gnuplot: options for setting default terminal

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

I would like to provoke some discussion about what you think of adding the following variants to gnuplot:

• default_aquaterm
• default_qt
• default_wxt
• default_x11

Another 'quick & dirty' patch for setting the default terminal is just disabling aquaterm with -aquaterm (and a tiny bit of extra code), see also #34423.

I can add the patch at any time, as soon as I get some feedback. So far I got one vote of support for default_<term> from Thomas in #33596 and one against from Ryan on the mailing list.

I'm open to better suggestions to set the default terminal.

[mf2k (Frank Schima)]

You don't need to Cc yourself. Also, trac requires complete email addresses.

As someone who doesn't use gnuplot, I don't understand what the "default" variants you are proposing are supposed to do. Also, you are the maintainer so if you want it, then add the patch so we can look at it.

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

This is what I had in mind:

variant default_aquaterm depends aquaterm conflicts default_qt default_wxt default_x11 description "Use 'aquaterm' as default terminal" {
    configure.cflags-append -DDEFAULTTERM='"aqua"'
}
variant default_qt depends qt conflicts default_aquaterm default_wxt default_x11 description "Use 'qt' as default terminal" {
    configure.cflags-append -DDEFAULTTERM='"qt"'
}
variant default_wxt depends wxwidgets conflicts default_aquaterm default_qt default_x11 description "Use 'wxt' as default terminal" {
    configure.cflags-append -DDEFAULTTERM='"wxt"'
}
variant default_x11 depends x11 conflicts default_aquaterm default_qt default_wxt description "Use 'x11' as default terminal" {
    configure.cflags-append -DDEFAULTTERM='"x11"'
}

Possibly (but not necessarily) followed by something like:

if{![variant_isset default_aquaterm] && ![variant_isset default_qt] && ![variant_isset default_wxt] && ![variant_isset default_x11]} {
    if{[variant_isset qt]} {
        default_variants-append +default_qt
    } else {
        ...
    }
}

This would need a tiny patch of gnuplot sources, but I don't see the need for providing a full patch for testing - explanation should suffice.

Pro:

• Some people (probably me included) might want to have all the terminals available, but would prefer to set a different default (for example to use x11 or qt by default). Currently one can have a different default by setting GNUTERM in environment variable or in a config file in home directory. Or simply by making sure that only his/her favourite terminal is installed. For example, to make wxt default one needs to make sure that neither aqua nor qt terminals are installed.

Contra:

• (Too) many variants

Currently:

> port variants gnuplot
gnuplot has the variants:
[+]aquaterm: Enable AquaTerm terminal
   emacs: An emacs mode for working with gnuplot
[+]luaterm: Enable lua-based terminals
   old_bitmap_terminals: Enable PBM (Portable Bit Map) and other older bitmap terminals
[+]pangocairo: Enable cairo-based terminals
   qt: Enable qt terminal
   universal: Build for multiple architectures
   wxwidgets: Enable wxt terminal
   wxwidgets30: Legacy compatibility variant
   wxwidgets_devel: Legacy compatibility variant
[+]x11: Enable X11 support

Then it would be:

> port variants gnuplot
gnuplot has the variants:
[+]aquaterm: Enable AquaTerm terminal
   default_aquaterm depends aquaterm: Use 'aquaterm' as default terminal
     * conflicts with default_qt default_wxt default_x11
   default_qt depends qt: Use 'qt' as default terminal
     * conflicts with default_aquaterm default_wxt default_x11
   default_wxt depends wxwidgets: Use 'wxt' as default terminal
     * conflicts with default_aquaterm default_qt default_x11
   default_x11 depends x11: Use 'x11' as default terminal
     * conflicts with default_aquaterm default_qt default_wxt
   emacs: An emacs mode for working with gnuplot
[+]luaterm: Enable lua-based terminals
   old_bitmap_terminals: Enable PBM (Portable Bit Map) and other older bitmap terminals
[+]pangocairo: Enable cairo-based terminals
   qt: Enable qt terminal
   universal: Build for multiple architectures
   wxwidgets: Enable wxt terminal
[+]x11: Enable X11 support

[mojca (Mojca Miklavec)]

Closing this for lack of interest (and too many variants, making the port overly confusing). There is still time to convince me otherwise.