Package: update-manager Version: 0.42.2ubuntu22-15 Severity: wishlist Though this is a GUI tool designed to make updating easy, I think it can actually be more complex to use than the command-line approach. The current version represents a very good start on the usability front, but I feel that there are some big (and fairly simple) improvements that could be made.
The main problem IMHO is that such a lot of popups are spawned and changes made to the main window during one update routine. Though most of these windows exist only to impart the progress of one stage of the update to the user, they make the process seem overly complex to them. In a typical install process, the following window spawns/changes occur. 1a. Main window loads in disabled mode. 1b. The ``apt-get update'' window may need to be invoked. 2. The ``reading caches'' window appears. 3. The main window gets enabled; user clicks the ``install'' button. 4. The ``downloading'' or just ``installing'' window appears for some time. 5. The user is then offered to close this window when the install has finished. 6. The main window appears again. 7. The ``reading caches'' window appears again. Please bear in mind that most of these popups are not actually the type of window that the user would need to interact with; they're essentially just progress meters. This causes problems in the following situations. A. Most users just want to do the upgrade as quickly as possible. We sould just require one click on the ``install'' button and let the rest go on automatically. Requiring the user to press buttons both causes them to have to attend to the process and makes it all seem a lot more complicated (on the command line I can do a dist-upgrade in two commands maximum). B. For users who like to leave an update progressing on one desktop whilst they're still working on another, it's very annoying because windows keep popping up when they are not welcome. My proposed solution is to collapse most of these external windows into the main one. By this, I mean that a status/progress bar should be embedded into the main window at the bottom that shows the progress of actions when the the controls in the main window are disabled. This way, no annoying popups happen and the update can be left to run without bothering -- even alarming -- the user with popup messages (which most users tend to associate with ``ah; there has been a problem'' until they've read what the message is about). Please contact me if you feel this is a good idea and I will try to provide more information. best regards, Matthew -- System Information: Debian Release: lenny/sid APT prefers testing APT policy: (1100, 'testing'), (300, 'unstable') Architecture: i386 (i686) Kernel: Linux 2.6.22-2-k7 (SMP w/1 CPU core) Locale: LANG=en_GB.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_GB.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8) Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash Versions of packages update-manager depends on: ii libgnome2-perl 1.040-1 Perl interface to the GNOME librar ii lsb-release 3.1-24 Linux Standard Base version report ii python 2.4.4-6 An interactive high-level object-o ii python-apt 0.7.3.1 Python interface to libapt-pkg ii python-glade2 2.10.6-1 GTK+ bindings: Glade support ii python-gnome2 2.18.2-1+b1 Python bindings for the GNOME desk ii python-gnupginterface 0.3.2-9 Python interface to GnuPG (GPG) ii python-support 0.6.4 automated rebuilding support for p ii synaptic 0.60+b1 Graphical package manager update-manager recommends no packages. -- no debconf information -- To UNSUBSCRIBE, email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] with a subject of "unsubscribe". Trouble? Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED]
