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Re: pre-ITP: New category Gis?


On Sun, 10 Oct 2004, Christopher Faylor wrote:

> On Sun, Oct 10, 2004 at 05:40:45PM -0400, Igor Pechtchanski wrote:
> >Would this be the time to bite the bullet and allow package subcategories
> >(as is already done with directories)?
> >
> >I see at least two ways to do this: either change the format of the
> >Category: field to use some separator (e.g., "/") between the category and
> >the subcategory, or do it as a two-step process -- first introduce a
> >Subcategory: field and make upset and setup aware of it; then work on the
> >setup logic for displaying the subcategories properly.  The advantage of
> >the first approach is that setup will immediately be able to show the
> >subcategories, but at the cost of category explosion until they're parsed
> >properly.  The second approach will keep the setup screen the same until
> >we're ready to switch (principle of least surprise and the like), but will
> >require a small up-front change.
> >
> >Discussion?
>
> I don't understand why you're raising this issue in this context.  What
> do subcategories solve?

The context, as I understood it, was grouping the Gis packages together.
This could be done by introducing a new category, or by introducing a
subcategory.

> Regardless, it doesn't seem like anyone pays attention to the existing
> categories now.  I'm not sure that complicating matters is going to be
> met with great acceptance with the huge lurking "newbie" population in
> the cygwin mailing list.  This may cause a great increase in the number
> of customer support calls...
> cgf

I doubt it'll actually increase customer support calls...  Also, could it
be that one reason the categories aren't used too much is that they are
rather arbitrary in some cases, and don't serve to group similar packages
well enough?  I could elaborate, but just to give a short example, finding
Apache with all the related modules in the Web/Httpd (or Net/Httpd)
subcategory is more logical (i.e., easier) than trying to pick out all of
the Apache-related things from the Web (or Net) category, isn't it?  And
since there's no search facility in setup (eek), things like "lighttpd"
may go unnoticed, too.  Oh, and one more useful feature of categories is
the "Install all" facility -- that would be used more often if the
(sub-)categories were smaller.
	Igor
-- 
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