clicompanion-devs team mailing list archive

[Jonathan Marsden <jmarsden@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

On 11/23/2011 03:00 AM, Duane Hinnen wrote:

> I have thought about our issue with the command list needing to be 
> different for ubuntu and debian. One option i thought might work is 
> seperating the CLI program from the command list.  Similar to Acire
> and Python Snippets. The user would install CLI Companion and then
> install the command list for their distro.


Seems ugly to ask the user to install something additional for this.
The computer "knows" whether it is running Debian or Ubuntu, so why
should the user have to make a choice based on that?  The default should
be set correctly automatically, I suggest.

And what if the user runs Ubuntu but ssh'es into a Debian box... then he
needs the Ubuntu list sometimes, and the Debian list at other times.
Also he probably wants to use sudo or gksu locally but su -c (or
something similar) when sshed into Debian -- otherwise we are assuming
his SSH connection forwards X, and I don't think that is the default.

> Another idea is shipping CLI Companion with two command lists and in
> the Preferences Panel the user can select 'Debian' or 'Ubuntu' and
> load the appropriate command list.  I am liking the second one.


Assuming the default is the one appropriate for the local OS, I agree.

I have a feeling we may need some form of variable substitution (and a
UI for setting it to one of several preferences) for the "sudo/gksu/su
-c/whatever" issue, and that this is then in some sense independent of
which command list is in use.

The idea of multiple command lists, if implemented carefully, could be
good, since it could (maybe?) allow a user to maintain a few different
command lists, and make any subset of them active at any one time.  He
might choose to leave all sudo-oriented stuff out when first learning
the command line, for example. (But this is too much work for 1.1, I
suspect).

I'm not sure, but this might also help with the "these commands need
THIS non-default package" issue; put commands needing each non-default
package in a separate list?  For example, the current list includes
cdrecord, which is part of wodim, and is not included in Lubuntu by
default.  Maybe it is included by default in default (Unity/GNOME)
Ubuntu?  Incidentally, cdrecord and mkisofs are rather old 'legacy'
commands, sort of "old hat"; wouldn't it be better to teach users to use
wodim and genisoimage instead?

One more little bug discovery: the bash suspend command breaks
clicompanion... it should probably be trapped and handled in some sane
way (maybe prompt user to either spawn a new shell or exit
clicompanion?) if used in the shell spawned directly by clicompanion,
but (obviously) it should be allowed in subshells of that primary shell.

Jonathan