Le Mercredi 8 Octobre 2003 09:18, Vedran Ljubovic a écrit :
I mostly agree wtih your ideas.
> - Packages have cryptic names
> kde-konqueror-3.1.3-1mdk.i586.rpm
> That's just scary. A typical Windows user would never
> install anything having a name like that.
>
> - Descriptions are too technical
That's true. This is _now_ the main difficulty for newcomers and the newbies.
These last days, I have shown to 4 women (40-50 years old) how to install
Mandrake and how to use it. They were not together.
They understand everything including partitioning. Diskdrake is very good.
But they had a great problem with the packages. They don't understand what is
the use of each package and are not able to do a choice.
The idea can be achieved with a status, ie:
- A: programs shown in menus
- B: plugins for these programs
- C: programs in command line
- D: libraries
Then a newbie can select A only to avoid boring informations.
Combining this with the the Menu and Rpm-Groups architecture
(multimedia, games&fun, network....) it would give a better feeling to
newcomers.
I suggest also another class called "usage" : Recommended,
Alternative, Why not, Deprecated.
> Writing better descriptions is not too hard, I for one
> volunteer to do that, but even with the finest worded
> descriptions users can still be at a loss about what
> exactly does each package do. That's why most
> beginner-oriented shareware CDs feature screenshots of
> programs they carry.
Yes your idea is very good and ergonomic. As GC said, "There would take very
much diskspace, especially screenshots!"
To avoid this, it could be useful to create a database hosted by Mandrake:
Main table
Name : generic name of the software (primary key)
class : program, plugin...
usage : Recommended, Common, Deprecated.
description : default description in english
Localization table
Name : generic name of the software (Foreign key)
langage : fr, en, ...
description : the description of the package
author : author of the description
date : automatic. The latest will be shown.
link-home : home page of the project (ex:
http://fr.openoffice.org/)
screenshot : localized screenshot (name or URL of the file)
Groups table
Name : generic name of the software (Foreign key)
group : Rpm-Group (a software can belongs to several groups)
This is only a draft. I can participate to a full implementation of a
database.
Then it would be easy to export a localized description of each package if it
exists.
I suggest to use the club and contributors (people having an account) to fill
the localized texts and screenshots.
This database should be the first in the world and give the leadership to
Mandrake because people want to be helped in their own language to find
the software they need.
> But the most important issue is:
> - "I don't want to install packages, I want to
> install programs"
Yes, at the beginning, but when needs are increasing, they have to have a look
to the packages. My proposal with classes allows to suit with the needs.
> My proposition
> Here are some screenshots:
> http://members.smartnet.ba/vedran/mdkarp/screen1.png -
I would like to use such a tool !
My proposition of a database don't breaks RpmDrake, it is only a complement
and is along with your ideas. IMHO, it is a good way for a smooth evolution.
RpmDrake can show the localized description if it exists without breaking it.
> Thank you for reading this enormous mail :) I'm not
> very good at English so sometimes it takes me more
> words to articulate my point. Anyway I hope there are
> some useful ideas here.
Fully understandable.
My English is not good, too ! But if we can share our ideas, it will be great!
That's the power of "Libre Software" :-)
--
Pierre Jarillon - http://pjarillon.free.fr/
Vice-président de l'ABUL : http://abul.org/
