[Aptitude-devel] Recent aptitude commits

[Daniel Burrows]

On Tue, May 05, 2009 at 08:01:40PM +0200, Obey Arthur Liu <arthur at milliways.fr> was heard to say:
> Daniel Burrows a écrit :
    [ solution-explanation button title ]
> >   Maybe "Group by dependency" would be better?
> 
> Well, whichever way, looking at the list to understand what it is about
> much quicker anyway. "Group by dependency" sounds good to me.

  OK, done.

> Not completely related, but what about adding a "show all" option box
> besides these two options to also show packages that will be
> upgraded/removed/whatever without fuss ? Sometimes when I go to the
> resolver I'm thinking that about some packages that may be here but I
> don't see them right away so I'd like to have a clear confirmation that
> they will be ok. Also, this gives the option to the user to mark them as
> accepted right away.

  Yeah, that's another thing I want to put there.

> This would also be a first step toward converging the preview tab and
> resolver tab, which IMHO should be merged to simplify the interface in
> the user's mental representation. (of course, language about conflicts
> would be reduced if there aren't any so as to stay simple)

  I think it would be dangerous to fully converge those two.

  The preview tab lets the user change which packages are going to be
installed, upgraded, what-have-you.

  The resolver tab lets the user see the changes proposed by the
resolver and ask it for more proposals.

  You can't manually change the states of packages without screwing up
the resolver and making all the solutions you've already found invalid,
and I don't know any system that would change that.  Putting these
functions in the same tab would basically mean you had two totally
different pieces of functionality that interfere with each other
and are accessed via the same interface.

  Simplifying the mental representation doesn't just mean reducing the
number of concepts, if the individual concepts become squishy and
unpredictable as a result.

> >   The button change makes sense.  BTW, I think that "Apply" should be
> > changed to "Apply solution", or else the "Apply changes" button needs
> > to be moved -- they're very close to each other and say almost the same
> > thing.  Any thoughts there?
> 
> "Apply this solution" maybe ? or emphasis that fact by putting it inside
> a frame with the solution ?
> Another idea would be to put it as a button besides the
> reject/meh/accept as "accept all".

  Those sound like reasonable ideas.

> Did you get any input after your visual tour from the other day ?
> Oh I see that there's one comment. Maybe also redirect readers to
> aptitude-devel next time.

  Yeah.  This is also one of the few times recently that I've wished I
had comments on my blog posts.  (when I had comments on all my posts it
took way too much time to filter all the spam, and I also don't really
want to run CGI scripts, even if they're written by the inestimable
Mr. Hess)

  Daniel