[RFC] handling of vim addons

[Stefano Zacchiroli]

On Tue, May 09, 2006 at 08:07:37AM +0200, Pierre Habouzit wrote:
> > directory from the runtimepath. Adds a directory /var/vim/addons/ to
> > the runtimepath and implement a flexible symlink mechanism (a-la
> > /etc/init.d/) to selectively enable add-ons.
> I'd be more in favor of:
> /usr/share/vim/{available,enabled}-addons/ à la apache.

I like that structure as well, but I don't think it is well suited for
our needs. The reason is that in apache the act of symlinking a single
file is enough to enable a site, while in out case it is not: a single
add on can be made of several files. So there will be the need of
manually symlinking (which could be good) and then invoking an
update-something tool. Isn't it better to have just a single tool with
actions to enable/disable add-ons?

> those are very good ideas !

thanks :-)

> > the registry can be as simple as a set of files installed under
> > /usr/share/vim/registry/. We can think about providing a debhelper
> > that looks for all files installed under /usr/share/vim/addons/ and
> > create the corresponding registry entry installing it in the package
> > or something similar.

Let me expand this a bit, since I'm mocking-up an implementation of this
idea. The registry is indeed actually a bunch of files in
/usr/share/vim/registry/, and each file is an RFC 822 compliant file
(like e.g. debian/control) with ATM four fields (some of theme optional,
I will skip the details here): Name, Description, Files, Source.

> The most simple solution IMHO is to have the registry files contains all 
> the informations needed for the list, info (shows the description), ... 
> commands be in /usr/share/vim/addons-available/registry

Right, that how it is ATM in my mock-up implementation.

> and to link them from /usr/share/vim/addons-enabled/registry like other 
> files they list as well. listing enabled modules is just a matter of 
> `ls /usr/share/vim/addons-enabled/registry` and listing disabled 
> modules a diff between two ls.

Is not that simple since add-ons can be enabled/disabled differently
depending on from "where" (system-wide vs user directory) you see them.
Beside that this paragraph assume your linking scheme I commented above,
isn't it?

Many thanks for your comments Pierre,
Cheers.

-- 
Stefano Zacchiroli -*- Computer Science PhD student @ Uny Bologna, Italy
zack@{cs.unibo.it,debian.org,bononia.it} -%- http://www.bononia.it/zack/
If there's any real truth it's that the entire multidimensional infinity
of the Universe is almost certainly being run by a bunch of maniacs. -!-
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 189 bytes
Desc: Digital signature
Url : http://lists.alioth.debian.org/pipermail/pkg-vim-maintainers/attachments/20060510/e488cfdb/attachment.pgp