[packagekit] get_categories function

[Richard Hughes]

On Sun, May 31, 2009 at 10:58 AM, Mounir Lamouri
<mounir.lamouri at gmail.com> wrote:
> get_categories is used only by yum.
> According to the doc this function returns collection categories. What does it
> mean ? What are collections ?

Categories are specific vendor specific set of packages. So, for
instance the "Server Software" _GROUP_ for the yum backend contains
thousands of entries. There are only designed to be a few groups,
maybe 10-15 in total. A group list is also a flat list, not
hierarchical, and has to be mapped to a predefined enum.

A category is a small vendor named set of packages, usually very
specific. For instance, a category can be "KDE administration
software". Categories can be chained together to form a hierarchical
list, and can have custom icons and custom translations.

So, for yum:

[hughsie at localhost ~]$ pkcon get-groups
admin-tools
desktop-gnome
desktop-kde
desktop-other
desktop-xfce
education
fonts
games
graphics
internet
legacy
localization
multimedia
office
other
programming
publishing
servers
system
virtualization
collections
newest

[hughsie at localhost ~]$ pkcon get-categories
Category: Desktop Environments
 ID: desktops
 Name: Desktop Environments
 Summary: Desktop environments
 Icon: desktops
Category: GNOME Desktop Environment
 ID: @gnome-desktop
 Parent: desktops
 Name: GNOME Desktop Environment
 Summary: GNOME is a powerful graphical user interface which includes
a panel, desktop, system icons, and a graphical file manager.
 Icon: gnome-desktop
Category: KDE (K Desktop Environment)
 ID: @kde-desktop
 Parent: desktops
 Name: KDE (K Desktop Environment)
 Summary: KDE is a powerful graphical user interface which includes a
panel, desktop, system icons, and a graphical file manager.
 Icon: kde-desktop

Only a couple of backends have categories, as the front end tools fall
back to groups automatically if they are not available.

Hope that helps,

Richard.