PkgBrowser: A utility for browsing pacman databases and the AUR

GSF1200S · 2011-08-20 12:45:43

kachelaqa wrote:

GSF1200S wrote:
1) Any way PkgBrowser can remember the options I have selected for the search function? Namely "Include AUR." Not a big deal at all, but I often open PkgBrowser to search for something related to the AUR, and then find I forgot to check that box. Just an idea.. Maybe a config file with "Remember Options" or just something built into the code?
i have thought of adding something like this before, but the question is: should all the options be remembered or only a selected few? as you say, it's usually the "Include AUR" checkbox that is problematic - maybe it should just default to checked (unless working offline). alternatively, a default search options section could be added to the config file.
2) I find there is only one instance which requires me to load up the AUR in my web-browser: checking the comments section of various packages. I understand getting this info might make PkgBrowser unnecessarily slow, so would there be any way to implement a "Comments" tab that simply grabs the user comments from a packages AUR page only when one clicks on the tab? To be clear, say I search for cups-usblp (cups is always a nightmare as upstream issues get me often). I click on it, note its Out of Date status, dependencies, etc. Now, Id like to be able to click on the comments tab which brings up all the aur comments for that package. I think actually leaving comments is far beyond the scope of this program personally and not really useful for browsing packages (as the programs name implies). Maybe you could limit to the 10 most recent comments or something sane that wouldnt require insane amounts of time to grab the required information and do so with Webkit or something? This is often very useful for finding out possible necessary modifications to the PKGBUILD of that package such as URL changes, dependency changes, packages that need to reinstalled (git packages for instance) in order for the package to build/work, etc.. I know you dont want this program to head towards bloat, so if that makes it too complicated or harder to maintain, forget it
sorry, but i'm going to have to pour cold water on this one
the main problem i have with it is that comments can contain important links (e.g. to bug reports, or to pastebin), or may require viewing the pkgbuild which is linked to on the same page. opening up a web page is almost inevitable if more information is needed about a package. a line has to be drawn somewhere, and the most reasonable place to do that is at the first link in the chain; otherwise, pkgbrowser will start to turn into a web browser (which i hope you will understand is something i want to avoid).
Again, your project, your time, your choice- just a friendly idea as you seem open to ideas but ultimately in control of the project's direction.
feedback of any kind is always welcome

1) I think simply having that box checked ("Include AUR") would take care of my issue, but perhaps having a default search options section to the config file would serve others better? Thats your call

2) Ahh, ok.. Again, im human and tend to see things from my own perspective, though I try to think of what others would need/want and perhaps a way to implement it. You are right: where does one draw the line? Im certainly not trying to make the code harder to maintain or turn PkgBrowser into a web browser. Originally, I had envisioned any links in the "Comments" tab handled the same as in the "Details" tab where you can either copy or open the link, but as you say, where does one draw the line? Ill defer to your judgement here I guess I try to avoid opening webpages when I do package management (except for stuff where I check the forums or home page), but then sometimes its just going to be necessary.

Thanks again for the great program Im shocked this program hasnt had more activity in terms of thread replies..

GSF1200S · 2011-08-21 01:21:06

Just a heads up- for some reason im not getting any info from non-installed AUR packages. If a package from core/extra/community/multilib is not installed, details are retrieved fine. However, if I search for an AUR package and its not installed, I can find the package but clicking on it doesnt bring any details, nor does the tree view work. If I do:

packer -Si packagename

(as I use packer as an AUR wrapper), it returns results for a non-installed package. I tried running pkgbrowser from a terminal, but it spit out no info. Perhaps a URL has gone dead or something? API change? Anyways, thought id let you know..

kachelaqa · 2011-08-21 03:45:04

GSF1200S wrote:

Just a heads up- for some reason im not getting any info from non-installed AUR packages. If a package from core/extra/community/multilib is not installed, details are retrieved fine. However, if I search for an AUR package and its not installed, I can find the package but clicking on it doesnt bring any details, nor does the tree view work. If I do:
packer -Si packagename
(as I use packer as an AUR wrapper), it returns results for a non-installed package. I tried running pkgbrowser from a terminal, but it spit out no info. Perhaps a URL has gone dead or something? API change? Anyways, thought id let you know..

the AUR version 1.90 update seems to have some bugs and has also broken pkgbrowser because some urls were changed.

unfortunately, it may be some time before i can fix this.

GSF1200S · 2011-08-21 07:06:05

kachelaqa wrote:

GSF1200S wrote:
Just a heads up- for some reason im not getting any info from non-installed AUR packages. If a package from core/extra/community/multilib is not installed, details are retrieved fine. However, if I search for an AUR package and its not installed, I can find the package but clicking on it doesnt bring any details, nor does the tree view work. If I do:
packer -Si packagename
(as I use packer as an AUR wrapper), it returns results for a non-installed package. I tried running pkgbrowser from a terminal, but it spit out no info. Perhaps a URL has gone dead or something? API change? Anyways, thought id let you know..
the AUR version 1.90 update seems to have some bugs and has also broken pkgbrowser because some urls were changed.
unfortunately, it may be some time before i can fix this.

Ill look forward to whenever you can push a release. Still works great for repo stuff though..

kachelaqa · 2011-08-21 16:23:08

version 0.5.1 has been released today.

this is a temporary fix to work around the breakage caused by the aur-1.9.0 update.

GSF1200S · 2011-08-21 18:09:53

kachelaqa wrote:

version 0.5.1 has been released today.
this is a temporary fix to work around the breakage caused by the aur-1.9.0 update.

You and I have a very different interpretation of "quite some time"...

Seems to work well; thanks for the update!

kachelaqa · 2011-08-30 13:53:24

version 0.6 has been released today.

please see the changelog for further details.

Last edited by kachelaqa (2011-08-30 13:57:23)

GSF1200S · 2011-08-30 22:36:17

kachelaqa wrote:

version 0.6 has been released today.
please see the changelog for further details.

Cool- handy havin the AUR enabled upon startup of the app

Diggin around to see what new features 1.9 brings..

kachelaqa · 2011-08-30 23:36:48

GSF1200S wrote:

Diggin around to see what new features 1.9 brings..

sorry to disappoint, but I may have misled you there

the new aur features are only really of interest to developers

removing that line now from the changelog so as to avoid any further bouts of frantic digging...

GSF1200S · 2011-08-31 01:56:47

kachelaqa wrote:

GSF1200S wrote:
Diggin around to see what new features 1.9 brings..
sorry to disappoint, but I may have misled you there
the new aur features are only really of interest to developers
removing that line now from the changelog so as to avoid any further bouts of frantic digging...

Haha, I wasnt really freaking out about it

Quick suggestion: throw in the changelog a mention to check the manual for the enable AUR option as it must be added to the config file. I checked /etc and didnt see any mention of pkgbrowser, so then upon checking .config, I found the config. Opened, realized that it didnt mention the change for Enable AUR (by default on load), and then I thought to check the manual to see if it was mentioned there (which it was very clearly). In the future, unless the

[options] include-aur=true/false

is in the config file, people wont know the option exists (so perhaps it would be even better to add it to the default config and just leave it set to false) unless they read the manual. Yes, we are supposed to read the manual (as I did), but we all know many people dont proceeding directly to config files, etc...

Just an idea- works great

Last edited by GSF1200S (2011-08-31 01:58:08)

kachelaqa · 2011-08-31 12:30:56

GSF1200S wrote:

people wont know the option exists (so perhaps it would be even better to add it to the default config and just leave it set to false)

but if i made things too easy it would take all the fun out of it

Yes, we are supposed to read the manual (as I did), but we all know many people dont proceeding directly to config files, etc...

the few editable items in the config file are meant to be set-once-and-forget options aimed at users who are savvy enough to read the manual. for those people that aren't savvy enough to read the finely-crafted manual provided for them, my response would be something along the lines of: *shrugs*

having said that, in future, i will always leave a hint here about re-reading the manual if i make any significant changes to it.

porcupene · 2011-09-09 09:16:56

Great program!!

But why do i have to select the AUR button every time? Can't this be made a permanent toggle?

GSF1200S · 2011-09-09 09:30:30

porcupene wrote:

Great program!!
But why do i have to select the AUR button every time? Can't this be made a permanent toggle?

MUWAHAHAHAHAHA! *bows* Im a prophet!

Are you SURE that it shouldnt be more obvious to new PkgBrowser users kachelaqa??

Porcupene: RTFM (kidding kidding )Check the manual which is found in the File menu. It mentions the option you need to add to the pkgbrowser config file found in: /home/user/.config/pkgbrowser/pkgbrowser.conf

[options]
include-aur=true

Also, for a laugh read from post 58 to your post. Hilarious

Last edited by GSF1200S (2011-09-09 09:31:59)

kachelaqa · 2011-09-09 11:43:29

GSF1200S wrote:

Are you SURE that it shouldnt be more obvious to new PkgBrowser users kachelaqa??

*shrugs*

porcupene · 2011-09-10 07:24:48

Ah ok, I only read the first two pages of the thread

Still, how come the program does not write the true/false value in the config file itself when the button is checked?

Last edited by porcupene (2011-09-10 09:24:49)

bernarcher · 2011-09-10 12:08:10

porcupene wrote:

Still, how come the program does not write the true/false value in the config file itself when the button is checked?

Just my 2 cents:

I don't think the program should touch a user provided config file. This functionality would probably require another file of status records, perhaps somewhere in ~/.local/share. But usually this is not worth the extra effort.

On the other hand, there should be a means to remember such a setting (if the user wants to) for the current running session. This is more easily implemented.

kachelaqa · 2011-09-10 14:15:03

bernarcher wrote:

porcupene wrote:
Still, how come the program does not write the true/false value in the config file itself when the button is checked?
Just my 2 cents:
I don't think the program should touch a user provided config file. This functionality would probably require another file of status records, perhaps somewhere in ~/.local/share. But usually this is not worth the extra effort.
On the other hand, there should be a means to remember such a setting (if the user wants to) for the current running session. This is more easily implemented.

for the sake of simplicity, pkgbrowser uses a single configuration file for both saving state and providing a few manually editable options. there's really nothing to be gained by having separate files.

i have considered whether the state of the search options should be saved between sessions. but my conclusion is that whilst some people might occasionally find it useful, it is also likely to be quite annoying for a lot of others (including me). in short, i think that this is a DWIM feature, so i will not be implementing it.

the "include-aur" option in the configuration file is a small concession (it only cost a couple of lines of code - the documentation took me longer to write). it is there for people who almost always want aur packages included in the search results, and so would prefer that that option is checked by default.

GSF1200S · 2011-09-10 20:27:57

Like some of you, I would prefer having certain options saved between sessions, etc, but we must remember this isn't our project. PkgBrowser offers a lot of nice features, and considering its a one man project, we should consider what makes it easiest on the developer. The easier the project is to maintain, the less susceptible it is to bitrot and breakage in the future.

It seems that most of his effort is waged towards the backend of the program, while the frontend is designed with simplicity in mind..

GSF1200S · 2011-09-13 05:38:20

kachelaqa, is there a way to change the color of the details information (under the details tab)? I figured out to use qtconfig to get most of pkgbrowser to follow my gtktheme, but the white jumps out as I have a dark theme. Its not a big deal and certainly nothing you should code for, but if theres already a way in place, itd be cool to know about it

Thanks for the program- use it everyday. Prolly cut at least 50 packages worth of crap I didnt need by using it to research my system..

twilight0 · 2011-09-13 09:45:17

Tried it today, really useful, thank you very much.

kachelaqa · 2011-09-13 12:52:33

GSF1200S wrote:

kachelaqa, is there a way to change the color of the details information (under the details tab)? I figured out to use qtconfig to get most of pkgbrowser to follow my gtktheme, but the white jumps out as I have a dark theme.

the information pages are all html and use hard-coded colours in an internal stylesheet rather than inheriting them from the desktop theme. unfortunately, i use a boringly "normal" theme on my desktop and never thought much about how the information pages might look with more "interesting" themes.

obviously, this needs to be fixed, but it might be tricky to do it in a way that looks good on all desktops. at the moment, i am working on other projects and was not planning to make another release of pkgbrowser until pacman 4 becomes available. however, if you don't mind doing a little bit of hacking, you could probably fix this fairly easily yourself.

to do so, download the latest pkgbrowser source to a temporary directory, and then build it like this:

$ cd $HOME/tmp
$ tar -xf pkgbrowser-0.6.tar.gz 
$ cd pkgbrowser-0.6
$ make

the program can then be run with:

$ python2 main.py

the stylesheet for the information pages can be found in 'lib/fmt.py' (around line 60). currently, the 'color' and 'background-color' css properties are specified with the standard colour keyword names found here. however, qt also supports some special colour names that can use the palette of the current desktop theme. for example, the background colour for text widgets (which is usually white) can be specified like this:

background-color: palette(base);

full details of all the qt palette/colour roles can be found here and also (along with a helpful picture) here.

it would be very useful if you could experiment a bit and post a patched stylesheet along with some 'before and after' screenshots of what works for you.

GSF1200S · 2011-09-13 14:31:50

kachelaqa wrote:

GSF1200S wrote:
kachelaqa, is there a way to change the color of the details information (under the details tab)? I figured out to use qtconfig to get most of pkgbrowser to follow my gtktheme, but the white jumps out as I have a dark theme.
the information pages are all html and use hard-coded colours in an internal stylesheet rather than inheriting them from the desktop theme. unfortunately, i use a boringly "normal" theme on my desktop and never thought much about how the information pages might look with more "interesting" themes.
obviously, this needs to be fixed, but it might be tricky to do it in a way that looks good on all desktops. at the moment, i am working on other projects and was not planning to make another release of pkgbrowser until pacman 4 becomes available. however, if you don't mind doing a little bit of hacking, you could probably fix this fairly easily yourself.
to do so, download the latest pkgbrowser source to a temporary directory, and then build it like this:
$ cd $HOME/tmp
$ tar -xf pkgbrowser-0.6.tar.gz 
$ cd pkgbrowser-0.6
$ make
the program can then be run with:
$ python2 main.py
the stylesheet for the information pages can be found in 'lib/fmt.py' (around line 60). currently, the 'color' and 'background-color' css properties are specified with the standard colour keyword names found here. however, qt also supports some special colour names that can use the palette of the current desktop theme. for example, the background colour for text widgets (which is usually white) can be specified like this:
background-color: palette(base);
full details of all the qt palette/colour roles can be found here and also (along with a helpful picture) here.
it would be very useful if you could experiment a bit and post a patched stylesheet along with some 'before and after' screenshots of what works for you.

Awesome- sounds good. I have a Calculus 2 test (Integration stuff, etc) this Thursday, so unfortunately I will avoid tackling this until that test is complete. After that test however, I will definitely modify the source and build it. Ill try to create one for my theme, and perhaps other users could do the same? Maybe by the time pacman 4 comes out and you work on PkgBrowser one of us can brainstorm a way for themes to be added for this portion (perhaps some color options in the config file which the program interprets as variables for color?). Thanks for the info on how to take a look at this

Last edited by GSF1200S (2011-09-13 14:32:26)

GSF1200S · 2011-09-13 15:38:00

Haha, I cant stay away from this stuff *shrugs*

I went ahead and did as you suggested modifying fmt.py, and Im very pleased with the results.

Heres a picture before where my dark theme clashed terribly with the light HTML theme. Youll also notice the text is kind of hard to read:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/22 … x1080.png/

Heres a picture after editing fmt.py:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20 … x1080.png/

Much MUCH better Heres lines 60 through 77 of /lib/fmt.py:

        markup = ["""
            <html><head><style type="text/css">
            table {background-color: dimgray;}
            a {color: steelblue;}
            p {margin-top: 25; margin-right: 10;}
            p.tree {font-family: monospace;}
            p.files, p.tree {white-space: pre; margin-left: 35;}
            p.tree {color: slategrey;}
            p.tree span {color: darkslategrey; font-family: sans serif;}
            td.key {white-space: pre; padding: 4; padding-right: 15;
                    background-color: palette(base);}
            td.value {white-space: pre-wrap; padding: 4;
                      background-color: palette(base);}
            img {float: left;}
            font.official {color: tomato;}
            font.aur {color: mediumorchid;}
            </style></head><body><table>
            """]

Cheers
**EDIT** Navigated to /usr/lib/pkgbrowser/lib/fmt.py and made the modifications above; works perfect. I dont know if this is worth extra code- maybe just add this information (including the link to the Basic Data Types page and the mention of palette(base)) to the manual and call it a day? Its pretty easy and only takes a few minutes to tweak- I even used PkgBrowser to find where the file was so I could modify it

**EDIT 2** I just realized that its probably not desirable to have to hand edit fmt.py everytime a new release for PkgBrowser comes out. I guess the most seamless way would be to have that portion of the code parse the config file in .config, where you have a newly created section that deals with what colors to use (comment what each value means). You could just specify in your manual the Data Types link and the palette(base) option; this way, you dont have to code some dialog or complicated solution, but the user's color changes persist through installing new versions of PkgBrowser.

Also, do you want me to cook up a diff patch for this theme? If so, that WILL have to wait until Thursday after my calculus 2 test. If the above is all you wanted, well, there you go

Last edited by GSF1200S (2011-09-13 16:02:10)

kachelaqa · 2011-09-13 16:59:59

GSF1200S wrote:

Haha, I cant stay away from this stuff *shrugs*
I went ahead and did as you suggested modifying fmt.py, and Im very pleased with the results.
Heres a picture before where my dark theme clashed terribly with the light HTML theme. Youll also notice the text is kind of hard to read:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/22 … x1080.png/
Heres a picture after editing fmt.py:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/20 … x1080.png/
Much MUCH better Heres lines 60 through 77 of /lib/fmt.py:
        markup = ["""
            <html><head><style type="text/css">
            table {background-color: dimgray;}
            a {color: steelblue;}
            p {margin-top: 25; margin-right: 10;}
            p.tree {font-family: monospace;}
            p.files, p.tree {white-space: pre; margin-left: 35;}
            p.tree {color: slategrey;}
            p.tree span {color: darkslategrey; font-family: sans serif;}
            td.key {white-space: pre; padding: 4; padding-right: 15;
                    background-color: palette(base);}
            td.value {white-space: pre-wrap; padding: 4;
                      background-color: palette(base);}
            img {float: left;}
            font.official {color: tomato;}
            font.aur {color: mediumorchid;}
            </style></head><body><table>
            """]
Cheers
**EDIT** Navigated to /usr/lib/pkgbrowser/lib/fmt.py and made the modifications above; works perfect. I dont know if this is worth extra code- maybe just add this information (including the link to the Basic Data Types page and the mention of palette(base)) to the manual and call it a day? Its pretty easy and only takes a few minutes to tweak- I even used PkgBrowser to find where the file was so I could modify it
**EDIT 2** I just realized that its probably not desirable to have to hand edit fmt.py everytime a new release for PkgBrowser comes out. I guess the most seamless way would be to have that portion of the code parse the config file in .config, where you have a newly created section that deals with what colors to use (comment what each value means). You could just specify in your manual the Data Types link and the palette(base) option; this way, you dont have to code some dialog or complicated solution, but the user's color changes persist through installing new versions of PkgBrowser.
Also, do you want me to cook up a diff patch for this theme? If so, that WILL have to wait until Thursday after my calculus 2 test. If the above is all you wanted, well, there you go

that's pretty much what i wanted, thanks (no need for a diff). but when you've got time, could you please post some screenshots showing the top and bottom of the tree page for the 'haskell-stream' package (might be a bit slow to load because it has aur dependencies). all i really need are the 'after' screenshots. for completeness, it might also be worth having an 'after' screenshot of the files page for the 'dbus' package.

what i would possibly like to do is support two stylesheets - one with 'standard/classic' colours and the other with 'desktop theme' colours. there would then be a menu item or configuration option for switching between them. then again, if we can come up with a good combination of colours for the 'desktop theme', it might be better to just replace the 'standard' stylesheet altogether.

GSF1200S · 2011-09-13 23:10:46

haskell-stream tree tab top:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/80 … x1080.png/

haskell-stream tree tab bottom:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/69 … x1080.png/

dbus files tab:
http://imageshack.us/photo/my-images/85 … x1080.png/

Might I ask why you needed these screenshots? Just curious..

Arch Linux

#51 2011-08-20 12:45:43

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

#52 2011-08-21 01:21:06

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

#53 2011-08-21 03:45:04

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

#54 2011-08-21 07:06:05

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

#55 2011-08-21 16:23:08

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

#56 2011-08-21 18:09:53

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

#57 2011-08-30 13:53:24

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

#58 2011-08-30 22:36:17

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

#59 2011-08-30 23:36:48

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

#60 2011-08-31 01:56:47

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

#61 2011-08-31 12:30:56

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

#62 2011-09-09 09:16:56

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

#63 2011-09-09 09:30:30

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

#64 2011-09-09 11:43:29

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

#65 2011-09-10 07:24:48

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

#66 2011-09-10 12:08:10

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

#67 2011-09-10 14:15:03

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

#68 2011-09-10 20:27:57

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

#69 2011-09-13 05:38:20

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

#70 2011-09-13 09:45:17

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

#71 2011-09-13 12:52:33

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

#72 2011-09-13 14:31:50

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

#73 2011-09-13 15:38:00

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

#74 2011-09-13 16:59:59

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

#75 2011-09-13 23:10:46

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

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