On Wednesday 01 October 2003 11:03, Buchan Milne wrote: > How about instead the package provides a url in the > description for each package? If rpmdrake supports launching a > browser on a url, then it's no problem. Ideally this would be > something like the screenshot page for this app on freshmeat.
Maybe that'll be the way Mandrake eventually decides to go, I dunno, but I think my way would look an awful lot more professional and be less work for packagers and Mandrake. > Keeping track of the latest screenshots is not something we > want to do. No one else does, so I seriously doubt people would expect that of Mandrake. ;) > Which is why they don't need to do this. The user can install > the program with less effort than it would take to see the > screenshot. Incorrect. As I described it, if a user was looking at the description of a program in my hypothetical revamped rpmdrake for more than a few seconds, it would automatically show them a (probably scaled down) screenshot. To run a program they'd need to click Install, either put in a CD or wait for it to download, wait for update-menus to run and then find the program in the menus, and then possibly run through some kind of setup wizard just to see if the app looks nice. > Funny, that's one thing I am glad I don't need now. Everything > I have wanted (besides large apps which weren't package yet) > is available in one place, the rest can be found at freshmeat. I think we can take for granted that you and I are not the target users for the app I'm describing. > Why does freshmeat mean he needs to compile something? If I Freshmeat doesn't mean that he *doesn't* need to compile something. There's a difference there and I'll let you think about it for a moment. :) > find something on freshmeat, the first thing I do is check if > there is a package in Mandrake. In all likelihood, there is. So rather than an all in one app you'd advocate users having a web browser and rpmdrake open side by side, trying to match up application names. Once again, I note that you and I aren't exactly the people who need a program like this. > Sure, but I don't see why we need to dump packages to have > screenshots available in the distro. And if we can assume the I'm not sure what you mean by "dump packages". My app would be a front end for urpmi, not a replacement for it. > I just don't think it's feasible to maintain screenshots for > 3000 packages. Leverage the information that is already out > there, and the screenshots maintained by the authors or other > sites (like freshmeat). I'd certainly want to use those as sources for screenshots, but any way you look at it, there's going to be a need to translate mdk package name into screenshot URL. Putting it in the package itself is a great way to send confidence-destroying 404's to the users Mandrake most needs to win over. Rob
