[lokisetup] Features for Setup 2.0

[Timothee Besset]

I love designing new apps. You can have plenty of cool ideas and then
decide to drop them because it will be too complicated. So here are my
thoughts:

- Multiple UIs .. anyone using the SuSE distribution? The yast
configuration tool has text and qt uis .. pretty much what setup 1.x is
doing. Very good stuff.

- Is the XML description generic enough to describe the installations? Do
we need some flow control? (if-then-else?)

- Usage of shell scripts: in 1.x we often drop in shell scripts to perform
some operations. Are those reliable and portable enough? Would LUA be any
help?

- Support 'on-demand' download? i.e. download a small stub package, find
mirrors to get further elements? I think that's what loki_update does,
setup and update should be more interdependent?

- Local caching of the setup UI code? The size of UI-related binaries is
pretty big in setup packages. Could we have the UI stored in a local cache
(~/.lokisetup/ui/<API-version-GUID>/)? This would be working with
'on-demand' setups. You launch a query program to some XMLized URL, it
checks if you have the correct UI stuff already and starts downloading?

TTimo

On 22 Nov 2002 20:06:15 -0800
Stephane Peter <megastep at megastep.org> wrote:

> As the current version of setup reaches stability, I believe it is time
> to soon start working on the next major version (2.0). It will be a
> major rewrite to clean things up, so I think we should start a new CVS
> branch as soon as I commit my last set of changes from Codehost.
> 
> First we should discuss the goals for 2.0. Off the top of my head, here
> are the most pressing ones :
> 
> - Rework the XML spec and make it more consistent. Also we should
> definitely have a DTD for it.
> 
> - Complete overhaul of the UI back-end system to eliminate all code
> duplication. This means that we'll have to come up with a brand new UI
> Backend API, which will completely separate the UI interaction from the
> actual installer functionality. I expect the design of the API to take
> place on this mailing list for the next few weeks at least...
> 
> - Increased portability through the new UI backend API : especially
> native MacOS X and maybe Qt ports, or any other UI toolkit worth looking
> into (or that anybody wants to contribute).
> 
> 
> Hopefully a lot of the current code can be reused, but it will need to
> be thoroughly cleaned up. :P Maybe we can also include changes in
> setupdb and the other related tools (loki_patch, loki_update, etc),
> although I tend to think those are not as much in needed of a rewrite.
> 
> I'm welcome to more suggestions, of course, so please go ahead with your
> ideas :-)
> 
> -- 
> Stephane Peter
> Sr. Software Engineer
> Codehost, Inc.
> 
>