From owner-freebsd-ports Fri Sep 20 20:18:26 2002 Delivered-To: freebsd-ports@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.FreeBSD.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id AD56137B401 for ; Fri, 20 Sep 2002 20:18:24 -0700 (PDT) Received: from smtp017.mail.yahoo.com (smtp017.mail.yahoo.com [216.136.174.114]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with SMTP id 6BBCA43E3B for ; Fri, 20 Sep 2002 20:18:24 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from john_m_cooper@yahoo.com) Received: from pc016247.reshall.uidaho.edu (john?m?cooper@129.101.136.30 with plain) by smtp.mail.vip.sc5.yahoo.com with SMTP; 21 Sep 2002 03:18:24 -0000 Subject: A modest proposal for making sense of browser plugin ports From: John Merryweather Cooper Reply-To: john_m_cooper@yahoo.com To: FreeBSD Ports Cc: Joe Clarke Content-Type: text/plain Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Ximian Evolution 1.0.8 Date: 20 Sep 2002 20:19:46 -0700 Message-Id: <1032578387.750.125.camel@PC016247.reshall.uidaho.edu> Mime-Version: 1.0 Sender: owner-freebsd-ports@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk List-ID: List-Archive: (Web Archive) List-Help: (List Instructions) List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: X-Loop: FreeBSD.org First, for browsers which are both very similar and can share plugins, it would be really wonderful if one such port was designated as the "plugin install port" and the other's plugins directory was a symlink to the main install directory. I'm thinking particularly of www/mozilla and www/mozilla-devel. There's no reason these two ports couldn't share their plugins directories by symlink. As a slight extension of this, hier() could be modified to have a designated browser plugin directory (with appropriate bifurcation for linux browsers/plugins to prevent "branding" clashes). Then, symlinks would be used to install "copies" of the plugin binary for particular browser. My experience with Mozilla and Netscape is that they would support this configuration, and I think the rest would do. This avoids the alternative, which is detecting installed browsers by each plugin, and then install myriad binaries all up and down the tree. Instead, the browser would "scan" the designated plugin directory and symlink into it's own plugin directory. This would also avoid the need to have a particular browser as a dependency of plugin ports; the browser port would know where plugins are installed and take care of it instead--perhaps with even a install-plugins target that could be refeshed if desired. Second, standardize all browser plugin ports to have an install-user target and a WANT_USER_PLUGIN_ONLY handle to control whether a system-wide install takes place. Mozilla, netscape, and Opera for sure allow plugins to be installed in a subdirectory of the user's HOME. I can see configuration where a system-wide install would be less than desirable, but a user-by-user install would be desired. Third, alternatively, the plugin ports can do the work and: detect the installed browsers, install binaries so all compatible (and installed) browsers are enabled, and handle the pkg-plist issues. Or Fourth, something completely different . . . -- _ | |V| / ' || MacroHard -- \ \_| | | \_, || the perfection of form over | ----------------------------------|| substance, marketing over | Web: http://www.borgsdemons.com || performance, and greed over | AIM: johnmcooper || design . . . | Yahoo: john_m_cooper || | =====================================================================/ Public Key: http://www.borgsdemons.com/Personal/pgpkey.asc | =====================================================================\ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-ports" in the body of the message