Re: ANNOUCE: gTrouble - New project

[Miguel de Icaza <miguel nuclecu unam mx>]

> gTrouble will be a flexible extensible trouble-shooting application,
> reading guides from sgml files, and walking users through the
> contents. An example sgml file is included at the bottom of this mail
> to show the kind of thing I hope to achieve.

This looks wonderful!

Although, I have to agree with the other poster.  Perhaps using XML
would give you a bit more of control on the generation of the actual
file process and adapt it to your needs.

> gTrouble would provide a library of test routines for use in guides,
> so (as in the example below) tests such as file existence /
> permissions / program versions etc could be implemented in addition
> to asking the user questions.

Very good thinking.  Perhaps it would be good to embedd scripts in a
popular language on it?  Perl strikes me as a good idea, as it good
for doing a lot of Unix-ish tasks as well as having a very nice CORBA
support that would enable the testing program to control the running
applications and query them live.

Something like:

<page ref="modem">
	<question ref="is_modem_working">
	<qtext>
		<para>Is your modem operational?</para>
	<perl>
		open dev, "/dev/ttyS0" || 
		open dev, "/dev/ttyS1" ||
			return "NODE:Could not open any modem device";
	</perl>
</page>

Or stuff like:
<page ref="Gnumeric printing">
	<question ref="output_is_choppped">
	<qtext>
		<para>Is the print output being chooped above?</para>
	</qtext>
	<perl>
		import GNOME::Gnorba;

		$gnumeric = goad_object_activate ("GOADID:Gnumeric");
		if ($gnumeric->paper_type == "A4"){
			return "NODE:Perhaps your selected paper size is wrong";
		}
	</perl>
</page>
		
I love the idea, I just love it.

miguel@gnu.org