[Ifeffit] Fink for Mac OS X and debian for Linux (was: new versions of my programs)

[Matt Newville]

Hi Paul, Sefano,

I have a few comments on this thread about Mac OS X and Fink
packages for Ifeffit.  It's fine with me if you want to maintain
Fink or debian packages (or RPMS or ...). In general, my preference
is to make the source kits easier to use when possible, and if you
have Fink, then using the source kits _should_ be possible.

The current binary distribution of Ifeffit ignores (or is supposed
to ignore) the Fink installation.  This is so that Fink is not
*required* for Ifeffit and users without Fink can install Ifeffit
and run the Ifeffit Apps by double-clicking (admittedly ugly) icons.  
I prefer to keep the independence from Fink.

For Bruce's codes, the Ifeffit installer puts a lot of stuff in the
Perl directory (/Library/Perl), including Perl/Tk.  That is, all of
horae's dependencies are already in place from the binary installer,
and ready to use.  So one approach to getting updates for horae
would be to make the binary installer more Fink-friendly, so that it
would be possible to do
  ~> /Applications/Ifeffit/bin/iff_init.sh
  ~> horae_update

from the Terminal for a system with Ifeffit installed from the
binary and Fink (with g77) installed.  This would then follow the
'normal unix update' and would allow a Fink-enabled Mac to update as
soon as Bruce released a new version, without a separate 'package'.

To get this to work will likely mean fiddling with the horae_update
script and the horae Makefile.PL, and with the binary installer.  I
think this is non-trivial but not too hard. It might take a few
iterations, but seems much more desirable than a Fink package to me.

== On the Aquaterm/PGPLOT terminal: 

The last time I looked (many months ago), the Aquaterm device for
PGPLOT did not support the cursor.  That seems like a big drawback
to me. The current binary install of Ifeffit uses a PGPLOT library
that I built myself, with the X11 but not the Aquaterm device (of
course, athena and artemis also require X11...).  I'm willing to
have both X11 and Aquaterm devices, but I could not get the Aquaterm
device to build from source the last time I tried.  If you (or
anyone else) knows how to do this, that would be very helpful.

Finally, I think that getting the Mac Installer and horae_update to
work together is better than building a Fink package.

--Matt