Make so you can use apt-url on packages.ubuntu.com

[Fred]

Include apt: links on the packages.ubuntu.com website, so that you can use apt-url to get packages directly from the website.

[Frank Lichtenheld (djpig)]

I'm not generally opposed to this idea. Text ideas welcome to make it clear to users that this might not actually install the package version on the page they're seeing if they run another version of Ubuntu (or even another Distribution) and might not work at all if the package in question is not actually available in their sources.list.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

We are closing this bug report because it lacks the information we need to investigate the problem,. Please reopen it if you can give us the missing information, and don't hesitate to submit bug reports in the future. To reopen the bug report you can click on the current status, under the Status column, and change the Status back to "New". Thanks again!

[Fred (eldmannen+launchpad)]

I am sorry, but what information do I need to specify for you to investigate this?

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Can you confirm that this is still a problem in Intrepid?
Thank you.

[Fred (eldmannen+launchpad)]

Well there are .deb files on packages.ubuntu.com, but I think both you and me can confirm that there are no apt: links.

[xteejx (xteejx)]

I'll be honest guys this is an old one, and going by the new triaging procedures this really should be forwarded to Ubuntu Brainstorm where it can be seen by everyone same as this, but it can be voted on and as a feature, can be implemented quicker as more will be working on it, so I'm marking Invalid. But you can still link this bug report from Brainstorm https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/apturl/+bug/218282 so feel free to report this there :)
Good luck guys!

[Siegfried Gevatter (rainct)]

Thanks for contributing to Ubuntu with valuable bug triaging, but in this case, unless I've missed something (in which case I'd like a link to the new policy so that I can complain :)), this is a valid Wishlist bug (except that the package is incorrect, but I don't know if there's one for packages.ubuntu.com) and if it is to be rejected then only as "Won't Fix".

[Siegfried Gevatter (rainct)]

I'm not really sure whether there really should be such a link/button on packages.ubuntu.com, as:

 a) I see it more as a website for developers and tech-savy users to get older/newer versions of packages than as a page where people would search packages (except for the file search feature, but that can be considered tech-savy). For the second use case, there is an unofficial but way more appropriate page (which name I don't remember :().

 b) Adding it *will* probably add confusion (see Frank's comment).

However, if you (Frank or some other packages.ubuntu.com developer, if there is) are happy with adding this feature, which may be nice after all, I guess I could come up with a good enough text if you can't think of one yourself.

[Siegfried Gevatter (rainct)]

(Teej: Again, to clarify, asking for this to be raised on Brainstorm is indeed a good idea -perhaps this wasn't clear with my message-, but this doesn't mean that the bug should be closed :).)

[xteejx (xteejx)]

Thank you RainCT :)
In that case I shall mark this as Confirmed, as this feature isn't implemented, and I shall leave it to Brainstorm to decide the communities view on this addition.
Thank you for the input :)

[Fred (eldmannen+launchpad)]

Well, you already can download the .deb files from the site.
So why not apt-url?
apt-url would always get it from the local repository anyways, so it would always be the correct one.

[YannUbuntu (yannubuntu)]

I agree with Fred, this is not dangerous and would be soooo convenient.

BTW I also don't understand why APT-URL are not enabled in the wiki (it is enabled in the French one and it rocks! http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/19004/ )

[David Tomaschik (matir)]

While this definitely affects the usability of Ubuntu, it does not meet the One Hundred Paper Cuts criteria outlined at http://blog.davebsd.com/2009/06/15/calling-all-paper-cutters/. It is NOT very easy to fix, requiring both the involvement of the Ubuntu web team, and major underlying changes. It is also a new feature. For this reason, I am marking it INVALID in One Hundred Paper Cuts, but it will remain open (and hopefully fixed soon) in Ubuntu.

[Fred (eldmannen+launchpad)]

I don't see why its so tricky.
One guy needs to change one line of code.

echo $appname
into
echo "<a href=\"apt:$appname\">$appname</a>\n";