Hello, Elwood Downey, and welcome to MacPorts-dev!
On 2025-06-17 21:20, Elwood Downey wrote:
...I skimmed your instructions for submitting a new port but 1) I do
not have and do not want a github account and 2) I am super lazy when
it comes to systemy things, I only enjoy programming.
So on the outside chance someone else would be willing to do it all
for me, I hereby humbly submit my amateur radio program HamClock
<https://clearskyinstitute.com/ham/HamClock> for consideration as a
new port.
...[elided]...
name hamclock
version 4.18
categories amateur radio
platforms darwin
license MIT
maintainers Elwood Downey, [email protected]
description provides useful data for amateur radio operators
long_description HamClock is a kiosk-style application that
provides real time space weather, radio propagation models, operating
events and other information particularly useful to the radio amateur.
homepage https://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/HamClock
master_sites
https://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/HamClock/ESPHamClock.tgz
What a lovely project! HamClock appears to integrate a lot of useful
data from many sources. I can imagine it being very valuable to the
people for whom it is intended. It would be a fine port IMHO.
I took the liberty of doing a "systemy thing" for you: creating a
Macports trac ticket #72625[1] requesting that a port be created for
Hamclock. This doesn't commit me or anyone else to do the work, but it
provides a starting point for anyone interested. It includes a link to
this thread[2] in the macports-dev archives.
From my limited experience writing ports, I can imagine five or so
hurdles.
One, as Ryan said, HamClock's self-update function conflicts with a
macports principle that ports don't modify themselves, only macports
modifies ports.
Two, and related, there appears to be only URLs for the current version
of the source code, while macports works better with repositories which
offer URLs for each software version. So for HamClock that might be:
https://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/HamClock/4.18/ESPHamClock.tgz
Normally, macports deal with target project version changes by having
someone update the portfile and submit it to Macports. Each version of a
portfile describes a specific version of the target project, and gives a
specific URL for that verion of the target project's source code. When
the target project releases a new version, someone notices and updates
the portfile to specify the new version and the new download URL. They
submit the new portfile to Macports. Eventually Macports users update
their Portfile collection from Macports. Then the user's copy of
Macports becomes aware of the new port version, and offers to perform
the update.
Three, as Dave Allured points out, the portfile author needs to figure
out what other libs HamClock depends on, and which ports supply those
libs. These dependencies get recorded in the portfile.
Four, the HamClock top-level Makefile hard-codes some install paths and
library paths. The portfile will need to patch these. That is a normal
thing to do, and functions exist to do it, but it will be an extra task
for the portfile author.
Five, HamClock can display graphics at various horizontal and vertical
pixel sizes, and as a local display (via X11) or as a web service. The
portfile can offer "variants" as a way to let the user choose these
options at build time. The portfile author might choose to offer these
variants, and tie them back to the Makefile targets. That is a further
task.
Also, at the risk of distracting you with "systemy" things, might I
suggest a few clarifications to the HamClock website[3]?
* The download tab did not make it clear to me that it offered source
code. I interpreted it as offering precompiled binaries. Consider
adding a subheading "Source code" before the first line of the tab,
and changing the following line "revision history" to be a subheading.
* If you decide to have separate URLs to the various versions of the
source code, then maybe you will want somewhere a list of versions,
each with the download link for that version's source code.
* The website doesn't make it clear that the project's code is freely
licensed. Yes, the source code archive has a LICENSE file containing
the MIT licence text, but that isn't visible before downloading.
Consider having a tab "License", or a link from a relevant place
like the source code link in the Download tab, pointing to the
software license.
* Do you seek contributions of bug fixes and patches with
improvements? If so, I would expect to see a tab reading "How to
contribute" or the like. I don't see that.
Overall, HamClock looks like a lovely project. Thank you for proposing
it to macports. I hope someone takes the offer and finishes the portfile.
Best regards,
—Jim "VE7YJD" DeLaHunt
[1] hamclock: make a port for Hamclock project
<https://trac.macports.org/ticket/72625>
[2] thread "submitting a new port, sort of"
<https://lists.macports.org/pipermail/macports-dev/2025-June/046320.html>
[3] <https://www.clearskyinstitute.com/ham/HamClock/>
--
. --Jim DeLaHunt,[email protected] http://blog.jdlh.com/ (http://jdlh.com/)
multilingual websites consultant, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
