Re: [gentoo-user] Re: Another USE question

[Stroller <stroller@stellar.eclipse.co.uk>]

On 27 May 2009, at 00:33, Keith Dart wrote:
>>> ...
>>> USE_FOO="this n that"
>>> USE_BAR="some more flags"
>>> BLAH="whatever else there might be"
>>>
>>> USE="${USE_FOO} ${USE_BAR} ${BLAH}
>>
>> Thank's. That is exactly what I was looking for.
>
> But that will likely break, or render useless, the ufed tool.
>
> If you don't use that, you probably should.

I'm really unconvinced by ufed.

In a standard terminal window, 80 characters wide, the descriptions  
are too long and instead of wrapping around to the next line they fall  
off the end of the screen and you can't read them. Sure, I can resize  
the terminal window, but I don't want to have to do that manually each  
time I run ufed, then resize it back to my usual size again  
afterwards. ufed is about the only program I've used which doesn't  
seem right in my "standard" terminal window size of 50 rows x 80  
columns.

ufed has seemed to me to behave unexpectedly on occasions. I have run  
it, added only one USE flag and then when I re-run `emerge -pv world`  
more than one additional USE setting has changed. WTF?!?!

This is why I have arrived at the combination of euse (and now `equery  
uses`) to view USE descriptions and flagedit for setting them. I think  
that from a usability point of view these are easier than either ufed  
or a text editor. Either of the latter render the whole terminal  
window and throws one into a different "modality" (??) from the  
command line utilities that one uses most - cat, cp, mv, touch, emerge  
&c. With euse, equery & flagedit one can still see in the terminal  
buffer the output of the previous command(s), and one can use the bash  
history to quickly edit the last argument of the command (always the  
USE flag or package name).

Using vim to edit make.conf or ufed requires your mind to enter a  
slightly different "way of thinking" and requires a different set of  
commands. However hard I'm trying to improve my knowledge of vim's  
keyboard shortcuts, one has to find the USE flag line, navigate the  
cursor inside the quotes, change to edit mode (perhaps not required on  
other editors), type the flag name, save and then exit. Then one is  
back to the normal "type command, output appears on screen, fresh  
prompt appears" command line "paradigm". The difference is admittedly  
small, but for me typing `flagedit +foo` is just more natural. ufed is  
unique to its task and - perhaps I use it relatively infrequently - I  
just find it more of a hassle to get my head into the appropriate gear  
for it (not withstanding the problems I pointed out in my first &  
second paragraphs).

IMO if you're not using `equery uses category/package` and `flagedit  
[category/package] flag [flag]` then you probably should.
;)

Stroller.