On Sat, Jan 09, 1999 at 03:58:54PM +0100, Wichert Akkerman wrote: > Previously Torsten Landschoff wrote: > > I don't think so. They should not directly query the user but instead use a > > layer in between. > > Can you come up with an example of why you would need this?
I don't know what Torsten had in mind, but I like the idea. With a standardized way to ask questions in maintainer scripts[1], we could have different and more powerful ways to actually ask the questions (character-based as it is now, dialog-based, X-based, whatever) without having to change all the mainatainer scripts again and again. For example, think of the possibility to offer a 'back'-button in an X-based configuration dialog. For this, we would need some kind of programming language that only *describes* the questions to be asked instead of asking them itself (like the kernel configuration scripts, for example), because in shell-scripts, it's difficult to do anything but a linear series of questions. At least, this is my personal idea of how that additional layer in between could look like. Martin [1] Not just sh's read or a replacement like dpkg-ask-stupid-question that gets called for every question -- Martin Buck E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED] or [EMAIL PROTECTED] Phone/Fax: +41-56-4963841 Snail-mail: Steigstrasse 13, CH-5452 Oberrohrdorf PGP key available, MIME mail welcome WWW: http://home.pages.de/~mbuck/