More robust color terminal

[Igor Pechtchanski]

On Sat, 25 Jun 2005, Dave Hughes wrote:

> On Fri, June 24, 2005 15:45, Igor Pechtchanski said:
> > On Thu, 23 Jun 2005, Laran Evans wrote:
> [snip]
> >> Any suggestions?
> >
> > Both rxvt and the cmd.exe window only support 16 colors.  I guess you
> > could run X and use an xterm (which should support 256 colors, IIRC).

This should really say "currently only support 16 colors", in light of
Reid's message about recompiling rxvt...

> > Alternatively, you could compile (and, hopefully, contribute) gvim. :-)
>
> I vaguely recall trying to build gvim on Cygwin some time ago (and
> failing) but, as Reid Thompson pointed out elsewhere in this thread, gvim
> builds OOTB now. I've just tried this and it works like a charm (no
> special configure switches or anything, just a straight pull from CVS of
> the latest source, hit make and let it go)! Spent an hour hacking around
> some Python in gvim (GTK GUI) under Cygwin and found not one single
> problem. Very nice :-)
>
> Hopefully I'm not rushing headlong into this, but I've just skimmed
> through the Package Contributor's Guide and I think I might be able to put
> together a package for gvim (and, if building it stays this easy, maintain
> it).

That's great.

> A few thoughts occurred though, and I just wanted to check I'm not
> completely mad (which is a distinct possibility at this time of the
> morning):
>
> I can understand the rationale behind wanting to package gvim separately
> to vim (allows for people who want vim, but don't want X).

Well, gvim is kinda special.  You might want to compile it with both the
X11 libraries and W11 libraries from rxvt, to allow people to run windowed
gvim without X.  I don't know how easy or hard it is, just a thought.

> However, they're basically the same app. Would it make sense for a gvim
> package to include just the gvim binary, and have a dependency on the
> main vim package to provide the runtime files (syntax highlighting
> configs and such like)?

Definitely yes.  It would make even more sense to split the vim package
into the base editor and the runtime support files.  Corinna Vinschen,
who, in addition to being the Cygwin project co-leader, also maintains
quite a few packages (including vim), has repeatedly expressed desire to
hand off some of her packages.  Don't know if vim is one of them, but it
doesn't hurt to ask.  If you take over vim (provided Corinna agrees), you
can handle the proper repackaging easily enough.

> If that's the case, it also sounds like the gvim package wouldn't
> include a src package but would use the external-source directive in the
> setup.hint to point at the vim package's sources. Or am I talking crazy
> talk?

No, that sounds about right.  You'd need to coordinate with the vim
maintainer for this, though, since the vim build script won't actually
produce the gvim binary package.  You could also provide the gvim build
script as the sole file in the source package, and simply require the vim
source to be present...

> Anyway, I'll have a look at the natty package build-script tomorrow and
> see if I can't come up with something ... but right now I've got to
> catch up on a week of sleep deprivation :-)

Good luck.  Don't forget, the generic-build-script is designed to be
edited to adjust it for each package.  FWIW, if you find yourself making
changes that would make the g-b-s more configurable, please consider
submitting a patch to the cygwin-apps list.

Incidentally, if you intend to maintain a package, you'll need to
subscribe to the cygwin-apps list.
	Igor
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