kpackagekit ui needs improvement

[Richard Sweeney]

Binary package hint: kpackagekit

The package names should be short, or at least should have an option. The user doesn't need to know that they are trying to download "firefox - 3.0.12 + build1 + nobinonly + 0ubuntu2 (all)" This is confusing and messy.

Selecting a file to download needs work, the download arrow is light blue and the highlighted line is a slightly darker shade. On top of this, the light blue doesn't stand out very well from the grey. Maybe it should be a different colour, such as green.

The downloading dialog is a mess. It shouldn't resize continuously, it should probably grow to fit the largest item but not shrink back afterwards. When downloading a lot of files the dialog jumps all over the place, making it impossible to click on hide or cancel without either clicking nothing or the wrong button all together.

KPackageKit should not automatically exit when it has finished downloading and installing. If the user leaves the computer to go and do something else (make a coffee) and then returns to see that KPackageKit has vanished, the user might assume that the application just crashed without displaying an error. Also whilst downloading they might remember that they wanted to download something else and this means that they have to load it up all over again.

The update manager should display files in alphabetical order.

Update :

The update manager appeared to crash when I elected to download the updated packages. What had actually happened was that it had minimised to the system tray without any notification

There is also no need to display the decimal seconds remaining. No one needs know that there are 45.00 seconds remaining. 45 will do.

[Matthias Klumpp (ximion)]

A lot of those issues are fixed in the newest KPackageKit version. Just try it! (Compile from packagekit.org or try the PPA)

[Jonathan Thomas (echidnaman)]

Yes, a lot of them are. I would suggest filing remaining issues at bugs.kde.org separately if they are not already reported. (For example: https://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=199573)
Nobody likes meta-bugs with multiple issues.