[GRASS-dev] Re: #12: gis.m->Help->About system doesn't work

[Glynn Clements]

Patton, Eric wrote:

> > >Sounds like we don't really need this then. Anyone object to me  
> > >getting rid of this menu entry?
> > 
> > >Michael
> > 
> > Not me. I never have need for this feature. Hints for augmenting bug
> > reports with system info can just be added to the bug reporting
> > section of the WIKI if need be.
> 
> >How is the user supposed to get that information?
> 
> >Asking the user to run tclsh manually and get the contents of
> >$tcl_platform introduces a risk that they might run the wrong tclsh
> >(quite easily done on Windows and MacOSX systems, where you may have
> >both "native" and "Unix" versions of Tcl/Tk installed).
> 
> >-- 
> >Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>
> 
> Couldn't that information be supplied through standard Unix commands 
> (asking out of ignorance, I don't really know)?

There are Unix commands which will obtain information about the
system. But they won't provide information about Tcl/Tk itself, nor
about Tcl's "perspective" of the system (e.g. if you compile the
Unix/X11 version of Tcl/Tk for Cygwin, $tcl_platform(platform) will be
"unix", whereas for a native version it will be "windows".

If there are problems with gis.m, then it's the Tcl information which
really matters.

> I don't think I've ever seen an instance where the output from 
> 'About System' has ever been used in a bug report; not that it couldn't,
> of course.

I wouldn't expect the information to be "volunteered", but it may be
useful to be able to ask the user to provide this information without
having to provide long, complex and error-prone instructions on how to
obtain it.

In that regard, it's important that the information is displayed in
such a way that it can easily be copied into an email message (i.e. 
display it in a text widget, not a label).

-- 
Glynn Clements <glynn at gclements.plus.com>