Euphoria Prerequiste Manager
Sorry about that last post, hit the Enter key.
I've got an idea that I'd like to throw out there. Last week I had
someone ask me about the iSeries Toolbox that I've been working on.
This individual wanted to try some of the examples but was having
problems finding include files that are a part of Win32Lib (no problem
of yours Derek, I just couldn't explain it in a way that he could
understand). I tried several times to explain to him where to find
Win32Lib and where he should place them on his PC. He has since stopped
emailing me and my guess is he got frustrated and gave up. I don't
think this scenario is isolated. I don't include Win32Lib as part of
the toolbox so there's not multiple copies floating around.
Since so many of our contributions rely on other user's contributions we
need a way to make it easy for the novice (and veterans for that matter)
to find, download and install prerequisite packages. What I'm proposing
is a community created/supported system called "Euphoria Prerequisite
Manager". Here's the scenario:
* I create a Euphoria include file that lets you send HTML pages to cell
phones (since we're pretending, I wrote this in 10 minutes :) ). I also
have documentation and a Win32Lib example. My "package" requires
Win32Lib, words.e by Bernie Ryan and a sockets package.
* I have a directory on my PC that contains all the files for my nifty
new software (except the prerequisites).
* I now want to share my vast knowledge of cell phones with the
community. Included in the Euphoria/bin directory is a program that
will let me create a package definition, which defines: package name,
package version, author, date, time, etc. Also in a definition is a
mechanism to let me define three types of files: include files,
documentation files and example files. I also can define which other
packages are prerequisites to my package (Win32Lib, words.e, sockets,
etc.) A package definition will be an .edb file containing all of the
information, including all files.
* I go to the RDS web site, go to the submission form and point to the
.edb package definition file. RDS validates the data and adds to the
master package definition file.
* Interested user now wants to try my cell phone package. He goes to
the recent contributions page and selects my package. What he/she gets
is a file that contains my package and all prerequisites as I have
defined.
* Interested user now runs a program in Euphoria/bin that extracts the
packages. For each package, the program asks the user where the
directory that I created should be extraced on their PC (I would choose
C:\EuTools since that's where all of my user contributed files are).
The program would also ask where the include files should be placed and
defaults the location to 1) first directory in EUINC 2) include
directory in the EUDIR variable.
* Interested user can now run my program and he/she does not have to
find all the prerequisites manually.
Okay, don't run off scared! I know it sounds like a lot. Fact is, this
will REQUIRE the cooperation of the community AND RDS. What we will
gain is easier distribution/management of user-contributed files. I
think this will also require us to create our own
compression/decompression routine for the packages. We can't assume
that everyone has WinZip or equivalent.
There's still a TON of details to work out. Unfortunately, I can't do
all the work myself. I would welcome any comments, suggestions or "what
the heck are you thinking!"
Jonas
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