PackagingToolsUsability

Revision 1 as of 2007-10-31 20:57:09

Clear message

Please check the status of this specification in Launchpad before editing it. If it is Approved, contact the Assignee or another knowledgeable person before making changes.

  • Launchpad Entry: foo

  • Packages affected:

Summary

This should provide an overview of the issue/functionality/change proposed here. Focus here on what will actually be DONE, summarising that so that other people don't have to read the whole spec.

Release Note

This section should include a paragraph describing the end-user impact of this change. It is meant to be included in the release notes of the first release in which it is implemented. (Not all of these will actually be included in the release notes, at the release manager's discretion; but writing them is a useful exercise.)

It is mandatory.

Rationale

This should cover the _why_: why is this change being proposed, what justifies it, where we see this justified.

Use Cases

Assumptions

Design

You can have subsections that better describe specific parts of the issue.

Implementation

This section should describe a plan of action (the "how") to implement the changes discussed. Could include subsections like:

UI Changes

Should cover changes required to the UI, or specific UI that is required to implement this

Code Changes

Code changes should include an overview of what needs to change, and in some cases even the specific details.

Migration

Include:

  • data migration, if any
  • redirects from old URLs to new ones, if any
  • how users will be pointed to the new way of doing things, if necessary.

Test/Demo Plan

It's important that we are able to test new features, and demonstrate them to users. Use this section to describe a short plan that anybody can follow that demonstrates the feature is working. This can then be used during CD testing, and to show off after release.

This need not be added or completed until the specification is nearing beta.

Outstanding Issues

This should highlight any issues that should be addressed in further specifications, and not problems with the specification itself; since any specification with problems cannot be approved.

BoF agenda and discussion

Use this section to take notes during the BoF; if you keep it in the approved spec, use it for summarising what was discussed and note any options that were rejected.

Gobby document from UDS

Review GUI packaging tools for usability:

  • Review text to ensure grammarness
  • Cleanup
  • General review

Because Ubuntu 8.04 will be a an LTS release, we want to make small conservative changes. We will not be doing anything big like:

  • switching to PackageKit tools

  • implementing session management for the tools
  • localizing changelogs

Cross-application ideas

* Would be nice to have a way to update only .deb repositories (we waste like 30 seconds of user interaction refreshing source packages in update manager, gnome-app-install, and synaptic)

* Don't want to disable source repos by default. Since only way to install a source package is apt-get source, can rely on user to run apt-get update on same terminal.

  • Consistent icon for "supported by Canonical"

update-manager

  • Show applications as applications, like gnome-app-install does. Sebastien Heinlein will work on this so it can be considered for 8.04 vs. 8.10.
  • Show non-application packages as categories?
  • Changes shows some cryptic text for security updates
    • Add a style guide to StableReleaseUpdates about writing user-facing changelogs. [mpt]

      • Could have a subset of the changelog entry guided to users, and then update manager would only show that, using some special syntax
      • Describe impact of problem
  • SRU template in dch would be helpful, like the security update template
  • Should remove the "from version to version" from update-manager since it's in the changelog entry as well (it's almost always something unusable anyway, like package0.9.2-ubuntu1 to package0.9.2-ubuntu2)
  • remove the version number from the main versionlist
  • optimize the vertical space

gnome-app-install

  • make uninstall easier
    • Not obvious how to get a list of installed applications.
  • change text in Show: "Installed Applications" to "Only installed applications"
  • make list sortable by checkbox install/uninstall
  • Would be nice to have web links or images in the application description at the bottom.
    • Web links should go to launchpad in case they change after release
  • Impossible to list only uninstalled applications
  • Search is currently NOT global if you have a category selected - this is not obvious at all
    • could move search bar to indicate what it is searching
    • could have extra bars appear when you do a search

Automatix displays a lot more information:

  • copyright (license)
  • link to screenshot
  • link to upstream homepage
  • "integrates well into the Ubuntu desktop" isn't understandable (emblem)

Gdebi

* Double clicking a .deb file is beyond normal use case

  • Huh? This happens quite frequently, see getdeb.net ...

synaptic

"This application is supported by the distribution" isn't understandable

adept adept_installer adept_updater apturl integration


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