Re: Re:commit: abi: Args & psiconv

From: Andrew Dunbar (hippietrail@yahoo.com)
Date: Fri May 03 2002 - 23:33:47 EDT

  • Next message: F J Franklin: "Re: Re:commit: abi: Args & psiconv"

     --- Patrick Lam <plam@plam.lcs.mit.edu> wrote: > On
    Sat, May 04, 2002 at 03:25:53AM +0100, Andrew
    > Dunbar wrote:
    >
    > > In the past didn't we try to keep our external
    > > requirements to a minimum? I'm starting to be
    > > concerned that we may requiring too many libraries
    > > and that some of them may not be properly XP.
    >
    > I think that on all systems besides Windows, popt is
    > the
    > correct library to use for commandline parsing
    > (which
    > really, really sucks right now.) Plus, gnome uses
    > popt
    > already.
    >
    > It may or may not be the case that we want to avoid
    > using popt on Windows. Windows apps still do take
    > command-line arguments, but they're slightly
    > different
    > from command-line arguments on other platforms
    > (which
    > do mostly seem similar).
    >
    > One thing I've thought of is a preprocessing phase
    > on the
    > commandline before we let popt at it. Not sure yet.
    >
    > > This is what I mean by "properly XP". The Windows
    > > equivalent to a lot of command-line options might
    > > sometimes be the context menu...
    >
    > I couldn't understand this sentence.

    "XP" as in "Cross Platform".
    Most Windows users never use the command-line.
    Many things that can be accomplished (but not all)
    with the command line, are done in a different way on
    Windows. And that is by adding "context menu" items
    for the "filetypes". You can support printing this
    way for instance, and MSWord does this. You right-
    click on an MSWord file and the other functions
    appear in the popup menu. It would be up to the
    Windows installer to set this up AFAIK - it's done
    by creating Registry entries. Sometimes these entries
    use command-lines, sometimes they use more arcane
    Windowsisms that only Windows hackers understand.
    All mostly hidden from the user.

    Andrew.

    > pat

    =====
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