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 :)
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