[op-sepp] [sepp] SEPP features and future development

[Roman Plessl]

Dear Frank,

> In the meantime several customizations have accumulated. I wonder in 
> which direction SEPP/OP-SEPP are going and how/if I can contribute
> to it.

The OP-SEPP has been improved from the original SEPP with the
following features:

- automatically detecting the running OS  (OSDetect)
- compatibility list and app running mechanism for binary /
   distribution compatiblility             (OSDetect)

Further Tasks for the same directory are planed, but not realized yet 
(http://oss.oetiker.ch/op-sepp/report/1).

We are interessed in your changes (as patches).

I will include them in the op-sepp trunk if they are addons and won't 
break the current behaviour of op-sepp version 1.5.1.

Could you make a patch to the SEPP version 1.4.2 and add that patch as a 
new ticket in our trac (http://oss.oetiker.ch/op-sepp/wiki)


> Things that I have changed at our site are
> ------------------------------------------
>  * completely removed all hardcoded /usr/sepp and replaced
>    by the appropriate variables from %DIR.
>    --> This settings could become configurable through sepp.conf
>  * removed the packager extension, as it doesn't make any
>    sense in our environment.
>    --> This setting could become configurable through sepp.conf
>  * made webbuild much more efficient by getting the list of
>    binaries only once when rebuilding the webpages for
>    several packages
>  * added blockquote and other formatting for README
>  * external links open in new tab/window
>  * added an additional index with the list of commands/
>    binaries
>  * shortened error messages (duplicate file) to oneliners,
>    which makes the error output much better readable
>  * removed restriction to have an index.html in doc directory
>  * Expanded the list of categories and other small changes

OK, sound nice. Some of your features I have tried to implement myself 
in the op-sepp but maybe your code is better ;-).

> Things that I plan to do and/or which I'd like to see in future versions
> of SEPP/OP-SEPP
> --------------------------------------------------------------
>
>  * Make the packager extension configurable (sepp.conf: packager yes|no)
>
>  * Move styles from internal styles to CSS
>
>  * Get rid of frames and use CSS instead (configurable via sepp.conf?)
>
>  * Move from uppercase HTML tages to xhtml
>
>  * Make the target for external links configurable (sepp.conf)
>
>  * When changing the default version of a package, webbuild
>    should automatically also recreate the webpages of the
>    previous default version
>
>  * Check dependencies also when removing (!) an application (as
>    to avoid the removal of a package that is a dependency of an
>    other package)
>
>  * Make all the settings from seppadm::ReadMETA configurable through
>    sepp.conf (length of strings, software categories etc. etc.)
>
>  * Possibility of forcing a package to have the version extension
>    (Background: In our environment we have several packages which
>    share command names.  When a package looses it's "default" status,
>    this is not always also true for the individual commands which
>    leads to irritation and confusion)
>
>  * Integration of modules (http://modules.sourceforge.net/) or hooks
>    for external programs (having to type the version extension each
>    time is not always handy and practicable)

Sound reasonable, could you add also those wishes to the trac (one wish 
per ticket). I or we will proove and implement them soon :-).

Regards,
   Roman


---
Roman Plessl            phone:        +41 (62) 775 9904
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