Re: RFS: engauge-digitizer

[Rafael Laboissiere <rafael@debian.org>]

* Tobias Richter <tsr-debian@achos.com> [2006-10-19 02:49]:

> I am looking for a sponsor to inspect my package "engauge-digitizer".
> [...]

Thanks for this first effort in packaging engauge-digitizer.  It is a really
useful program.  It is very similar to g3data, which is already packaged,
but it seems that the two programs have different features.

I think that the name of the executable (/usr/bin/digitizer) is too generic.
However, this is upstream's call and I think we have to accept it.

Anyway, I would gladly sponsor the package for you.  You might set a
project at Alioth for common development.

Here are some suggestions for improvement:


* debian/rules:

  Although the use of CBDS is questioned by some developers, I find it very
  useful and it simplifies the maintenance of my simple packages. Your
  debian/rules can be ported to CDBS like this:

  #########################################################################
  #!/usr/bin/make -f
  # -*- makefile -*-

  include /usr/share/cdbs/1/class/makefile.mk
  include /usr/share/cdbs/1/rules/debhelper.mk

  export DH_ALWAYS_EXCLUDE=CVS
  DEB_MAKE_INVOKE = $(MAKE)

  configure/engauge-digitizer::
          qmake-qt3 -unix digitizer.pro

  clean::
          rm -f Makefile bin/digitizer
  #########################################################################

  Notice that you would also need a debian/engauge-digitizer.install file
  like this:

  #########################################################################
  bin/digitizer    usr/bin
  #########################################################################

  If you either adopt the CBDS approach or use dh_install in your current
  debian/rules in conjunction with the *.install file above, then you can
  drop debian/engauge-digitizer.dirs.   At any rate, there is a unnecessary
  leading slash before "usr/share/man/man1" in this file.
  
  
* debian/control:

  - Both short and long descriptions contain the phrase "extracts numbers".
    The word "numbers" is not very clear. I much prefer the description of
    g3data: "extract data from scanned graphs" but you should not plagiarize
    it.  Unfortunately, I cannot propose now a better short description.
    (In any event, the first letter of the short description should be in
    lower case.) 
  
  - The first paragraph of the long description does not really inform the
    user what the software is for.  I would suggest this change:

      This digitizing software converts an image file showing a graph or map
      into numbers.  These numbers are the coordinates of points clicked
      with the mouse by the user.  The program may be used for obtaining
      data from graphs in scientific publications.

  - The last paragraph of the long description of engauge-digitizer-doc is
    hard to read.  I suggest the following:

      This package contains the HTML user guide and tutorial, which is
      accessible from within the main program.
    
  - Typo : "adn"-> "and"
  
  - Add an extra space before the "Homepage:" pseudo-header (see the Best
    Packaging Practices manual).

  - Add the "Homepage:" pseudo-header to the long description of the
    engauge-digitizing-doc also.
    
  - Remove the spurious "${misc:Depends}" in Depends.


* The patch to src/digitmain.cpp should be taken out of *.diff.gz and put in
  a proper patch managed by either dpatch or CBBS' symple-patch-sys (I much
  prefer the later).


* You might add a debian/engauge-digitizer-doc.doc-base file.


-- 
Rafael