linux-kernel - making entire driver submenus selectable

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Message-ID: <Pine.LNX.4.64.0611250700480.21208@localhost.localdomain>
Date:	Sat, 25 Nov 2006 07:17:46 -0500 (EST)
From:	"Robert P. J. Day" <rpjday@...dspring.com>
To:	Linux kernel mailing list <linux-kernel@...r.kernel.org>
Subject: making entire driver submenus selectable

part 1:

  by way of intro, note how under "General setup", the last entry:

     [ ] Configure standard kernel features (for small systems)  --->

visually represents a sub-menu and *ostensibly* shows whether any of
those sub-menu choices will be selectable based on that top-level
selection.

  why can't this be applied more often, particularly under the
"Device Drivers" menu?  there are numerous categories under that menu
where you have to *go* to that submenu just to see that that option
has been deselected in its entirety.  why not use the same technique
as above and make those driver submenus selectable?

  as an example, i've attached a trivial patch that does this for MTD
support.  personally, i'd love to see a Drivers menu in which i could
*immediately* see which sub-categories are entirely deselected without
having to go into each one one at a time, and the kind of patch i've
attached for MTD would seem to allow just that.  (other submenus where
this would make sense would be things like Fusion MPT, ISDN, Telephony
... the list goes on and on.)

  (an even better approach would be to have the "--->" submenu visual
disappear if you deselect that option, but i'm not greedy -- i'll take
what i can get.  :-)

  thoughts?  and, yes, i can submit patches. :-)

part 2:

  returning to that top-level "General setup" menu, if i see something
like this:

    [ ] Configure standard kernel features (for small systems)  --->

and i don't know any better, i would have assumed that deselecting
that top-level entry would subsequently deselect all sub-menu entries.
but that's not what happens.

  even without selecting that top-level config option, one of the
sub-menu entries:

    [*]     Include all symbols in kallsyms

is still selected.  in fact, that option doesn't even depend on the
sub-menu that it's a part of.  i think that's extremely misleading --
i think that menu entries should all explicitly depend on the sub-menu
that they're a part of, to avoid potential confusion.

  thoughts on that too?

rday
View attachment "mtd.patch" of type "TEXT/PLAIN" (578 bytes)