User preferences lost between Hugs upgrades on Windows

[Neil Mitchell]

Hi,

> a) shouldn't there be a way from within Hugs (or GHCi) to
>     export/import settings?

That can be added, but no one will use it - too much effort, not
obvious thats what needs to be done.

> b) shouldn't there be an installation option checking for compatible
>     old settings and offering to copy them?

Reasonable, although I still think just having one set of settings is
a better way forward.

> c) given the move towards cabal, shouldn't there be a way for new
>     Hugs/GHC installs to take over existing library install setups
>     (provided that the libraries sources haven't been removed, and
>     that the rebuild is possible with the new Haskell implementation)?

A cabal issue, since Hugs has no knowledge of Cabal, but a reasonable idea.

> while on the subject of user preferences, does the current round
> of Hugs/GHC releases on Windows do away with that "we take
> over the handling of Haskell files, no matter what the user wanted"?

Nope :) I emailed off to people about this offering to cooperate
nicely with GHC and Hugs, but no one ever got back to me, so both
WinHugs and GHC steal the preferences. GHC also replaces the .hs
document icon with one that is more ugly. I tried to submit a patch,
and have emailed over the icons, but the GHC installer stuff isn't
publically available, so I have no way to fix it.

> - I don't want either to be the default handler for .hs/.lhs files; not
>     only do I tend to have several versions of Haskell implementations
>     installed at any time (usually including 2 ghcs), I want Haskell files
>     to open in my favourite editor, not in any of those Haskell
>     implementations (and no, going via WinHugs :e is not an option,
>     eg when browsing files from some darcs repo on the web)

Have you used a recent copy of WinHugs? The default action is to open
the file in WinHugs, but there is also an "edit" action which opens
the file in whichever editor you have configured WinHugs to use. It
does this by firing off WinHugs, checking your settings for the best
haskell editor, and starting it. If you haven't configured any editor
specially, it will find the editor that seems best - i.e. if you have
TextPad and Notepad, it will pick TextPad, otherwise it will pick
Notepad if thats all it can find. All very seamless.

I'd love to make Edit be the default, i.e. rename it to Open, and then
add Open with WinHugs. However, this is a change in how WinHugs
operates. Initially I tried to adhere quite closely to how WinHugs
worked before I hacked on it, now I think the time has come to have
Open be Edit and add Open in WinHugs.

> any chance of Haskell implementations being less greedy and more
> cooperative on Windows this time round?-)

This time around, no - you just missed the boat on WinHugs and you're
probably too late for GHC 6.6. Next time around, perhaps. I'm willing
to do the WinHugs side, but it does need someone to do the GHC side.
This is especially important because (as far as I was able to make out
last time I started asking questions), the GHC installer is generated
with a proprietory Haskell script which is not publically available.
This means the community cannot play with the GHC installer and fix
these issues.

I am willing to adapt the Hugs on Windows installer to GHC, if thats
something the GHC team would rather? You could also then have nightly
builds that included an installer.

For reference, Yhc is moving to the Hugs installer, and the Yhc
nightly builds will come with an installer. For the moment Yhc won't
register any file extensions, but if some suitable agreement can be
found, I'll make sure Yhc follows that.

Thanks

Neil