[Aptitude-devel] Bug#869552: please adjust format to support long version numbers

[Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo]

Hi Harald,

2017-07-24 09:39 Harald Dunkel:
>Package: aptitude
>Version: 0.6.11-1+b1
>Severity: wishlist
>
>Very often aptitude doesn't show the complete version numbers,
>even though there is plenty of space on the terminal. See
>the attached screenshot.
>
>Would it be possible to adjust the default format?

There are a few problems with this, which are that 80 columns is still
the default for many people, or some people want to use it with that
width (e.g. smallish windows w/tiling WMs), and the fact that the way to
make columns is not very sophisticated, so if several fields get the
ability to get expanded (and "name" always is), the version number
fields take too much space -- there's no way to give a "weight" so it
expands withing a giving measure.  So they expand not only the
necessary, but quite a lot, about the same as the name field.

Also, giving that there are many packages with almost insanely large
names, this is a problem -- too much space wasted in versions, not
enough space for names.

So this is not a final No, because I also don't like what it happens
with version numbers lately and I suspect that many other people are
annoyed, but just to leave a note that after having a quick look I'm not
sure if this can be done easily without harming other visual aspects.


Cheers.
-- 
Manuel A. Fernandez Montecelo <manuel.montezelo at gmail.com>