"uninstall" context menu entry in Software Center's search results

[Paweł Bara]

From omgubuntu:

"I know it might not be the best place to make a feature request, but anyway here I go: could you guys add an option for right click > 'Uninstall this application', ala Mint menu? that could be pretty useful :)"

I like the idea - what do you think Thiago?

[Thiago Teixeira (tvst)]

I remember Jan-Christoph and I talked about this possibility before. I think the consensus was that the "uninstall" command is used so seldomly (at most once per application, ever!) that there isn't much of a reason to have it there. Plus I think we couldn't figure out a good way to uninstall apps.

Putting all this logic aside, even on an emotional level it just feels very much like feature-creep to me... I'd rather avoid it.

BUT HERE'S WHAT: We can take a vote. If 3 of the 4 team members vote "yes", then it gets implemented.

For now, my vote is "no", but I can always be convinced otherwise. It has been known to happen :)

[Jan (jancborchardt-deactivatedaccount)]

The related blueprint is at https://blueprints.launchpad.net/cardapio/+spec/uninstalling-applications – I also took that up from a commenter.

Thiago remembers correctly, I tried to implement that functionality but failed due to several problems (see the whiteboard), my novice coding skills being one of them. ;)

At first I agreed with Thiago on the feature creep side. But as we offer installation as well, we should build the experience as seamless as possible. Mac OS makes it as easy as moving the application to the trash, going to the software center and removing it from there should not be the only option if we can help it.

So, my vote is "yes".

[cmulk (cmulk)]

As far as implementing this as part of the software-center plugin, the coding would be easy, but I don't think the behavior would be ideal because the software center plugin would have to display installed apps as well as new apps. I don't think this would look good because a cardapio search for an app would turn up two results: one in the applications section and one in the software center section.

As mentioned in the blueprint, coding this feature for multiple distros might be difficult. I know python-apt seems pretty simple and would work on all debian based distros, but I am not sure about a python packagekit interface.

I hate to be a downer, but my vote is "no." I don't think this feature would be very useful and in my opinion it might make the menu too crowded whenever the user is searching. That is one reason I'm not a big fan of Mint-menu

[Thiago Teixeira (tvst)]

Ok, so it seems for now we won't implement this, but let's keep this bug report (err... wishlist?) open so other people can chime in.