Re: gdselect alpha 3 [libapt]
On Nov 25, Havoc Pennington decided to present us with:
>
> Well for the most part gnome-apt doesn't need the buttons you have, just
> the information.
That's why I included a switch to omit the "Install it!" button
:-) OTOH, I don't see why you would want to lose the other
buttons. Even if you already have options elsewhere to inspect
control files or view contents, I still think gdeb is a good
place to have these. But I don't know, let's wait for these
screenshots and see how you're doing things.
> So putting it in a text widget (highlighting and formatting as
> appropriate so the different fields are labelled and distinct)
> seems reasonable to me.
Yes, we know what the fields mean... but for average users that
would be intimidating IMHO. As I said before, compare "dpkg -s"
with the stuff in http://www.debian.org/Packages/
> Essentially the gnome-apt version was/is planned to be
> noninteractive, since all those interactive features are
> already provided elsewhere. (I assume you've seen Wichert's
> document describing the proposed interface.)
I can't find it. I have read it when it was written some
millenia ago, but I don't remember many of it. And I'm sure I
have a copy somewhere, but... :-) [any URL around?]
> Looks nice. For gnome-apt, we would need to lose the notebook
> and the title stuff above it. We want to have two widgets, one
> with the package description only and one with all the other
> information (IIRC, I am not looking at the design doc).
> gnome-apt places each widget in a paned window and
> configurably displays one or both or neither.
Again, I would have to see your screenshots and/or re-read the
doc, but I think this is a mistake. I mean, it was a good idea
when it was written, but we didn't have gtk back then ;-) Right
now, seeing my work and what I heard from yours, I _think_ the
best-looking sollution would be:
/----------------------+-----------------\
| | |
| your package | |
| tree widget | gdeb |
| | |
| +-----------------+
| | a box with |
| | buttons for the |
| | actions |
\----------------------+------------------/
Try to "mindshot" this, I'll believe you'll like it.
The notebook is (again IMHO) a better sollution than the paned
window and the option of configuring some of the info out.
Basically, it displays the stuff the user wants to know by
default [description, priority, section, and of course the sizes
whch are very important for most people ;-)] and you have to use
the notebook tabs to see more.
> There are a lot of specifics that would probably need to
> change for gnome-apt. In particular, rather than an "Install"
> button, IMO the status display should have three buttons
> (Delete,Keep,Install) which parallel the ones in the tree
> view. Since we'd need to indicate this status anyway, it may
> as well be interactive.
Hmm. I'm getting now; you're thinking of "modes", and I'm
thinking of a single window with everything?
> However the buttons to view all the scripts and package
> contents should be moved to gnome-apt's popup menu, which
> already has a lot of operations on the currently selected
> package.
UI-wise, I firmly disagree. Popups are convenient but
counter-intuitive. They're nice to have, but should never be the
only way of doing something.
> gnome-apt also already has the Relationships in the tree view, so
> these should be downplayed in the Information pane.
Again I think that hidind it in the second page of the bookmark
is a good solution, but we can get rid of it easily if most
people want it gone. However, I would think that the tree view
would display depends, recommends and suggests, while the
package view would display all relationships.
> Let me think about how this should all work, I'm not totally sure yet. :-)
Sure, neither am I, let's talk a lot, flood the list and find
the most intuitive way of doing it all :-)
[]s,
|alo
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