On Fri, Apr 13, 2007 at 04:13:30PM +0200, Frank Küster <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> was
heard to say:
> Daniel Burrows <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > The list is confusing overall, with stuff being listed multiple times
> > in different places. Maybe all three lists (of auto, unused, and manual
> > removals) should be placed right next to the prompt for better
> > visibility? I think removals are placed near the top so they'll be more
> > obvious, but this has the opposite effect if the terminal is too small.
>
> Whether top or bottom I do not care, but you are right that the
> different categories are confusing. I always thought that there's
> "REMOVED because ..." on the one hand and "REMOVED ..." as the union of
> the "REMOVED because" lists. Usually this occurs with "aptitude remove
> foo", and I'm being told that this will automatically also remove bar
> and libbar1, and totally "foo bar libbar1" will be REMOVED.
>
> But a REMOVED list that doesn't cover everything is not useful. Either
> it's dropped completely, or it's updated to really cover the complete
> union of all of them.
>
> I would prefer the latter: When there's a larger dist-upgrade, this is
> often the only section that I closely inspect. I expect if something
> really unwanted is going on, it will show up there.
What I was actually thinking about doing is making all three lists
disjoint and grouping them together near the prompt. The problem with
overlap is it creates more visual noise and makes it hard to really see
what's going on.
On the other hand, another option (albeit one that requires more user
learning) is to have just one list, with tags for auto-removed or unused
packages:
The following packages will be REMOVED:
foo bar{A} chlethia{U} ...
There's already a {p} tag for purged packages. The tags might clutter
the display a little, but I think that they might be less distracting
than having to search three lists to understand what's going on. On the
other hand, they'd probably result in a lot of confusion among users. :(
Daniel
