On all things GUI!

[lundman]

Earlier in the mailing lists we were discussing GUIs for O3X, and I could imagine three separate programs that could be useful. Or not?

1: Installer.
Already done, and works well.

2: Control Panel / System Preferences
O3X could probably do with having one of these, for system wide things. I could imagine at least having version display (kext too), arc.max setting, autoimport toggle, and various ZED tweaks.

3: Actual ZFS GUI
Referring more specifically to the usage of ZFS. List drives, create pool, status, add/replace vdevs and that sort of thing. I personally dislike writing software for just one OS, and here there is scope to write something that would work for everyone. There also exists some implementations already (zfs.guru at least, but 'php'). This is a larger/separate project for sure, but still interesting to think about.

[Marco]

They would be very useful.
Perhaps some GUI for copying or synching to the ZFS pool?
I am now experimenting with SyncTwoFolders, and it seems to work. I think it tells the Finder to do the copying, though, and it is quite slow.

[ilovezfs]

I personally dislike writing software for just one OS

I think in the long run, we will be much better off with a native Cocoa application, rather than something cross platform. And I would not dream of asking you to write it.

[lundman]

Hmm yes, my GUIs are very logical and rational (some would say spartan!), but for some reason that doesn't seem to work for 99% of users. Besides we have the Windows ZFS port before GUI work! Eh!

[rodaddy]

Hmm yes, my GUIs are very logical and rational (some would say spartan!), but for some reason that doesn't seem to work for 99% of users. Besides we have the Windows ZFS port before GUI work! Eh!

That only means you are a true developer. It works, that's what I want.

I'm the same

[jeremychu]

I'm comfortable with Cocoa development if anyone is looking for volunteers.
Would I be correct in thinking a ZFS GUI would just be calling the command line tools? If so, then maybe a browser based tool might be better (although I'm not a fan of php these days). Would it be crazy to suggest node.js?

[ilovezfs]

I'm comfortable with Cocoa development if anyone is looking for volunteers.
Would I be correct in thinking a ZFS GUI would just be calling the command line tools? If so, then maybe a browser based tool might be better (although I'm not a fan of php these days). Would it be crazy to suggest node.js?

That is one approach, but mostly it will probably be better to link directly to libzfs and to lean on zed.

[ilovezfs]

I'm comfortable with Cocoa development if anyone is looking for volunteers.

Yes, of course. Come talk in #openzfs-osx some time. Any thoughts on doing it in Swift?

[jeremychu]

Cool, see you on #openzfs-osx.
Hadn't considered Swift although now you mention it I don't see why not.

[jeremychu]

I'm comfortable with Cocoa development if anyone is looking for volunteers.
Would I be correct in thinking a ZFS GUI would just be calling the command line tools? If so, then maybe a browser based tool might be better (although I'm not a fan of php these days). Would it be crazy to suggest node.js?

That is one approach, but mostly it will probably be better to link directly to libzfs and to lean on zed.

Ok - yes, that does seem better.