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I have decided to make a nice graphical fronted for pacman for two reasons:
- to play around with gtk3
- to understand why people seem to think libalpm is not very suitable for graphical frontends
Problem is, I really suck at designing graphical applications. Here is a picture of where I have got so far:
Did I mention I suck at designing interfaces... Well, I probably can do better than that!
So here is where you can help. I want some basic mock-ups of what people would like a graphical frontend for pacman to look like. And I mean very basic mock-ups - I just want ideas. I will probably pick and choose from the posted mock-ups to make the "final" interface.
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Here is a picture of where I have got so far:
Looks just fine to me?
ᶘ ᵒᴥᵒᶅ
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A Synaptic-like UI would be the best, for me at least.
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Just about the functionality one needs in a pacman frontend. It already seems to have more features than regular pacman .
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From the title of the thread I immediately thought 'troll'.
Then I saw the username and I thought 'yep, its a troll alright' =p
Sounds interesting. I don't have time right now (in between stuff) to make a mockup, but here's a quick list of things which I think should be seen right off the bat:-
1. Search box (live search may be a bit much, probably with a search button)
2. List of current search results (package name + version, maybe + repo)
3. Either a dedicated box or a shelf-in/out region to show details on a selected package
4. Buttons for 'install', 'uninstall'
5. Checkboxes for 'ignore dependencies' and 'force'
6. One big button for 'update all' (Syu)
All other stuff (like different root, mirrorlist etc.) should be in a 'preferences' window. The list of current search results should also show difference between package versions on the repo and locally (if it exists).
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From the title of the thread I immediately thought 'troll'.
Then I saw the username and I thought 'yep, its a troll alright' =p
And I bet the program name did nothing to remove those suspicions!
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i agree almost 100% with ngoonee, except that buttons are probably not necessary, since there wouldnt be many buttons and to waste a whole toolbar for a few buttons would be a shame. Keyboard shortcuts would be preferred by most here, I think.
Search box
Result box
Details box (hideable)
And when you choose to install the selected things, there could be a window popping up for stuff like "ignore deps" and "force" and all that good stuff.
cheers,
Barde
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I'd embed a terminal emulator just beneath that menu bar.
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A Synaptic-like UI would be the best, for me at least.
+1
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Among those UIs for package managers I have seen Synaptic is quite the best. It might be a little too bloated though and some features are not provided by pacman.
If you really want a working result it might be worth to have look at packagekit and make the backend working with libalpm. But of course this does not matter at all if your only goal is teaching yourself gtk3. :-)
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Sulfur, used in Sabayon, is also quite a nice package manager.
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Sulfur, used in Sabayon, is also quite a nice package manager.
Yes, it looks really nice.
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Muon Suite: http://jontheechidna.files.wordpress.co … emove1.png
Last edited by irtigor (2011-02-12 15:45:12)
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It is essential that the terminal feedback during installation is preserved in the frontend.
It should be a nice presentation of already specified extra features and incorporated the important terminal feedback.
A hybrid kind of app like I propose would break the sharp boundary between a terminal and a frontend app.
Synaptic like app wouldn't be an alternative for me to pacman in terminal
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It is essential that the terminal feedback during installation is preserved in the frontend.
It should be a nice presentation of already specified extra features and incorporated the important terminal feedback.
A hybrid kind of app like I propose would break the sharp boundary between a terminal and a frontend app.Synaptic like app wouldn't be an alternative for me to pacman in terminal
Something like http://wiki.sabayon.org/images/2/20/Sulfur_confirm.png ?
From the title of the thread I immediately thought 'troll'.
Then I saw the username and I thought 'yep, its a troll alright' =p
+1
First thought: a troll. Second one: hell freezing over, Allan run out of things to break ;P
Would it be possible to have checkboxes in the preferences to show only certain details, something similar to 'pacman -Qi [package] | grep -E '(foo|bar|baz)' ?
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It is essential that the terminal feedback during installation is preserved in the frontend.
Sulfur has this feature.
For example, installing nautilus open in terminal:
Ther are some nice backup features:
http://img819.imageshack.us/img819/5265/screenshot4iy.png
MOD EDIT: - Use image posting guidelines -- Inxsible
And moreover, Sulfur can be used either in normal mode; or in Advanced Mode, with lots of interesting package management features
Last edited by Inxsible (2011-02-12 17:27:49)
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Looks like some good suggestions already...I whipped up a few notes as well.
thayer williams ~ cinderwick.ca
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here is my shot at it.
with annotations. not all that thought through (as in: I'm sure I forgot some details) but i think its a decent design for a shoot from the hip.
http://sudokode.net/p/347014.png
http://sudokode.net/p/891074.png
http://sudokode.net/p/182286.png
http://sudokode.net/p/903816.png
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here is my shot at it.
with annotations. not all that thought through (as in: I'm sure I forgot some details) but i think its a decent design for a shoot from the hip.
http://sudokode.net/p/347014.png
http://sudokode.net/p/891074.png
http://sudokode.net/p/182286.png
http://sudokode.net/p/903816.png
This one looks pretty good. Very simple yet aesthetic UI, and no clutter.
Last edited by Sara (2011-02-13 14:36:11)
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This one looks pretty good. Very simple yet aesthetic UI, and no clutter.
Thanks a lot!
I have to disagree with Pierre and na12 that Synaptic is really a good UI. Just look at it...
http://www.nongnu.org/synaptic/images/0.53-main.png
or here a more recent one:
http://reformedmusings.files.wordpress. … lugins.png
The train of thought goes something like that for a new user:
what's that on the right? my mailbox? what does _that_ mean? no heading eh?
what's "status". or "section". "origin"? wat? huh?
properties? what properties? what _are_ properties?! for what?!
do I really need to read through the version numbers to find out whats newer?
ok. so compiz is "1:0.7.8-0ubuntu4.1" and the most recent is "1:0.7.8-0ubuntu4.1". oh that's gonna be fun.
what is that anyway? oh the description doesnt fit in there. ok. *scroll* *scroll* *scroll*
I could go on about "Mark for removal" and "Mark for complete removal" but I remember well that synaptics was a very confusing experience back then. apt-get was a lot more enjoyable in that regard. It didnt want to know "status", "section" or "origin" (frankly I still dont know what it is good for) and you could get stuff done.
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The section, status, origin are all just filters for the package list. Maybe you're searching for a program (currently unknown to you) to install but you don't want to just look at the entire list.
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The section, status, origin are all just filters for the package list. Maybe you're searching for a program (currently unknown to you) to install but you don't want to just look at the entire list.
Ah I see. Not quite obivous though in my opinion. It's also pretty hard to get users that don't fade out the Help menu from their conciousness.
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I have to disagree with Pierre and na12 that Synaptic is really a good UI.
Agreed, synaptic stinks.
When I first installed Arch I longed for decent filters for pacman search output - sulfur seems to score well on that front. And it looks nice using qt although it is a bit cluttered. If one put all of pacman's flags as buttons in there you'd end up with something similar, ott afaic.
Good dependency info is inherent with pacman, so nothing special needed. Showing CLI output should suffice.
There was a great package manager in kde3, was it called adept? I liked that but it is too long ago and I can't remember a thing (he says and takes another swig).
never trust a toad...
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fogobogo wrote:I have to disagree with Pierre and na12 that Synaptic is really a good UI.
Agreed, synaptic stinks.
When I first installed Arch I longed for decent filters for pacman search output - sulfur seems to score well on that front. And it looks nice using qt although it is a bit cluttered. If one put all of pacman's flags as buttons in there you'd end up with something similar, ott afaic.
Good dependency info is inherent with pacman, so nothing special needed. Showing CLI output should suffice.
There was a great package manager in kde3, was it called adept? I liked that but it is too long ago and I can't remember a thing (he says and takes another swig).
oh a good bunch of people use grep to filter and recently someone made that query tool (pacinfo I think) that has some nifty options.
It just dawned me but I'd assume most people want to either install, update or remove a package with a package manager and Synaptic does not have a single button that would be named like that or indicate its meant for that. In that regard Synaptic is more of a package explorer rather than a frontend for package management.
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All I would recommend is wireframing the design. Like the mockups by fogobogo
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