[MPlayer-users] mencoder compile fails

[Lobster]

> Le nonidi 9 fructidor, an CCXVIII, Lobster a écrit :
>> Sorry about that, It was the default mode my mail client was working in,
>> Have now reconfigured.
> Thanks.
>
>>> I wonder if it would not be better, from a communication point of view, to
>>> make configure fail with a clear error message if a few key features.
>> If anything configure should supply a decent warning, but there are
>> times people don't want or need freetype or other
>> dependencies.
>>
>> I myself couldn't care less about subtitles or osd, and most of the
>> machines I use MPlayer on don't even have X or monitors attached.
>>
>> So just keep in mind, because you think not having some thing cripples
>> MPlayer, it does not mean others feel the same way.
> Of course. While I was testing configure, I forgot to add the end of my
> sentence:
>
> ... fail with a clear error message if a few key features... are disabled
> due to autodetection.
>
> My idea, without much thought, is to have some sort of --check-features
> option, with a sane default value (xv,alsa,ass on Linux for example), and if
> these features are disabled at the end of configure, configure fails.
>
> (It is important that it fails, since it is difficult for automated scripts
> to parse warnings.)
>
> People who want to build MPlayer for unusual uses can just add
> --check-features=fbdev,oss.
>
> Anyway, that is just a thought in the spur of the moment.
>

My personal opinion would be that if configure thinks "sane 
dependencies" are not installed, It exits with a error code
to say to any automated scripts some thing was wrong, and a nice big 
message for real people to read rather than a
complete failure.

One of my biggest gripes with MPlayers configure is there is a big 
message below the reports of what are enabled
and disabled, so "joe bloggs" user may not even notice that part of 
configure because it may just scroll out of the
terminal. So any messages alerting people to the fact they dont have 
"sane dependencies" would have to come
after that.