Re: [Zero-install-devel] Console output on Windows

[Bastian E. <ba...@ei...>]

> > The ZeroInstall code contains a bunch of .startswith('/') checks to 
> > differentiate local paths from URLs.
>
> Use os.path.isabs() instead.

I have done this locally now.

Shouldn't this be changed directly in the master branch instead of only the
Windows branch?


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The 0launch implementation selection GUI code located in get_selections_gui
in Zeroinstall/helpers.py uses "socket.socketpair()" and "os.fork()" which
don't seem to work on Windows. 


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> > I could set the DISPLAY environment variable to something more or less 
> > random (like "localhost") in 0launchw.exe. That way 0launch will think 
> > there's an X Server available and try to use the GTK+ GUI.
>
> That seems like a roundabout way to do a simple boolean flag...

True. The best way would probably be to replace all the
"os.environ.get('DISPLAY', None)" calls with a common helper function with a
Platform check.

However, I am not a Python developer myself and thus so far not a patch
contributor. Therefore just setting the DISPLAY variable from the outside
seemed like a reasonable workaround for the time being.


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> Checking whether stdout is a TTY might be a way. (isatty() in C, but I
guess there will be probably some Python way, too.) However, that would also
be triggered by the console version redirected to a file.

Think of the following two scenarios:

User launches 0launch from the console and wants 0launch's output to appear
on that same console. This can only be achieved by a non-GUI application.

User launches 0launch via a Windows shortcut and does not want a black box
to pop up. This can only be achieved by a GUI application.

I don't really see how checking if stdout is connected to a terminal would
help.

The fact that neither the Java nor the Python developers came up with a
better idea than creating separate Console- und GUI-versions of their
interpreter EXEs is a strong indicator for me that this is simply a
"weakness" of the Windows platform we will have to live with.