Setup as a Class not a procedure

—David Lyon

Let's modernise setup and make it Object Oriented.

This will make it more user friendly and easier to learn and use.

To do this, we'll need to:

1) Extend setup.cfg to hold more/all-of the metadata

2) Turn 'setup' into a class (rather than a procedure)

3) Provide member information:

• destination directory (self.destination?).
• self.os_name - Operating system.
• self.window_manager - Window manager.
• self.scripts - location of script directories.
• self.data_dir - location of data directories.
• self.doc_dir - location of docs directories.
• self.desktop_shortcuts - an object for adding shortcuts.
• self.program_shortcuts - an object for adding shortcuts.
• self.packages -list of python packages already installed
• self.web_environment - information about the web environment

4) self.pre_setup() - A method run before setup

• This method can read member properties and do pre-setup
  • initialisation.
• When the "self."* properties are then all adjusted
  • the code can proceed to the 'self.setup()' method where the actual install can be done.

5) self.post_setup() - A method for post-install configuration

• This then gives the application a chance to do post
  • setup initialisation.
• Examples are modifying attributes, registering
  • libraries, generating documentation...