PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

fiddlinmacx · 2012-11-23 20:03:00

Thanks for the great piece of software! I use it to search for packages as much as I use yaourt at the command line ;-) (I always have this back-and-forth struggle between using console and gui tools)
I was wondering if it would be possible to add a vote count to any search results that include items from the AUR. That would be extremely useful.
Thanks.

kachelaqa · 2012-11-23 21:25:43

fiddlinmacx wrote:

Thanks for the great piece of software!

Thanks for the feedback - glad you find PkgBrowser useful

fiddlinmacx wrote:

I was wondering if it would be possible to add a vote count to any search results that include items from the AUR.

This proposal is similar to a previous one, which suggested highlighting orphaned and/or outdated AUR packages.

I did experiment with implementing it, but there are a few reasons why it didn't work out.

On the coding side, It works against one of the main design goals of PkgBrowser, which is to bring together lots of different sources of package information into a single, integrated, interface. Special-casing AUR-specific properties always tends to make things much harder to maintain, and I just couldn't find any satisfactory way to do it.

But apart from that, I'm now wondering whether there is something dubious about the idea of searching or sorting by properties like votes/orphaned/out-of-date. Those properties can be helpful for maintaining the AUR - but I think it's generally unhelpful to use them as a means of deciding which packages to install. One of the AUR packages I use (roundup) has only gained a measly nine votes since it was submitted over three years ago! And avoiding packages simply because they happen to be currently orphaned and/or out-of-date would be even more counter-productive.

So, at the moment, I'm not at all convinced that there's a good use-case for this sort of feature.

fiddlinmacx · 2012-11-24 00:46:51

kachelaqa wrote:

Special-casing AUR-specific properties always tends to make things much harder to maintain

I certainly understand that. Thanks for the reply.

kachelaqa wrote:

But apart from that, I'm now wondering whether there is something dubious about the idea of searching or sorting by properties like votes/orphaned/out-of-date. Those properties can be helpful for maintaining the AUR - but I think it's generally unhelpful to use them as a means of deciding which packages to install. One of the AUR packages I use (roundup) has only gained a measly nine votes since it was submitted over three years ago! And avoiding packages simply because they happen to be currently orphaned and/or out-of-date would be even more counter-productive.

That makes a lot of sense. I hadn't really thought about things that way before. Thanks for giving me something to think about and thanks again for a wonderful piece of software.

kachelaqa · 2012-12-07 19:27:20

version 0.12 has been released today.

please see the changelog for further details.

NB:

radical changes have been made to the search syntax.

please read the Search Syntax section in the manual for full details.

GSF1200S · 2012-12-16 11:09:56

kachelaqa wrote:

GSF1200S wrote:
Still using and enjoying this program heavily; thanks for the update!
Glad you're still finding it useful
GSF1200S wrote:
I will say, I do wish there was some way I could put values in a config file somewhere so my theme would match PkgBrowser. As it is now, every time I see a PkgBrowser update, I copy the color attributes in the fmt.py into a file, update, then try to paste replace the old text in place so the colors match. Sometimes it works, and other times PkgBrowser spits out a syntax error and wont start. Then, I go through each line 1 by 1 attempting to change the colors individually.
You did put in a dark theme that attempts to be dark, and im sure that works for 95% of people. Im really not bothered by the above, but I thought id let you know
I thought we had already solved this?
The "colour-scheme=system" option should automatically pick up the colours from your system's theme. It shouldn't be necessary to manually patch PkgBrowser.
You seemed happy with the results when we went throught this previously, so what's changed since then?

Im sorry I missed this reply

I do believe it worked at that point (best I can remember), but currently I have issues. Especially when considering GTK based systems (especially with what a nightmare GTK3 has been for some hence why I still use a GTK2 theme), inconsistencies occur and things can be hard to see. I have a few screenshots for you:

Ideal (fmt.py tweaked by hand to make everything easy to see):
http://i47.tinypic.com/2lm4413.png

Good using built in system theme option:
http://i46.tinypic.com/260slr5.png

Again, its not a dealbreaker and I dont mind jumping into fmt.py to get everything right- just makes upgrades to pkgbrowser a little more tedious. I guess what I was thinking is that each block in the Details tab (and others) could optionally use user defined colors in the /home/user/.config/pkgbrowser/pkgbrowser.conf file so that upgrades didnt require editing fmt.py. Thoughts?

Like the new upgrades- I didnt realize you had replied until I saw pkgbrowser had a new upgrade and I came here to check out the changelog... Thanks again for your work

Moderator edit: The included images are too big. Reduced to urls.

**EDIT** Sorry, I need to find a new image hosting service since all of the ones I used want you to now register to use them. To clarify the above, note that the left pane in the Details tab is very hard to read. I cant fix this by editing fmt.py since Pkgbrowser uses the system theme stuff anyway, so my only option is to disable the system color option and manually edit fmt.py to get colors that are easier to see.

Last edited by GSF1200S (2012-12-16 11:22:19)

kachelaqa · 2012-12-16 20:35:35

GSF1200S wrote:

I do believe it worked at that point (best I can remember), but currently I have issues. Especially when considering GTK based systems (especially with what a nightmare GTK3 has been for some hence why I still use a GTK2 theme), inconsistencies occur and things can be hard to see.

It looks like it's going to be very difficult to come up with a system scheme that always works nicely for all setups. An alternative solution is obviously needed, but I'm not sure what that should be at the moment.

In the meantime, PkgBrowser's (undocumented) plugins support can be used to solve your problem.

Create a file containing this:

from lib.fmt import Format

Format.setcolours({
    'body-text': 'palette(text)',
    'body-back': 'palette(base)',
    'table-border': 'palette(window)',
    'link-text': 'palette(link)',
    'tree-text': 'palette(text)',
    'label-back': 'palette(midlight)',
    'star-official': 'tomato',
    'star-aur': 'mediumorchid',
    })

and save it as:

$HOME/.config/pkgbrowser/plugins/plugin_colours.py

The colours in the above code are the defaults for the system scheme, but you can obviously adjust them as you see fit.

The format of the colour-strings is as specified here, here and here.

GSF1200S · 2012-12-17 04:29:11

kachelaqa wrote:

GSF1200S wrote:
I do believe it worked at that point (best I can remember), but currently I have issues. Especially when considering GTK based systems (especially with what a nightmare GTK3 has been for some hence why I still use a GTK2 theme), inconsistencies occur and things can be hard to see.
It looks like it's going to be very difficult to come up with a system scheme that always works nicely for all setups. An alternative solution is obviously needed, but I'm not sure what that should be at the moment.
In the meantime, PkgBrowser's (undocumented) plugins support can be used to solve your problem.
Create a file containing this:
from lib.fmt import Format

Format.setcolours({
    'body-text': 'palette(text)',
    'body-back': 'palette(base)',
    'table-border': 'palette(window)',
    'link-text': 'palette(link)',
    'tree-text': 'palette(text)',
    'label-back': 'palette(midlight)',
    'star-official': 'tomato',
    'star-aur': 'mediumorchid',
    })
and save it as:
$HOME/.config/pkgbrowser/plugins/plugin_colours.py
The colours in the above code are the defaults for the system scheme, but you can obviously adjust them as you see fit.
The format of the colour-strings is as specified here, here and here.

To me, this in itself seems like a good enough fix. Maybe just throw this info in the manual and leave it alone? It seems im the only one who cares about the coloring anyways For me, the theme Pkgbrowser would create was impossible to read, and leaving it normal caused it to be a torch to my eyes when viewing in the dark. If this plugins deal persists through upgrade, I would see no reason to even waste your time coding any other solution which will probably never please everyone. This way, the user could set it once and forget it.

Cheers man- thats the only gripe Ive had with PkgBrowser for a long time. Thanks for your help

kachelaqa · 2013-04-07 00:46:17

version 0.13 has been released today.

This release provides support for libalpm-8.x / pacman-4.1.

davidovitch · 2013-04-07 13:56:43

kachelaqa wrote:

version 0.13 has been released today.
This release provides support for libalpm-8.x / pacman-4.1.

That was quick :-) Thanks for sharing!

kachelaqa · 2013-04-22 02:26:54

version 0.14 has been released today.

please see the pkgbrowser manual and the changelog for further details.

kachelaqa · 2013-04-26 19:39:10

version 0.14.1 has been released today.

please see the changelog for further details.

barkbombardier · 2013-06-02 15:50:17

Just wanted to say great software, I have used it often when I had arch installed. Now I am back on debian, I still need hand holding! Now if someone would be so kind as to offer the same concept for APT, that would be very !

kachelaqa · 2013-08-24 21:34:59

From AUR Comments:

DaveCode wrote:

I am confused on something. With an up-to-date system, PkgBrowser Updates shows 4 pkgs with Status "downgrade" - all from AUR - and only those 4. These 4 AUR pkgs do not replace any mainline ones. They only exist in AUR. There's nothing to downgrade to...?
kregexpeditor-git 491.f618b59-1
prezto-git 20130503-1
python3-aur 2013.6-1
ttf-sil-fonts 6-1

What are the versions of the packages that you have installed? If the installed version is greater than the one found on AUR, it will be shown as a "downgrade". This can sometimes result in false positives with some VCS packages which don't regularly update the PKGBUILD version; and also packages with the same name that exist in more than one repository, but have different versions. The last time that I looked at this issue, I could not see any obvious way to improve the current behaviour. I might look at it again, but I don't really see it as a genuine bug (although it is fairly annoying).

DaveCode wrote:

PkgBrowser shows the mystery 4 under Foreign/Non-Installed.
PkgBrowser lists the binary Xyne-I686 repo we use, but not pkgs installed from it, under Xyne heading anyway. They're shown under AUR.
Xyne.ArchLinux.ca keeps a binary repo and maintains the same pkgs in AUR. So you can install his goods either way. We use his binary repo for simplicity. PkgBrowser is showing Xyne stuff coming from AUR, incorrectly.

This is caused by some problems with how pkgbrowser handles the sig-level when registering repo databases. I have found a fix for this, which will be included in the next release of pkgbrowser (not sure exactly when that will be, but hopefully fairly soon).

PS:

There are also some issues with the Cache tab, because it attempts to pull in some information from the old Arch Rollback Machine. Hopefully this should also be fixed with the next release of pkgbrowser.

DaveCode · 2013-08-25 04:25:18

Versions reported by pacman:

$ pacman -Q kregexpeditor-git prezto-git python3-aur ttf-sil-fonts
kregexpeditor-git 20130312-1
prezto-git 20130525-1
python3-aur 2013.8-1
ttf-sil-fonts 6-3

Then a screenshot of PkgBrowser's list:
PkgBrowser Versions

kachelaqa · 2013-08-25 18:44:49

DaveCode wrote:

Versions reported by pacman:

$ pacman -Q kregexpeditor-git prezto-git python3-aur ttf-sil-fonts
kregexpeditor-git 20130312-1
prezto-git 20130525-1
python3-aur 2013.8-1
ttf-sil-fonts 6-3

I assume you must have installed kregexpeditor-git from some other repository, since it's version format is completely different from the one on AUR. When I install it from AUR, and then search for it in pkgbrowser, I see this:

kregexpeditor-git 491.f618b59-1 aur downgrade
kregexpeditor-git 494.cf7fe1d-1 aur installed

This shows that I have the latest git version of kregexpeditor installed, which has a higher version than the one currently shown in the PKGBUILD on AUR. But strictly speaking, the package on AUR isn't a really a downgrade - it's just an example of a false positive that may happen sometimes with VCS packages. Probably the same situation exists with prezto-git, (although I haven't checked).

The reason why python3-aur is showing as a downgrade for you is that the version you installed from the xyne-i686 repo is 2013.8-1, whereas the one on AUR is currently 2013.6-1. The next release of pkgbrowser should fix this one, because it will show python3-aur as installed from the xyne-i686 repo, rather than aur. I'm guessing that a similar situation may exist with ttf-sil-fonts - presumably this must also have been installed it from a different repo, because the version on AUR is 6-1, whereas your version is 6-3.

kachelaqa · 2013-08-27 01:27:00

version 0.15 has been released today.

please see the changelog for further details.

kachelaqa · 2013-09-03 02:20:07

version 0.16 has been released today.

please see the changelog for further details.

scwalla · 2013-09-08 14:45:21

I had no trouble building version 0.15 but 0.16 fails to build on my system. I get the following:

==> Validating source files with md5sums...
pkgbrowser-0.16.tar.gz ... Passed
==> Extracting sources...
-> Extracting pkgbrowser-0.16.tar.gz with bsdtar
==> Starting build()...
python src/setup.py build_ext --inplace --build-temp build
running build_ext
building 'pkgbrowser.alpm' extension
creating build
creating build/src
gcc -pthread -DNDEBUG -march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 -fPIC -I/usr/include/python2.7 -c src/alpm.c -o build/src/alpm.o
gcc -pthread -shared -Wl,-O1,--sort-common,--as-needed,-z,relro -Wl,-O1,--sort-common,--as-needed,-z,relro -march=x86-64 -mtune=generic -O2 -pipe -fstack-protector --param=ssp-buffer-size=4 -D_FORTIFY_SOURCE=2 build/src/alpm.o -L. -lalpm -lpython2.7 -o /home/steve/builds/pkgbrowser/src/pkgbrowser-0.16/pkgbrowser/alpm.so
rm -vrf build
removed ‘build/src/alpm.o’
removed directory: ‘build/src’
removed directory: ‘build’
for f in designer/[^_]*.ui; do \
/usr/bin/pyuic4 --from-imports -w -o "pkgbrowser/ui/$(basename $f .ui).py" "$f"; \
done
pyrcc4 -py3 -threshold 0 -compress 9 -o pkgbrowser/ui/resources_rc.py resources.qrc
python -m compileall -ql pkgbrowser pkgbrowser/ui
python -O -m compileall -ql pkgbrowser pkgbrowser/ui
==> Entering fakeroot environment...
==> Starting package()...
install -m 755 -d /home/steve/builds/pkgbrowser/pkg/pkgbrowser/usr/bin /home/steve/builds/pkgbrowser/pkg/pkgbrowser/usr/lib/pkgbrowser/pkgbrowser/{,ui/}__pycache__
install -m 755 -d /home/steve/builds/pkgbrowser/pkg/pkgbrowser/usr/share/applications /home/steve/builds/pkgbrowser/pkg/pkgbrowser/usr/share/icons/hicolor/48x48/apps
install -m 644 main.py /home/steve/builds/pkgbrowser/pkg/pkgbrowser/usr/lib/pkgbrowser
install -m 644 pkgbrowser/*.{py,so} /home/steve/builds/pkgbrowser/pkg/pkgbrowser/usr/lib/pkgbrowser/pkgbrowser
install -m 644 pkgbrowser/__pycache__/*.py{c,o} /home/steve/builds/pkgbrowser/pkg/pkgbrowser/usr/lib/pkgbrowser/pkgbrowser/__pycache__
install: cannot stat ‘pkgbrowser/__pycache__/*.pyc’: No such file or directory
install: cannot stat ‘pkgbrowser/__pycache__/*.pyo’: No such file or directory
make: *** [install] Error 1
==> ERROR: A failure occurred in package().
Aborting...

Any ideas?

kachelaqa · 2013-09-08 16:11:05

scwalla wrote:

I had no trouble building version 0.15 but 0.16 fails to build on my system.
[snip]
Any ideas?

As of version 0.16, pkgbrowser requires python3.

The output of gcc shows that it is including the python headers from /usr/include/python2.7, but the setup.py script was run using "python". Normally, this would be a link to python3 on arch, but presumably it has been changed on your system to point to python2.

This kind of issue could have been avoided if I had ensured the makefile defaulted to PYTHON=python3 rather than PYTHON=python - so I will fix this for the next release.

In the meantime, if you want to keep your system as it is, then you can edit the PKGBUILD so that make is invoked with PYTHON=python3 in the build function. Of course, this will only work if you have python3 (and the corresponding pyqt packages) installed on your system...

scwalla · 2013-09-09 00:37:09

kachelaqa wrote:

scwalla wrote:
I had no trouble building version 0.15 but 0.16 fails to build on my system.
[snip]
Any ideas?
As of version 0.16, pkgbrowser requires python3.
The output of gcc shows that it is including the python headers from /usr/include/python2.7, but the setup.py script was run using "python". Normally, this would be a link to python3 on arch, but presumably it has been changed on your system to point to python2.
This kind of issue could have been avoided if I had ensured the makefile defaulted to PYTHON=python3 rather than PYTHON=python - so I will fix this for the next release.
In the meantime, if you want to keep your system as it is, then you can edit the PKGBUILD so that make is invoked with PYTHON=python3 in the build function. Of course, this will only work if you have python3 (and the corresponding pyqt packages) installed on your system...

Thanks for your quick reply. You were exactly right. Adding PYTHON=python3 in the build function worked perfectly.

kachelaqa · 2013-09-14 20:19:22

version 0.17 has been released today.

please see the pkgbrowser manual and the changelog for further details.

Sanne · 2013-09-22 11:33:44

Great software! I'm using Arch for about one year and discovered PkgBrowser soon after installation. It's the perfect software for me, because while I like to use pacman on the CLI very much, I still love a visual tool for package overview. It's high time to show my appreciation, so thank you very much!

moething · 2013-09-26 04:37:49

After sysupdate yesterday I am getting following python error when I start pkgbrowser:

TypeError: QStringListModel.setStringList(list-of-str): argument 1 has unexpected type 'list'

Any idea why?

moething · 2013-09-28 05:42:30

Here is the resolution of this issue:
After I deleted the configuration file ~/.config/pkgbrowser/pkgbrowser.conf, the error disappeared.

pierre5549 · 2013-11-03 11:22:55

Hi

After different updates, when I star pkgbrowser from a terminal, I get the following message : WARNING: config key has an invalid type: bookmarks/names

The soft opens, but nothing appears in the update category even if there is plenty on them. I've tried to remove "pkgbrowser.conf", but it didn't change anything.

I have the same problem on 3 computers (1 archlinux mate and 2 archlinux Xfce4)

Does anyone has a solution for this problem ??

Thank's for your help.

P.

Arch Linux

#151 2012-11-23 20:03:00

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#152 2012-11-23 21:25:43

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#153 2012-11-24 00:46:51

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#154 2012-12-07 19:27:20

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#155 2012-12-16 11:09:56

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#156 2012-12-16 20:35:35

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#157 2012-12-17 04:29:11

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#158 2013-04-07 00:46:17

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#159 2013-04-07 13:56:43

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#160 2013-04-22 02:26:54

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#161 2013-04-26 19:39:10

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#162 2013-06-02 15:50:17

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#163 2013-08-24 21:34:59

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#164 2013-08-25 04:25:18

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#165 2013-08-25 18:44:49

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#166 2013-08-27 01:27:00

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#167 2013-09-03 02:20:07

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#168 2013-09-08 14:45:21

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#169 2013-09-08 16:11:05

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#170 2013-09-09 00:37:09

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#171 2013-09-14 20:19:22

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#172 2013-09-22 11:33:44

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#173 2013-09-26 04:37:49

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#174 2013-09-28 05:42:30

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

#175 2013-11-03 11:22:55

Re: PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

Board footer