Re: [Synaptic-devel] interface changes in 0.51

[Panu Matilainen]

On Thu, 22 Jul 2004, Sebastian Heinlein wrote:

> On Mi, 2004-07-21 at 20:25 +0200, Frank Van Damme wrote:
> 
> > > We are trying to orientate more on cases of use instead of pure
> > > providing of functionality. Could you give some or one use case where
> > > you really missed this?
> > 
> > Not actually since everything is still available if you keep on using just 
> > filters (like defining a filter that shows upgradeable packages in the 
> > Editors section). It's just that the same functionality is available in two 
> > places (showing a section can be done by selecting "section" as well as by 
> > defining a filter eg) which I, personally, find more confusing than using 
> > filters for everything.
> 
> Perhaps we should label the filters "Custom" or "Custom filters" to make
> the sense of the filters more palpable. We don't want to delete any user
> created filter during update. So the old filters still exist. If you
> remove the file "/root/.synaptic/filters" synaptic won't recreate the
> redundant filters at start up.

Yes, please. "Custom" or perhaps "Custom view" sounds a heck of a lot more 
understandable to me than "Filters", never mind what Synaptic calls them 
internally.

> > Avoiding general confusion? See, this interface changes don't imply a 
> > diminishment of functionality as far as I can see it, but just puts things 
> > in 
> > a strange order. I would call the benefit a clearer user interface; it's 
> > more 
> > obvious what everything does. Disclaimer; this may be because I am just 
> > used 
> > to the pre-0.51 interface.
> 
> Could you be more detailed on this? Because this is the interesting
> point to improve the user interface. What did you want to do? And at
> which step were you confused or would you expect another method?

I remember grumbling to myself about the interface change when 0.50 came
out, just because it wasn't what I was used to. And people who have first
seen the >= 0.50 interface would be just as irritated if they were
suddenly confronted with the old interface - people simply don't like
change :)

        - Panu -