[packagekit] Dynamic Groups in Packagekit

[Anders F Björklund]

Richard Hughes wrote:

>> Now the shown group selection is the superset of all
>> that are available, but not necessarily "right now".
>> So half of the groups could end up empty, which is
>> somewhat confusing after you've clicked a group.
>
> Valid point -- I've got that effect on my rawhide install where koji
> supplies no comps, and livna does, so only about half of the groups  
> have
> any packages in.
>
> That's one thing we really need to fix.

The groups shown with Smart is currently the superset of:

- RPM Groups (redhat)
- Yum Comps
- RPM Groups (novell)
- YaST Patterns
- RPM Groups (mandriva)
- DEB Sections
- APT Sections (meta)
- Slackware (just one)

And it's still lacking a few groups, mapping them to Other.


Creating "fake" metapackages from the collections wasn't
the prettiest solution, but was an easy way to somewhat
integrate the Comps / Patterns with the Package Manager,
since their data is otherwise kept outside its knowledge.

For a distro-native tool it might make more sense to show
them in a separate tab from the regular package groups,
like it is being done in Yum Extender now for instance ?
For Smart UI, I just added them to the main package view:

     Virtual/Applications
     Virtual/Base System
     Virtual/DesktopEnvironments
     Virtual/Development
     Virtual/Languages
     Virtual/Servers

     Virtual/BaseTechnologies
     Virtual/DesktopFunctions
     Virtual/Development
     Virtual/GNOMEDesktop
     Virtual/GraphicalEnvironments
     Virtual/KDEDesktop
     Virtual/ServerFunctions

But groups are wildcards there, so you would still find all
of the subcategories by searching for the "Virtual" group.

Any optional packages were added as a separate metapackage,
which is mostly useful for viewing rather than installing...

--anders