[Aptitude-devel] Complex search query creation widget

[Daniel Burrows]

On Sun, Jan 04, 2009 at 09:39:38AM -0500, Daniel Burrows <dburrows at debian.org> was heard to say:
>   I think that my objection is less to the idea of having some "make
> a more complicated query" widget, and more to using a series of
> checkboxes to implement it.  It could very well be useful to have a
> small widget collection for building a single search term built into
> the search tab, with a button to pop up a full editor for complex
> searches.  Ideally the single-term editor would be more-or-less the
> same as the term editor in the search builder dialog, so that the user
> doesn't have to learn so many controls.  A reasonable analogue to this
> is search engines that offer both "advanced" and "power" searches
> depending on how complicated the user's needs are.

  So, my first unformed idea is something like a drop-down menu combined
with a text entry (either to the right or below), where the text entry
only appears or is only enabled for search terms that have a parameter.

Find [packages containing the keyword]: []
Find [packages whose name matches]: []
Find [installed packages]

  I also wonder if it would be worthwhile to have a "use regular
expressions" check-box for searches where that makes sense.

  Anyway, that's all very vague and I'm sure we can find better ideas.

  Daniel