> Well .. if notes are going away, that's something entirely different. > > I looked at the .config file in question, and I have three notes. > > I have a warning message that is marked as high, a message that tells the user > how to actually build the package, which is medium, and I check for the > presence of another essential package and display a warning if it is missing.
qmail-src/build could either be considered important enough to have its priority raised to high...or could maybe move to README.Debian. Considering that users who install qmail-src probably already know that they will have to do something special to get the qmail binary, I'd probably suggest moving that one to README.Debian The same probably goes for the qmail-src/warning for about the same reasons. qmail-src/ucspitcp could be considered an "error" and thus use the "error" template type. Such "error" templates are recommended to be used in situation where a previous check verifies whether some conditions are fulfilled or not. > > The reason it was coded that way, was that I read this in the packaging manual > at http://www.debian.org/doc/packaging-manuals/debconf_specification.html: > > "note This template is a note that can be displayed to the user. As > opposed to > text, it is something important, that the user really should see. If it is not > possible to display it, it might be saved to a log file or mailbox for them to > see later." In the discussion that lead to the mass bug filing, Joey Hess mentioned that this has been abandoned (at least partly....IIRC debconf only mails "critical" notes, or so...better ask Joey directly. > This tells me that note is exactly what I want to use to display info to the > user. This is the entire reason I implemented debconf in the first place, was > to display messages to the users. If that is not going to be possible > anymore, > I will have to switch back to dumping the messages to the console. > > If I don't include the message that you have to take an additional step to > actually build a binary qmail package, most users won't figure it out, don't > know where the readme files, and will simply get frustrated and either > complain > about it or file a bug. Well, your package description is saying: "Source only package for building qmail binary package"..... From my POV, it makes very clear that installing this package will *not* give you a working qmail but you'll have to do some other actions to have it running properly (namely compile it). It is my understanding that users who will install this package will be some kind of power users...at least powered enough to go looking in /usr/share/doc/qmail-src > I could change the type to text, which will have no effect on the end users > experience, but would remove the evil note. I just need to force the user to > see the message, and click OK. I don't really care if it's a note, text, > whatever. I just need them to see it, and acknowledge it. That's all. "error" type could be considered appropriate as an alternative to README.Debian even if we're not exactly speaking about an "error" I can't promise that noone will criticize this later, though....probably with the rationale that wanting to display this information in all cases could be considered as too strong.
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