Bug#520520: clive: usability regression in switch to perl rewrite

[Toni Gundogdu]

On Mon, Jun 22, 2009 at 9:23 PM, Gerfried Fuchs <rhonda at deb.at> wrote:
>  That would still make --exec the default and technically it doesn't
> matter much if I have to type --no-exec or --exec ';'
>
>  I really am looking for a way to define a default exec value and just
> switch on exec when wanted for that default, *not* for turning it off.

While I understand your point of view, I am going to have to say
no to this request. --exec already does what the requested --play
would do -- with the difference that --exec defines the invoked
expression. One can just as well type them or wrap the more
extreme expressions in scripts if needed.

--exec can be used to invoke any command subsequently, not only
players. The requested change would require re-implementing --exec
e.g. leaving it for defining the invoked expression only.

--play would also imply that clive had a some kind of playback
feature. This caused confusion in the past as some users tried
to use --play without --player.

Even if --exec was re-implemented to allow:
  % echo "--exec="gmplayer %i;" >> ~/.cliverc
  % clive --exec="1;" URL

The above would be impossible with the current program design
without making drastic changes to the project which to me seems
like an overkill for such a trivial feature improvement.


The old, the new and the proposed
---------------------------------

2.x:
  % clive --exec="gmplayer %i;" URL
  % clive URL # --exec defined in config
  % clive --no-exec URL # proposed change

1.x:
  % clive --player="gmplayer %i;" --play=src URL
  % clive --play=src URL # --player defined in config
  % clive URL