Bug#3991: marked as done (dselect has confusing and bizarre interface)
Your message dated Sun, 10 Oct 1999 02:14:10 -0400
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has caused the attached Bug report to be marked as done.
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Darren Benham
(administrator, Debian Bugs database)
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Date: Thu, 1 Aug 1996 13:13:50 -0400
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From: Daniel Quinlan <quinlan@charcoal.eg.bucknell.edu>
To: submit@bugs.debian.org
Subject: dselect has confusing and bizarre interface
Reply-To: quinlan@bucknell.edu
X-Mailer: Emacs 19.30
Package: dselect
Version: 1.12.2
dselect is more complicated than it needs to be. Anyone who has used
the package selector for RedHat can understand why people like it so
much. I like having a versatile interface such as the one dselect
offers, but it shouldn't be so incompatible keystroke-wise with other
common interfaces.
1. A consistent key should be chosen for the `quit' function, to exit
the current task. It's `q' here, space there, and enter there.
Space and enter should do something else. In most applications,
such as `dialog' enter selects, it doesn't quit. Space is also
usually a selection or toggle options, but never exit.
It's really bizarre and confusing that space and enter would do
these things.
2. A consistent key(s) should be chosen for the `help'. I suggest F1
and Ctrl-h throughout. (Like DOS or Emacs)
3. Using `/' for search forward makes me want to use `?' to search in
reverse. I hit it often enough to get really frustrated.
(`?' in `less' and `vi')
4. `/' should remember the last search instead of requiring a separate
keystroke, `\'. (`/' in `less' and `vi')
5. The package list browser should not start in help mode. There is a
reason that Emacs has an inhibit-startup-message variable.
6. The EIOM columns are not very intuitive. Remove the short
description (or move it over) since a long one is displayed below
and extend these toggles such that they are understandable.
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id 11aCFG-00038m-00; Sun, 10 Oct 1999 02:14:10 -0400
Date: Sun, 10 Oct 1999 02:14:10 -0400
From: Ben Collins <bcollins@debian.org>
To: 1685-done@bugs.debian.org, 16217-done@bugs.debian.org,
10263-done@bugs.debian.org, 4074-done@bugs.debian.org,
1037-done@bugs.debian.org
Subject: some dpkg bug maintainence with permission from wichert
Message-ID: <19991010021410.E18835@lappy.djj.state.va.us>
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User-Agent: Mutt/1.0pre2i
1685: dpkg-split command line parsing.
My take on this, the options expected aren't in a compatible format,
so it can't be made GNU style. Also the man page shows that the
complained about format is expected. IMO, if it's documented as such,
then it should be acceptible. GNU is not the endall argument format.
16217: prompting for clearing avail on updates in dselect
dselect doesn't seem to do this anymore
10263: segfaults on upgrade
Very old bug concerning libc5->libc6 upgrades. I don't think we have any
way to really reproduce it, plus the reports show that the cause was
possibly found from some dependencies, but the original poster never
responded back.
4074: conffile's left behind
Not a current problem with dpkg it seems
1037: dselect help screen
Ian said he would fix this in the report when he released the C version of
dpkg, that seems to have occured (bug report is vague on what the actual bug
is, and attempts at clarifying have failed).
Ben....more to come
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