On Fri, 17 Jul 1998, Perry E. Metzger wrote:

> Tim Rightnour writes:
> > #  I agree that we want to have easy to use tools. I'm just saying that
> > #  smit is a piece of crap and should not be used as a model for
> > #  anything.
> > 
> > When I say model it on smit..  I guess I mean:
> > "Smit has a decent curses UI, and menu structure"
> > 
> > The screens when you go to do something, are, and I agree.. horrid.

I used SMIT quite a long time ago now, and disliked it then,
although I imagine that it has improved since.  There was
one thing I recall liking about it, however, that I would 
recommend be used on *any* GUI-based system, curses, Tcl/Tk/X, 
Motif, whatever.  And that is, that the actual work was done 
by single command-line-usable commands, and that the tool shows 
you what the commands are.  I have seen this same idea on
several Tcl/Tk-based tools, and, I now consider it essential
for such a system.

> Well, we have the very, very earliest beginnings in sysinst. At this
> point, it is very primitive, but only one person has done any work on
> it. If people would start hacking on it and improving it, that tiny
> seed might grow into a big tree.

Personally, I think the easiest GUI-based tool that I have
used is the SGI GUI tool software manager tool.   Unfortunately, 
it doesn't follow the previously-mentioned requirement, because 
it doesn't show you what it is doing, and also, the corresponding
curses-level tool, "inst", is a system itself, with its own commands,
and doesn't issue single shell-level commands .  It should be possible
to build such a system so that the commands are a series  of 
(shell-level) one-liners.  If that isn't possible, it should
at least create "inst" commands and then display them.



--
 Hugh LaMaster, M/S 233-21,    ASCII Email: lamaster@george.arc.nasa.gov
 NASA Ames Research Center     Or:          hlamaster@arc.nasa.gov
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 Phone: 650/604-1056           Disclaimer:  Unofficial, personal *opinion*.