Gnome-app-install new-look test-version ready

[Sebastian Heinlein]

Am Montag, den 30.01.2006, 15:45 +1300 schrieb Matthew Paul Thomas:
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> On 26 Jan, 2006, at 6:27 AM, Michael Vogt wrote:
> > ...
> > http://people.ubuntu.com/~mvo/gnome-app-install/new-look/gai--new- 
> > look.png
> > ...
> 
> That's pretty cool! But ... (you knew there was going to be a but,  
> right?:-)
> 
> 1.  The checkboxes are in the wrong place: they're under the category
>      list, but the list they control is the applications list.
> 
> 2.  The window is lopsided: the top of the category list is above the
>      top of the applications list, and the bottom of the category list
>      is above the bottom of the application description. One of these
>      would be okay, but both looks bad.
> 
> These two can be fixed by putting the checkboxes in a horizontal row  
> under the search field.
> 
> 3.  If you don't know what category a program is in, you have to search
>      them separately (at least, it looks like you do).
> 
> This can be fixed by adding an "All Categories" item to the beginning  
> of the categories list.
> 
> (Usual disclaimer: I think g-a-i should be replaced by an item in the  
> View menu of Synaptic or its successor.)

Hi Matthew,

yes, you are right: the dialog still looks a little bit unbalanced. :)

To fix this I would like to remove the bold weight from the categories
and to use a bold font for the application names. This would increase
the visual attraction of the applications.

The left pane could be a general modifier for the app list if we move
the search box above the categories. The search should also include the
categories, since it does not make any sense to me to show empty
categories. Searching e.g. for "editor" would only display "all",
"accessoirs" (gedit) and "office" (abiword, oo.o).

It is no good idea to move the checkboxes to the right pane since they
would consume a lot of the space there - and space is rar on the right
pane. Placing all modifiers to the left pane would also allow the
checkboxes to stay on their former placement.

Here is a screenshot of my latest efforts:

http://pimpzkru.dyndns.org/~sebi/Bildschirmfoto.png

In the long term I would favor a separation of the gai and synaptic
interface. They both address different needs and user groups. Synaptic
introduces the user to the huge terminology of package management. But I
do not see any need to bother the user with dependencies and thousands
of packages if he or she just wants to install an application.

So I would like to reach a just works level with gai. At the moment it
can be easily pushed to its limits: the meta packages are real
showstoppers. Perhaps we should allow the user to uninstall this reverse
dependency in gai, too. I don't see any danger here. But we should keep
a list of the dependencies of the meta package, so that we can tell the
user that he or she is removing an Ubuntu "standard" package later.

Regards,

Sebastian