bugSynaptic - Bugs: bug #3864, ui/usability improvments2

 
 

bug #3864: ui/usability improvments2

Submitter:  Michael Vogt <mvogt>
Submitted:  Wed 04 Jun 2003 10:23:33 AM UTC
   
 
Category:  None Severity:  2 - Minor
Item Group:  None Status:  None
Privacy:  Public Assigned to:  mvogt
Open/Closed:  Open
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Mon 04 Oct 2004 08:44:10 PM UTC, comment #7: 

Thanks, maybe you know when new version with ability to install reccomended packages as default will be released ?

It would be great if sarge would be released with this ability, I think synaptic will be the best graphical package manager in sarge and it would be great if synaptic in sarge would follow debian policy :)

Mantas Kriauciunas <mantas>
Sun 03 Oct 2004 02:31:23 PM UTC, comment #6: 

Hi Mantas,

sorry for the the removal of the "install recommends by default". it's back in the current developers tree of
synaptic and will be part of the next release.

bye,
 Michael

Michael Vogt <mvogt>
Group administrator
Mon 27 Sep 2004 09:23:31 AM UTC, comment #5: 

Why you removed option to install recommended packages as default in versions 0.5x ?
According debian-policy (http://www.debian.org/doc/debian-policy/ch-relationships.html#s-binarydeps ) recommended packages should be installed in all but unusual installations, so synaptic now doesn't follow debian policy :(

Mantas Kriauciunas <mantas>
Tue 18 Nov 2003 11:58:02 AM UTC, comment #4: 

1. fixed IMHO (find is in package menu though)
3. fixed
2. we work on this :)

if a package can't be installed, synaptic will tell you now why not

Michael Vogt <mvogt>
Group administrator
Fri 10 Oct 2003 02:27:38 PM UTC, comment #3: 

"" I think there should be an option (turned off by default) ""

What is the use-case of making this option, versus just always being on?  I see no reason to add an unneeded option - why would anyone need to turn it off, ever?

Anonymous
Wed 04 Jun 2003 01:56:06 PM UTC, comment #2: 

the search code has improved now, there was indeed a problem with querrys like "video player". it should now produce basicly the same output as apt-cache search

Michael Vogt <mvogt>
Group administrator
Wed 04 Jun 2003 10:25:52 AM UTC, comment #1: 


Back to Synaptic, one more usability suggestion - if a package can't be installed/upgraded, it never says why (that I can tell). It just refuses to mark the application as ready to be installed/upgraded. If the reason can't be extracted (don't know how you're getting the output from apt, thru a lib or parsing output), at least a dialog like "This package cannot be [installed|upgraded]. This may be due to uninstallable dependencies or a broken package. [OK]"

Michael Vogt <mvogt>
Group administrator
Wed 04 Jun 2003 10:23:33 AM UTC, original submission:  

I think this bug has to be splitted into several bugs:

1. About search:
Most users expect to get a video player program when they type text "video player" in field "Find Package" in main synaptic window. I think there should be an option (turned off by default) "Exact package searching" (which controls behaviour to search by description or by exact name in "Find Package" field in main synaptic window) in synaptic preferences. Btw, why search by description in synaptic 0.36 and apt-cache search produces different results ?
Search meniu item should be added to Action meniu, not to main menu. Also only one search action with ability search in package name and package description (like "Filter Packages" dialog in stormpkg program) should be added.

2. Installing recommended and/or suggested packages
With stormpkg installing recommended or suggested packages is very easy. Now synaptic contains option "Automaticaly select recommended packages on actions", which is very helpful, but this can also be improved - just do like stormpkg:
when user presses install button and "changes" dialog with packages (to be marked for installation) is displayed, synaptic could also show suggested packages in this dialog with the ability to install wanted ones - I think two more columns could be added - one with checkbox and second one with dependency type (depend, recommend or suggest).

3. Filtering and sorting
There are no way to filter packages by size or to find a package, that wastes more space on disk in synaptic. I think in main package view should be columns "Package Size" and "Installed Size" (or at least one column "Size" which means installed size) and posibility to sort packages by clicking on headers of these columns should be added.

About half a year ago deity - very good apt frontend was removed from debian :(((. This fronted had the ability to sort and filter packages list by size, section, installed or available version, and other parameters.
Try to use deity and you will see how comfortable and powerfull it is.
You can download deity from
http://files.akl.lt/veidrodis/misc_deb_packages/stable/ (gtk frontend is still buggy, but curses frontend is pretty stable). You can grab best ideas from deity and stormpkg :)

Michael Vogt <mvogt>
Group administrator

 

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Follow 2 latest changes.

Date Changed by Updated Field Previous Value => Replaced by
2004-09-27 mantas Carbon-Copy- Added mantas
2003-06-04 mvogt Assigned toNone None

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