[packagekit] New GUI

[Jean Hubbard]

Hey Guys,

 

So ive been a member of the Ubuntu Forums for some time where i first learned about Packagekit and loved it and was really looking forward to it being adopted by Ubuntu as the default Package Manager. So i am rather ticked that it has been dropped after being told 'next release' a few times and being marked as in development for so long all for something they decided to go at alone namely being AppCenter.

 

I have also fairly recently been a member of the Foresight, Fedora and Mandriva forums to see how they feel about PK in their camp.

 

The Foresight community is well, a rather quiet one so no feedback from there but PK does work well in Foresight.

 

Ubuntu and Mandriva have very strong support for PK but also a lot that appose it.

 

Fedora seems pretty happy with the way it seems to be shaping up.

 

Now 90% of the people from all forums that do appose or are not to happy with PK seem to have issues with the GUI and the functionality there of.

 

One thing i and ive noticed a few other people who support PK do like about the AppCenter thing though is the idea of a single GUI for Software Sources, Add/Remove, Update Manager etc etc...

 

Foresight and Ubuntu have an Add/Remove entry in the Applications menu. Add/Remove, Software Sources and Update System in System->Admin and Software Updates in System ->Prefs. and i have not used Fedora in a couple of years but im guessing its pretty much the same.

 

 

What i propose is just one entry, a single entry under System->Admin called Packagekit or something like that. You click on that and this pops up: v

 

http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f53/courtney2721/?action=view&current=PackagekitDefault.jpg

 

A GUI with 3 tabs, Add/Remove, Software Updates and Update System.

 

If you click on System in the top left of the GUI you have all the options thats usually there plus 2 Additional entries which are CHECK BOXES, namely

enable Software Sources and enable Advanced.

 

If you CHECK: enable Software Sources, then you will see this: v

 

http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f53/courtney2721/?action=view&current=PKDefaultSoftwareSources.jpg

 

If you CHECK: enable Advanced, then you will see something like this: v

 

http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f53/courtney2721/?action=view&current=PKDefaultAdvanced.jpg

 

Yes it has the feel and look of Synaptic giving advanced users that extra functionality. ^

 

 

If you have Software Sources and Advanced CHECKED, then you GUI will look as follows with the selected Tabs:

 

http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f53/courtney2721/?action=view&current=PackagekitAdd-Remove.jpg

 

http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f53/courtney2721/?action=view&current=PKSoftwareUpdates.jpg

 

http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f53/courtney2721/?action=view&current=PKUpdateSystem.jpg

 

http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f53/courtney2721/?action=view&current=PackagekitAdvanced.jpg

 

http://s45.photobucket.com/albums/f53/courtney2721/?action=view&current=PKSoftwareSources.jpg

 

 

Perhaps to enable Software Sources and Advanced in the System menu at the top left of the GUI, password authentification could be required??

 

While this is for the Gnome Desktop, maybe something like this could be done for the KDE and Xfce Desktops too making it easier to maintain/implement.

 

If you guys would like further feedback on this i could start a Poll in all the Forums and see how that goes and then lastly, unfortunately i have no experience coding and therefore would be not able to contribute to this in that way but would certainly be onboard to testing it.

 

Anyways, hope you guys like it and keep up the good work.

 

Jean

 

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