[packagekit] Another approach at PK status window

[Patryk Zawadzki]

You've got to admin that currently the thing you get by clicking the
PK status icon is less than user friendly. Therefore I came with
another idea.

Why not replace it with a single window while also getting rid of the
"subpercentage" idea altogether? See attached screenshot for
reference, rationale follows. The mockup comes from glade editor and
uses table while the real implementation would obviously use a
treeview - I am just too lazy to write dummy code to create the model
and fill it with bogus data.

Why subpercentage does not work:

I believe most users don't really care about any internal progress.
They said "install foo" and they want you to tell them when it's done,
not when it reaches some random internal milestone that in reality is
just an implementation detail.

Therefore I suggest showing 0% progress and "Preparing" until we can
decide if the transaction can be finished (broken deps can prevent
this) and how many steps are required (download 4 files, uninstall 1
package and upgrade 5 equals 10 steps). Then just divide the 100%
progress by the number of steps required and display everything on one
bar (50% in the above case would probably mean all 4 files downloaded
and one package uninstalled) updating the title according to the
current action.

I'd also suggest keeping "completed" entries there for a minute or two
(or until user closes the window).

Merging the above with the other windows:

I suggest merging the above with the "updates" and "add/remove"
windows. Probably by creating a reusable transaction tracking widget.
The idea is when you click "show updates" you get the information
about available normal/critical/bugfix updates. Then:

- if you click "update system", all updates get queued and the window
changes to the transaction tracking window mentioned above, when it
finishes it either closes (no errors) or stays there (in case of
errors bonus points will be awarded for displaying an "info" icon next
to failed packages that takes you to the transaction viewer to review
details)

- if you click "review" and then "update this package" only the
current package is queued and you get the transaction tracking window,
when it finishes, you get back to the review screen (no errors) or you
get to review errors

- if you click "review" and then mark some packages, only those get
queues and everything works as above

I imagine add/remove would work exactly like the second option above.
I am not really sure what to do if there are already tons of
transactions queued as I'd like the "updade" and "add/remove" windows
to only show packages selected in the previous step, not the whole
queue. Maybe a dynamically updated entry saying "20 more in queue"
above the selected one would do. Currently PackageKit fails to provide
user with any sensible feedback in such a case.

Please don't flame me ;)

-- 
Patryk Zawadzki
PLD Linux Distribution
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