I have been using a very old, locally compiled version of mutt for the past few years because I could never get the CSW version of mutt to work with my predefined macros and key bindings in my muttrc file, and just didn't have the time to devote to tracking down the problem. However, today I bit the bullet and discovered a great surprise; the CSW mutt binary was a link pointing to another link back in /etc/opt/csw/alternatives which was using a slang-compiled version of mutt! Once I relinked to the ncurses version of mutt, everything worked just fine!
The point of my story is that I didn't even have any idea that these alternate versions existed and knew nothing about the "alternatives" directory. I keep running across little tricks like this regarding CSW software packages which would should have been configured at installation time had I known about them. Now, maybe there is some note that displays regarding this during a mutt installation or upgrade, but even if that were so, we all know that none of these messages can be seen during a typical install/upgrade if the automatic configuration parameters are set. Everything just scrolls off the screen much too fast to monitor it. For some packages, there are very important steps that need to be done during an installation or checked after an upgrade and this information needs to be placed in some well known location where every user can review it. When I was compiling packages under the old system, I used to include this information in on the webpage for the packager in the News (I think that was what it was called) section. There really ought to me a "Special Instructions" section added to the current web page which just has this important information, like tweaking configuration files, starting services, selection between alternatives, etc. But I would take this a step further. If these notes were packaged up into a file shipped with each package, then the CSW install program could copy this content to a new temporary file during the installation or upgrade process, along with any error or warning messages that occurred, and then display this information to the user for their review after they were done. This would allow a major install or upgrade to occur unattended, with only a need to review the important information immediately after completion. This would be extremely helpful to people installing new CSW packages, since they would get these pointers on how to properly configure the packages in real time without having to hunt through volumes of documentation for answers to questions that they probably don't even know to ask. I'm not suggesting duplicating a package's documentation here. Just a short file with important tips that the packager knows are important for proper use of the software. In my case, I was using mutt long before the the slang/curses split, and it never occurred to me to think that there was even an issue like this to be investigated. Just some friendly feedback for your consideration! :-) Regards, -- Jeff C. Jeffery Small CJSA LLC 206-232-3338 [email protected] 7000 E Mercer Way, Mercer Island, WA 98040 _______________________________________________ maintainers mailing list [email protected] https://lists.opencsw.org/mailman/listinfo/maintainers .:: This mailing list's archive is public. ::.
