I checked into base last night (http://trac.macosforge.org/projects/ macports/changeset/25147), some code to support variant descriptions. The syntax I chose was the following: variant myvariant description "This variant does this and that" { configure.args-append --do-this --do-that } I'd love to get feedback both on the syntax. The syntax is a little bit different because it requires quoting of the description string -- something we don't often use in portfiles. Please give feedback on whether you like this, or whether we should use a syntax like this: variant myvariant { configure.args-append --do-this --do-that } variant_description myvariant This variant does this and that (which doesn't need quoting of the description). Secondly, in order to emit the description in port info, I expanded the variant section to show a single variant per line, which makes info a bit longer. Please let me know if you like this, or if we should limit ourselves to showing variant descriptions in "port variants" instead. Thanks for your input on these important matters ;) James