[Debconf-devel] Debconf - adding "treeselect" type(s)?

[Steve McIntyre]

Colin Watson wrote:
>On Mon, Nov 30, 2020 at 10:18:05AM +0000, Steve McIntyre wrote:
>> 
>> For frontends that can't meaningfully deal with a tree (like
>> showing/hiding sub-trees), I think the best way is to maybe just
>> display the entire tree and treat it as the equivalent
>> select/multiselect. It's not great, but at least it should work.
>
>Agreed.  That shouldn't be too much work.

ACK.

>> >How were you imagining Choices working here?
>> 
>> I'm envisaging treating the Choices *mostly* like in an existing
>> select/multiselect, but with extra decoration to indicate the position
>> in the tree for display. It would then be up to the frontend to decode
>> that and work out a sensible way to display things as best it can. Not
>> sure on the best way to do the decoration, hoping there'll be an
>> available special character or similar that we could use in strings to
>> avoid too big an upheaval here.
>
>Since the question type is new, you'd have room to define this.  I worry
>a bit about how in-band decoration would interact with localisation,
>though - it would be easy for translators to accidentally break the tree
>structure, and potentially difficult to spot.
>
>An alternative might be to have the contents of each subtree listed in a
>different field somehow.  But I'm not sure - it may be worth prototyping
>a couple of different approaches.

Nod. I'll have a play and see what I can come up with.

-- 
Steve McIntyre, Cambridge, UK.                                steve at einval.com
"You can't barbecue lettuce!" -- Ellie Crane