[Request] heidisql, heidisql-gtk2, heidisql-qt6, heidisql-qt5

[D3SOX]

Package

Shared files: https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/heidisql

heidisql-client Providers: https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/heidisql-gtk2 https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/heidisql-qt6 https://aur.archlinux.org/pkgbase/heidisql-qt5 (optionally)

I also have git packages for gtk2 and qt6 if there's interest

Purpose

This program is well known, open source and is a tool to connect to Databases and manage/administer them. It has support for a variety of database formats.

I am the maintainer of these packages and now completed a refactor and think this is now ready for submission to the Chaotic AUR. This package provides the Linux version of HeidiSQL. heidisql only provides shared files and all other packages listed are providers of heidisql-client. It was not possible to put it in depends of heidisql because then AUR helpers freaked out and couldn't resolve it because of a circular dependency. I think this could be solvable in an AUR helper but for now they must be optdepends.

It's currently in beta state, but it will only become better over time as the dev is actively working on it, and he also announced that the Windows codebase will be moved over to the free Lazarus Linux version.

I don't use the Chaotic AUR myself, but I think it could help people that don't like compiling because their only other option is using the gtk2-bin package, the other builds were not compatible with Arch because of library mismatch issues (they build on Ubuntu as far as I can recall).

License

GPL-2.0

Submission checklist

• [x] The package is not banned.
• [x] The package is not available in Chaotic AUR or official Arch repos.
• [x] The package has not already been requested.

[xiota]

Is heidisql a front-end launcher? The other packages should stand on their own and provides/conflicts heidsql. Or it could be switched to build the qt6 version and the toolkit variants deleted from AUR. Users should avoid installing EOL gtk2 and qt5.

[D3SOX]

heidisql currently provides the launcher script translations files and more that are needed to run the heidisql-client variants. They use the shared files from it. The goal with this was I wanted to avoid copying all that logic to all separate packages. Now that I think of it maybe a real meta package / multi-package PKGBUILD would be the correct thing here. I'm open for suggestions.

The thing about the variants is

• currently GTK is considered to be more stable but afaik at this time only GTK2 works with Lazarus, not later version
• officially it is only released as GTK2 and Qt5. Qt6 was just something I tried and it worked. As a disclaimer it might come with additional bugs at this point.

So that's where we are.

[xiota]

If I were maintainer, I would make aur/heidisql a monolithic package based on Qt6. Open requests to delete -gtk2, -qt5, -qt6 variants from AUR. If you want users to have access to other variants, put a _widgets variable in the package they can change. Also, consider adding compiler/linker flags to reduce namcap warnings. See aur/peazip for example.

Note: Should more or less solve the circular-depends AUR helper problem, and be easier to maintain. Chaotic AUR builders are not immune from package co-dependency issues. Best way to fix them is to not create them in the first place.

[D3SOX]

I generally like your idea and appreciate the help but that would mean you could no longer have multiple variants installed at once, wouldn't it?

[xiota]

Practically, most people don't need more than one variant at a time, especially when 2/3 use EOL libraries. Only the developer or package maintainer might want to do that for testing, but if the versions targeting deprecated libraries are removed, the need to test additional packages also goes away.

[D3SOX]

I get that but still the project is very early on Linux and tends to crash often especially when building with Qt. I just created a bug report for that https://github.com/HeidiSQL/HeidiSQL/issues/2344

I suggest putting this on hold and waiting for a few more releases to iron those bugs out. Then I swill make the switch and notify you again. You may leave the issue open or close it for now.