roy wrote:
> > Here's my first bake of a binary distribution of Bazaar 2 for Snow  
> > Leopard.
> >
> > http://www.devklog.net/software/Bazaar2.0.0.pkg
>
> Thank-you! When you're happy with it, please mention this on the OS X
> downloads page. I guess it ought to be uploaded to the formal  
> downloads
> page (https://launchpad.net/bzr/2.0/2.0.0) then as well.

Will do once I bake the final version.

> > It includes the following packages:
> >
> > - bzr 2.0.0
> > - subvertpy 0.6.9
> > - bzr-email 0.0.1
> > - bzr-keychain 0.1
> > - bzr-rewrite 0.5.4
> > - bzr-svn 1.0
> > - bzrtools 2.0.1
>
> What's bzr-keychain? Should we include it in the Windows installer? In
> the Plugins Guide?

It's a plug-in I wrote that adds a Mac OS X Keychain credential store  
(so it is of no use on other platforms). It's mostly designed to work  
with bzr-svn for http repositories. See https://launchpad.net/bzr-keychain 
.

> > I consider this distribution a sort of "core" distribution with  
> > only the
> > most useful plug-ins included. If you have additional plug-ins to  
> > add to
> > this list, please feel free to let me know.
>
> Please add bzr-upload 1.0 and bzr-xmloutput 0.8.5.

OK.

> > There are some missing items in the distribution, and I would  
> > appreciate
> > feedback on them:
> >
> > - Suitable read-me. The Bazaar read-me doesn't make sense (at least  
> > not
> > in its entirety).
> > - Description for each of the components.
>
> I think each "package" like this needs it's own README.txt including
> "known issues" relevant to users of that package. For example, I'd  
> like
> to see the one for the Windows installer explain that we know how  
> about
> explorer having an unwanted dos window behind it and we're working on
> fixing that. I'm sure there are things like that we ought to mention  
> in
> the Mac one as well, e.g. where to download the HTML or PDF docs from
> and how to (separately) install the GUI tools.

That sounds good. I was planning on writing a readme tomorrow  
specifically for this distribution, and these are good items to  
include in it.

> > Do note that I am not including any UI-related plug-ins with this
> > distribution. I think we need to re-think how we distribute a UI on  
> > Mac
> > OS X, namely that we should package as an application bundle
> > bzr-explorer (along with bzr and all dependencies). This is what
> > non-expert Mac OS X users expect and want.
>
> Right. Until we have that, our appeal to new Mac users will be limited
> IMO. So I'm really hoping we can get that sorted out soon.

Not so sure about that. We should definitely start by wooing Mac  
developers. Once we have more of them using bzr, then we can look at  
the GUI situation. I honestly am not convinced bzr-explorer is the way  
to go, considering it is not a native application and non-technical  
Mac OS X users are very sensitive to behavioral "weirdness". I'd  
encourage perhaps development of BazaarX (and Objective-bzr, both on  
Launchpad). I know the developer working on them, and maybe with some  
more man power a great native UI could be created. Objective-bzr is  
particularly important to eventually have Versions (http://versionsapp.com/ 
) and Cornerstone (http://www.zennaware.com/cornerstone/) support  
Bazaar. They are the two high-profile GUI clients for Subversion on  
Mac OS X at the moment.

I'm also trying to evangelize Bazaar inside of my work environment,  
for what it's worth. Getting absolutely flawless Subversion  
integration is critical for this in particular, and bzr-svn + bzr- 
keychain is a really good solution, better I think than any other DVCS  
currently provides.

> > I wrote a fairly simple script to build the distribution, coupled  
> > with a
> > PackageMaker document. I can put up a branch of it on Launchpad if  
> > there
> > is interest.
>
> Yes please. We should merge what you're doing with Guillermo's current
> branch [1] and turn it into a new project soon.

I took a rather different approach from him. It's still somewhat a bit  
rough, but at the same time somewhat simpler. I'll put it up and we  
can go from there.

> Ian C.
>
> [1] https://code.launchpad.net/~verterok/bzr/OSX-10.4-dmg