Re: Packaging system improvements
On Thu, 10 Jul 1997, Yann Dirson wrote:
> > Providing a keyword list will allow people to better chose what they
> > want to see in the package selection list. The current package list
> > is already too big to handle with just sections and it's going to
> > get worse.
>
> Yes, but a keyword list provides very poor structure for this type of
> information. Providing several concurent ways of classifying the
> pacakges will give better structure, and thus will be easier (more
> straightforward) to search.
>
> I suggest (again) at least the following fields:
>
> Interface: (eg. X11, console, tty, stdio)
> MainFonctionnality: (eg. editors, devel/compilers,
> games/arcade/tetris-like, etc.)
> DistPolicy: (eg. free/GPL, free/PD, free/custom,
> restricted/non-profit, etc.)
But, as Goswin Brederlow <goswin.brederlow@student.uni-tuebingen.de>
said:
> The main problem I face when looking for a package is that dselect can't
> go to a section or search full text. Lets say I search for a fractal
> program? How could I find it? [...]
I tend to avoid using dselect, but I have occasionally used it to
search for a package which does XYZ, and wishing that it'd search
the full package description for me. Currently, I generally
"zless Packages.gz" and do a text search. Doing that, I see
two packages mentioning "fractal": xaos in section graphics,
and xmountains in section games.
I think that the search capabilities need to be a good match with
what users will be searching for. If package searches don't do
a good job of finding what users want to find, they're not very
useful (regardless of how straightforward the search methodology).
IMO, whatever other fancy search strategies are offered, a brute-force
search of package Description fields for a case-insensitive match with
a user-supplied keyword (or keyword list) should be available.
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