Mario Lang <mlang@debian.org> writes:
[...]
> Hmm, I just had a look at debconf sources, and it appears that:
> 1. Debconf/FrontEnd/Dialog.pm uses either dialog or whiptail, depending on what
> is installed
OK, I have both :-) (some packages depend on dialog).
> 2. On my system, when using dialog with debconf, I get the behaviour I
> described in the mail earlier. I wonder if dialog on woody behaves the
> same, or if there is just some switch we are missing, and which got lost,
> which would activate proper cursors behaviour.
I tested dialog/whiptail by hand, and dialog has the behavior we don't
want (only buttons are selectable with cursor, items in lists are just
color selected). whiptail works fine : <TAB>, move down/up (I can't
reproduce the display bug I have with modconf by using whiptail
manually -- for the moment).
> 3. When I install whiptail, debconf starts to use it, and I see the following:
> The cursor appears exactly one line below the actually highlighted line
> in a select box.
not on woody
> Using Tab moves between the buttons, and the list, as expected.
>
> 1 is a good thing :-), 2 should be investigated, and 3 should probably
> be filed as a bug against whiptail, if that wasn't done already...
Yes, I think so -- whiptail really works fine in woody.
> Further digging showed that dialog in sid appears to just not use
> the cursor for highlighting list items. I didn't find any command-line option
> for either dialog or whiptail which would enable this. Hmm, maybe this
> should be filed as a wishlist item against dialog *and* whiptail.
whiptail seems to have advantages, as motion is usable easily. The
fact that cursor isn't at the good place (on sid) seems to be a real
bug.
[...]
> If you use dialog on woody manually, something like
>
> $ dialog --menu "Hello" 10 50 6 id1 one id2 two id3 three id4 four id5 five id6 six
>
> does the cursor follow the selection?
I tried
dialog --menu "Hello" 10 50 6 id1 one id2 two [...] id10 ten
whiptail --menu "Hello" 10 50 6 id1 one id2 two [...] id10 ten
3, 2, 1, fight : whiptail had a perfect, while dialog can't help
selecting items easily (cursor only moves between buttons).
So you're right : both debconf and modconf seem to use whiptail here,
but I only have display bugs with modconf, while browsing its looooong
list. I don't have such troubles with locales configuration (despite
of loooong list too : but it uses debconf, so...), that's why I
suspected modconf not to use whiptail that works fine everywhere else.
I wasn't able to investigate modconf sources : it may use whiptail in
a special manner.
1) we may think of a bug report (wishlist) against dialog (all
releases) to have it using cursor motion better
2) we may think of a bug report (normal) against whiptail (sid and
probably sarge) to have it setting the cursor exactly on selected
item
3) we may wonder why modconf doesn't depend on debconf, so that
display troubles may be concentrated there -- or simply investigate
how it uses whiptail (how the manner differs from debconf's).
Bye
--
Boris Daix
"In Freedom We Trust" (IFWT)
(C) 2003 by Boris Daix ;-)
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