zsh-newuser-install

[Peter Stephenson <p.w.stephenson@ntlworld.com>]

On Thu, 17 Apr 2014 12:37:22 -0700
Bart Schaefer <schaefer@brasslantern.com> wrote:
> What did eventually happen after the mess was cleaned up is that the
> zsh-newuser-install system got created.  It could use an update, but
> is intended to walk you through enabling the stuff that you're most
> likely to want.

Yes, I was going to mention this when I got back, which I eventually
did.

There's certainly plenty that could be added here --- enough that
nothing's likely  to happen unless we get some solid feedback...

- Make it more modular so stuff can be plugged into it and more of the
low-level framework is available as separate functions.

- Make it interact better with scripts installed by distributions?  I'm
not sure how useful this actually is, given distributions tend to hook
into to global /etc files, but then that doesn't give the user much
control, which is the point of newuser.  Maybe the previous point already
covers this well enough.

- Make it easier to run again.  Maybe this is actually OK, however
currently you have to force it with a special option: this makes me
think I was worried I hadn't properly debugged interaction with stuff
set by the user.  (Of course, that's impossible to get completely right
if the user does arbitrary other things in their start-up scripts, but
it should be fail safe --- and we're really aiming at people who don't
have heavily customized shells already so I don't think it's a real
issue as long as we can update what newuser did before.)

- Information from manual pages is probably better coming from the new
pre-formatted help files.

- Add more syntactic options with recommendations: this would cover
interactivecomments, for example, and possible other things that might
save you later on without getting in your way, such as warncreateglobal.

- Configure the nomatch / nullglob / cshnullglob behaviour.  (This is
the sort of thing I always intended to do, I'm a bit surprised it's not
there.)

- Add a wizard mode, i.e. guide you step by step ("Next, would you like
to configure what happens when the shell fails to match a pattern on the
command line?  Note zsh's normal behaviour is different from other
shells, so if you're switching from bash or tcsh you might want to look
at this [y/n]?").  You then get the chance either to pick a
recommendation ("standard zsh behaviour: safe, with errors if a pattern
doesn't match -- you can then edit the line again using the history"
vs. "standard behaviour of many other shells including bash" etc.) or go
down to low-level menu selection.  I think modularisation will have to a
be a prerequisite for this.

- Add a mechanism covering all shell options in a suitable hierarchy;
the groups in the manual page are a starting point.  This could be down
in an "advanced" section.

- Better screen handling with zcurses.  (I don't expect I'd have
time to get to grips with this myself but it shouldn't be rocket science,
at least not big shiny rockets with lots of nozzles.)

These are all merely ideas, they are not things I would intend to do
just because I felt like it.

By the way, this is all standard zsh function stuff --- so if anyone
is looking for a project this is a good place to help.  If they were,
modularizing the current set up would be the place to start so it
becomes much simpler to maintain and upgrade.

pws