[Geany-devel] Build system branch 2.0

[Nick Treleaven]

On Thu, 11 Feb 2010 09:04:07 +1100
Lex Trotman <elextr at gmail.com> wrote:

> On 11 February 2010 00:01, Nick Treleaven <nick.treleaven at btinternet.com> wrote:
> > I think making all functionality available is overkill. We've got to
> > come up with a design that makes sense for each set of commands.
> 
> Yes, but hard coding such restrictions increases the complications of
> the code (those special cases) and then forces users who need
> something else to change code not just configure.  Including having to
> change existing special cases (or to ask you to change it).  There
> should be much less work to create and maintain a good general
> solution.

The goal is to provide understandable options, not to simplify
implementation. I doubt that the implementation is/will be too complex
though.

The problem with mass configurability is that it can still harm the
casual user when they accidentally change something then have to go and
study the manual.

I'm actually arguing for limiting complexity, options should be
specific (see below).

> > For example, you can only have one build command stopable, unless you
> > make new build tabs in the message window. I think this is too complex.
> 
> Agree that there should be only one output to the message window, and
> I have already written that in the spec. (I like the tabbed idea,
> maybe Geany version 3.0 :-)  But the dialog wouldn't show that, its a
> function of the menu operation.  When a parsed command is run, all the
> other parsed menu items become insensitive.
> 
> For stopability, (if thats a word) the decision which command is
> stopable has to be made at the time a menu item is selected, the one
> thats selected becomes stopable, the other parsed menu items become
> insensitive.
> 
> But there are some build commands that should NOT be stopable, ever,
> because of the risk of corruption ( see past discussions with Thomas
> and Enrico), so stopability needs to be able to be turned off for
> them, and since in general we don't know what commands are running, it
> has to be off by default.

I think the 'make everything as configurable as possible' idea is one
that leads to very complex dialogs, and also IMO is against the design
of Geany. There may be other ways.

We could solve the stop issue by having 2 stop commands, one for any
build command and one for the execute command (as current).

Each stop command would prompt 'Killing the process may be unsafe. Are
you sure?'.

> > Any increase in functionality needs to have a rationale. Do we need
> > each command to be handled individually, or should sets of commands
> > have the same behaviour? I prefer the latter.
> 
> Yes thats a reasonable way to do it, but what are the groups and what
> are their characteristics.  I couldn't come up with a sensible set of
> fixed groupings that don't unreasonably limit the behaviour.
> 
> The current SVN version basically works like that and I can't twist it
> to support the build commands that I want to use, let alone what other
> people may need.  For example Frank & Thomas both have asked for
> executes without terminal or parsing. The current SVN can't support
> that without one more setting being added and then the next variant
> has to be added etc. and soon it gets to where I am at now.

Maybe add an execute option for this, I don't think any build commands
should need this.

I think it's good to keep build and execute commands separate. They are
intended for different things.

> So I gave up and made everything settable :-) no special cases or
> inconsistent operation :-)  but as you and Enrico say, making the
> configuration GUI approachable is a problem :-(
> 
> It would be possible to have a separate dialog to define new groups
> and their characteristics so all that needs to be set in the main
> configuration dialog is the group name from a combo box.
> 
> The advanced dialog would only have 6 characteristics to set, or
> actually only 4 when you consider some are just an enable for the
> following value.
> 
> Default groups and their characteristics:
> 
> - Internal - internal and which internal item
> - Parsed - parsed, not stopable, regex
> - Execute - to terminal, stopable, stop label "Stop"
> - Execute no terminal - no terminal, stopable, stop label "Stop"
> 
>  Lets see what that can do for us.

This isn't what I meant, though I wasn't clear. I think we should have
simple filetype build commands, 'make' commands, execute command(s), and
then [a bit] more configurable options for project commands.

This is perhaps a bit vague but I'm trying to say the extra
configurability should be linked to what it's needed for, not an
option for every single command.

Regards,
Nick