# dialogwrapper for improving port options setting



## wblock@ (Sep 13, 2012)

dialogwrapper has now been committed to Tools/scripts in /usr/ports. Further testing is requested.


What is dialogwrapper?

dialogwrapper is a wrapper script for dialog(1) that works around some bugs and takes advantage of new features to make ports options setting easier and better.

On FreeBSD 9 and later, two major features are available:

1. Extended descriptions.  If a description won't fit in the space available, a "+" is shown at the far right and the remainder is shown at the bottom of the screen.  The easiest way to test this is to pick a port, edit one of the option descriptions to be very long, then run make config.  Hopefully this will eventually allow port maintainers to use longer and more meaningful descriptions.

2. Variable menu size.  Options screens in windows larger than 80x24 show wider descriptions and more lines.  Convenient example: with a tall window, do make config in print/ghostscript9.

On FreeBSD 8, dialog(1) does not have a needed feature, so extended descriptions are merely chopped off.  This also helps to avoid a bug in the older version's display of descriptions that are too long.


How do I use dialogwrapper?

Update your copy of the ports tree, then add this line to /etc/make.conf :


```
DIALOG="/usr/ports/Tools/scripts/dialogwrapper.sh"
```

Configure port options as usual.  It should look and work the same as usual, but handle long descriptions and bigger windows as described above.


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