Xapian discuss - Apr 2024 - GUIs [was Re: queries for a set of values]

On Sat, Apr 27, 2024 at 09:19:42AM +0530, Susmita/Rajib
wrote:
> Thank you, Mr. Wong and Mr. Betts, for your crucial inputs. The only
> aspect which I find missing is an intuitive GUI and doesn't bother us
> with nitty-gritty / intricacies / 'remembering the code bits' of
the
> CUI / terminal.
> 
> Such a GUI system would welcome more users and make the program more
> popular among users.
We actually used to have an example GUI called xapview, but it was
removed in 2008 as it was unmaintained and hadn't actually worked in
years:

https://git.xapian.org/?p=xapian;a=commitdiff;h=adbbba3d23bfe49481ffeb11a9fcd351d55e044b

There are a few problems with providing a standard GUI.

It's hard to provide a single GUI that satisfies everyone as they're
inherently less easy to write portably than command line or web
interfaces.  Some are specific to a single platform.  Some are more
portable, but these tend to result in a sub-par user experience on some
platforms compared to others.

The APIs are often less stable over time, which means they require
more maintenance time and effort just to keep them working (this
is why xapview ended up being removed).

If you're wanting us to provide a GUI as an example of how to use Xapian
in a GUI, they don't actually make very good examples as there's a lot
of code specific to the GUI system in use obscuring the Xapian code
(take a look at xapview.cpp at the link above).  For example if we
provided a GTK-based GUI Xapian example, that's unlikely to actually
help you write a native Android GUI using Xapian more than a command
line example of how to use Xapian would.

So overall I'm afraid it doesn't seem the best use of our sadly finite
development resources.

Cheers,
    Olly

On Mon, 29 Apr 2024 at 04:44, Olly Betts <olly at survex.com>
wrote:
> We actually used to have an example GUI called xapview, but it was
> removed in 2008 ...
> [   ...   ]
> So overall I'm afraid it doesn't seem the best use of our sadly
finite
> development resources.
Yes, I understand. Totally understand. But a simple CUI (terminal) is
also an irritant. A lot of physical/mental notes need to be kept.

I assume that Omega-CGI is Omega Common Gateway Interface, as per
web-scripting terminology.

At least the Omega Documentation: https://xapian.org/docs/omega/,
particularly, the webpages, Omega overview:
https://xapian.org/docs/omega/overview.html, CGI Parameters:
https://xapian.org/docs/omega/cgiparams.html and OmegaScript:
https://xapian.org/docs/omega/omegascript.html could have been
visually more illustrative. To me they appear like character jungles
without a clear entry point.

Of course, c programming and CUI create an environment for attracting
such individuals who generally are Large Language Model General
Pre-trained Transformers, and it was the best one when resources were
expensive and a mainframe computer occupied a whole room. But today,
smartphones pack much more computational resources than the
(super)computers 70 years ago.

So I would request you to make life a little easier for us who use
computers for purposes other than programming. For individuals whose
vocations aren't programming.

Best wishes,
Rajib
Etc.