How would you modulate categories depending on system?

[bbaserdem]

I'm rewamping my config; and if anyone wants to take a look it's here; https://github.com/bbaserdem/NixCats

I use my nixCats both in linux and macos. I want to have some runtime dependencies that are system specific (right now specifically only want to require wl-clip on linux platforms; or exclude wl-clip on darwin platforms; but I want to make my config more customizable for sure.) Was wondering what's a good approach to this? Not sure if the system variable is available as inputs to the categoryDefinitions function and packageDefinitions attrset. (I have these abstracted to different files in my config, but this shouldn't change much about the behavior of these definitions.

[BirdeeHub]

There are a few approaches.

If it is just a few that differ you could put them in their own categories and just enable them based on that.

Like you could

  lspsAndRuntimeDeps = {
    system-specific = {
      x86_64-linux = [];
      aarch64-darwin = [];
    };
  };

and then

  categories = {
    system-specific.${pkgs.system} = true;
  };

You could also use the extraCats section of your categoryDefinitions documented here if you wanted to set up defaults for things.

You can also use any of the values from the arguments to categoryDefinitions in extraCats too, except for the categories value within the extraCats section of categoryDefinitions, all other arguments are safe to use at all times, and the categories value is safe to use everywhere other than the extraCats set (as the categories value contains the final values, after extraCats is applied to it)

But idk. I honestly don't have a specific way off the top of my head, I am not that organized of a person (for stuff like config anyway, the framework for said config I go all in, to make up for it XD) I just do it the second way listed below. If you think of a cool way to categorize your stuff that works using the extraCats table to toggle other categories based on inclusion of other ones, go right ahead, there's probably some way to do it which is nice.

---

However, the arguments to your category definitions get a LOT of info.

at the top of this section, it lists the full list of arguments it can recieve :h nixCats.flake.outputs.categories

Your packageDefinitions actually can recieve quite a few things as well, including the pkgs

which are shown in the packageDefinitions section of the docs, :h nixCats.flake.outputs.packageDefinitions

They are also both shown in the utils set docs in the description for the main builder function.

If you wanted to see where they come from, that would be here and here

  categoryDefinitions = { pkgs, settings, categories, extra, name, mkPlugin, ... }@packageDef: {
    lspsAndRuntimeDeps = {
      clipboard-stuff = (if pkgs.system == "aarch64-darwin" then [
      ] else [
        pkgs.wl-clip
      ]) ++ [
      ];
    };
    startupPlugins = {
      clipboard-stuff = [
        # idk maybe you had some clipboard related plugins, just demonstrating that these are categories for onlookers
      ];
      # ...
    };
    # ...
  };

You can always just check pkgs.system or ANY of the values from your packageDefinition for this package (the one currently being installed) whenever you want in there.

So, instead of checking pkgs.system you could also do something like this if you wanted

  categoryDefinitions = { pkgs, settings, categories, extra, name, mkPlugin, ... }@packageDef: {
    lspsAndRuntimeDeps = {
      clipboard-stuff = (if settings.macos or false then [
      ] else [
        pkgs.wl-clip
      ]) ++ [
      ];
    };
    # ...
  };
  packageDefintions = {
    macnvim = { pkgs, name, mkPlugin, luaPath, this, ... }: { # be careful with `this`, it is the result of calling the function
      settings = {
        aliases = [ "vi" ];
        macos = true;
      };
      # ...
    };
    # other packages ...
  };

[BirdeeHub]

Also, I swear, every single nixCats user has a better organized config than me XD I made the tools to organize stuff and then got distracted by shiny new things to learn XD I have found a use for most of the features still though, even extraCats, but just in a very organic way that I am too lazy to refactor.