RFS: python-notify2

[Thomas Kluyver <thomas@kluyver.me.uk>]

Hi all,

I'd like to request sponsorship of a new package, python-notify2.

This is intended as a replacement for pynotify (aka notify-python,
python-notify), so it broadly copies the API from that package,
although it's not a drop in replacement. Why is a replacement needed?

- notify2 is compatible with Gtk 3 and Qt 4. pynotify can't even be
imported in the same process as the gobject introspection bindings for
Gtk 3, and its callbacks depend on the Gtk 2 event loop.
- notify2 is compatible with Python 3; pynotify probably can't easily
be made to support Python 3.
- notify2 has useful docstrings and function signatures for introspection
- Getting things wrong with pynotify can easily segfault your process.
notify2 should just raise a Python exception.
- notify2 is written in Python, not C, so it's shorter, more readable,
and easier to maintain.

A few points I'd like to ask about:

- The tests: Running the tests during the build requires dbus and a
notification daemon, which in turn requires an X server running. I've
come up with a recipe that works in a pbuilder, but is it suitable for
the autobuilders, and is there a better way to do it?
- Examples: There are a handful of examples. At present, these end up
in both of the binary packages, under
/usr/share/doc/<packagename>/examples/ . I tried to put them in a
separate python-notify2-docs package, but then the folder was in
/usr/share/doc/python-notify2-docs, which doesn't seem right. Can I
easily make a -docs package but keep the folder name python-notify2?
- X-Python[3]-Version: I don't know what the minimum Python version
required is. It doesn't use any new language features. Should I leave
these fields out, copy them from dbus-python (the key dependency), or
put the minimum I'd consider fixing things for (2.6/3.1)?


Package name    : python-notify2
Version         : 0.3-1
Upstream Author : Thomas Kluyver <thomas@kluyver.me.uk>
URL             : http://pypi.python.org/pypi/notify2
License         : BSD
Section         : python

It builds these binary packages:
  python-notify2 - Desktop notifications API for Python
  python3-notify2 - Desktop notifications API for Python 3

In the DPMT SVN repository:
 http://anonscm.debian.org/viewvc/python-modules/packages/python-notify2/

On Debian mentors:
 http://mentors.debian.net/package/python-notify2

The ITP is #672799 - http://bugs.debian.org/cgi-bin/bugreport.cgi?bug=672799

Thanks for your time,
Thomas