"Choose..." Ubuntu package search UI

[Davor Cubranic]

When reporting Ubuntu bugs, the search dialog used in the "Choose..." the package action has a number of problems that make it almost unusable:

1. The match gives equal priority to package name and description. Example: search for "Emacs" and see how many pages you have to page through before getting to a package for the actual Emacs editor.

2. Substring and entire word matches are given equal importance. Example: search for "oxygen" and see Doxygen returned as the top match. ("Entire word" in package names should be taken to be between two hyphens, rather than spaces.)

3. When a list of search results is displayed, package descriptions are so truncated as to make it impossible to tell which one the user is looking for. This is made worse by multiple packages having the same visible text. Example: search for "oxygen" and see four out of the six results on the first page all be "Doxygen is a documentation system for C, C++, Jav...". This list should contain both the package name, and the description, in two columns, with the name first. And if the description has to be truncated, then at least show me the whole description in a popup on mouse hover.

4. Some of the search results are blank lines. Example: search for "oxygen" and page to the second page. The top result is blank. Choosing this enters "gtk-engines-oxygen" into the search field. But...

5. Some of the search results are bogus. Example: follow steps from #4 above, and choose the top result in the second page -- it's entry in the result list is blank, but you'll get "gtk-oxygen-engine" filled in as the package name. Submit the bug, and get greeted with the error '"gtk-oxygen-engine" does not exist in Ubuntu. Please choose a different package. If you're unsure, please select "I don't know"'.

[Davor Cubranic (cubranic)]

Curtis, only the third issue is the duplicate of bug 417100 (displaying better info).

If anything, 417100 should be a duplicate of this. Or I can split the rest of my points into separate bugs.

[Robert Collins (lifeless)]

Please do file separate bugs; fixing disparate issues often happens at
different times, so having one bug make it tricky to work with.

[Davor Cubranic (cubranic)]

This bug has been split into the following:

1. Equal priority given to matches on package title and description: cannot reproduce because search appears to match only on package name

2. Substring and entire word matches are given equal importance: bug 828492

3. Truncated package descriptions: the picker widget now shows package names, rather than descriptions. But I opened bug 828495 to request that both the name and description be displayed in this list.

4. Blank lines in search results: cannot reproduce because result list shows package names, which are never blank

5. Bogus search results: bug 828493