GUIGNA: the GUI of Guigna is Not by Apple :)

Guigna* is the prototype of a GUI supporting Homebrew, MacPorts, Fink and pkgsrc at the same time.

Design and ideas

Guigna tries to abstract several package managers by creating generalized classes (GSystem and GPackage) while keeping a minimalist approach and using screen scraping. The original implementations in Objective-C and MacRuby/RubyMotion are being ported to Swift.

Guigna doesn't hide the complexity of compiling open source software: it launches the shell commands in a Terminal window you can monitor and interrupt. When administration privilege or another input are required, the answer to the prompt can be typed directly in the Terminal brought to the foreground thanks to the Scripting Bridge.

When multiple package managers are detected, their sandboxes are hidden by appending _off to their prefix before the compilation phase. An on-line mode, however, allows to get the details about the packages by scraping directly their original repositories.

Feedback

Guigna is at a very early stage of development and it is tested only for the latest versions of macOS, Xcode and Swift betas. Some preliminary builds are available from Dropbox.

Some advice and warnings:

• Add the system prefixes (/opt/local, /usr/local, /sw) and their hidden versions (with a _off suffix) to the Private section of the Spotlight preference panel, since they are renamed continuously. No other modifications are made to the system: simply delete ~/Library/Application Support/Guigna and execute defaults delete name.soranzio.guido.Guigna for a fresh restart.
• In systems other than MacPorts and Homebrew many commands don't work since they are still sketched mock-ups.
• Stop is not implemented yet. Forcing quitting and restarting Guigna should offer to unhide the detected prefixes. Remember that, in comparison to other traditional GUIs, Guigna is scripting the Terminal and you can always check the tasks which are executing in the shell.

    GSource is a collection of GItems
       .                         .
      /_\                       /_\
       |                         |             status: available
       |                         |                     uptodate
                                                       outdated
    GSystem                  GPackages                 inactive


    The following GSystem methods execute the corresponding command,
    update the 'items' array and return a copy:

    - list
    - installed
    - outdated
    - inactive

    The following methods build and return the corresponding commands
    as strings:

    -   installCmd(pkg)
    - uninstallCmd(pkg)
    -   upgradeCmd(pkg)
    
    The following methods execute specific commands and return the output:
   
    -     home(item)   URL of the original website
    -      log(item)   URL of the page listing the versions/commits
    -     info(item)   output of the 'info' command
    -     deps(item)   list of the dependencies/requirements
    -      cat(item)   portfile, formula, spec or makefile
    - contents(item)   list of installed files


    Other GSystem methods and properties:

    - index     dictionary of the system's items, having
                'name-system' as keys: it is used for a fast
                access when determining new and updated items

    - [name]    accessor to the indexed package carrying that name

    - prefix    /opt/local, /usr/local, /sw, /usr/pkg, ...

    - cmd       prefix + /bin/port | bin/brew | /bin/fink | ...

    - agent     passed by appDelegate and implementing the methods:
                - nodesForURL:XPath:
                - outputForCommand:
                - appDelegate (it gives access to GuignaAppDelegate)

    - outputFor shortcut for calling agent's outputForCommand: method,
                passing a format and a va_list of args
                

    GPackage properties:

    - system     weak reference to its GSystem (GSource)
      (source)

    - installed  installed version (string or nil)

    - mark       enum: install, uninstall, upgrade, fetch, ...

    - options    available variants/options/flags, joined by space

    - marked     variants/options/flags marked by the user for committing
      Options

    - *Cmd       shortcuts to self.system.*Cmd(pkg), passing itself as argument
      
    Inactive packages are not indexed and are inserted also directly in
    the appDelegate's allPackages array.

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* The Kodkod (Leopardus guigna), also called guiña, is the smallest cat in the Americas.