Re: Changes I've been thinking of...

[Nicola Pero]

> It would undoubtedly be good to have some packager-specific  
> documentation, but obviously the target readership is a very small  
> group ....

We *do* have packager documentation, in 

 core/make/README.Packaging

Feel free to add a short section about what was discussed here. :-)


>> - How does this allow a packager to install and remove defaults as  
>> part of package installation / uninstallation?  Presumably you can  
>> use plmerge to install them (again, is this documented anywhere?),  
>> but how do you uninstall them?

I agree with Richard's later suggestion that the package system might deal with 
that
by having a directory where each package installs a .plist upon installation, 
and removes
it upon deinstallation.  At the end of each package 
installation/deinstallation, the
package scripts could do a plmerge so that all the currently existing .plists 
in the 
directory are plmerged to create the global default plist, which is hence kept 
up-to-date. :-)

That said, it should probably be used with restrain ;-)

Presumably you have a specific example in mind where it makes particular sense 
(Etoile ?); but 
in general, I personally don't see a reason why installing a package should 
change some system defaults.  
Installing a package doesn't necessarily mean enabling it.

Eg, I could be installing 10 or 20 themes or other GNUstep GUI-changing 
bundles, but that doesn't mean
every theme that is installed must be trying to force all users to switch to 
it.  I'd expect to have
a Preferences panel somewhere where I can change my own user defaults and 
activate/deactivate the bundles
or themes I want/don't want.  Different users might activate/deactivate 
different bundles.

So I think it is more important to have a very good preference application that 
allow real users
to configure their environment to suit their needs, including turning on/off 
bundles or extensions. :-)

Thanks