Hey mpt, thanks for your insights on this. This came up as an issue at the UDS session for UI Enhancements and there was discussion about it, see the raw session notes here:
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/SoftwareCenter/UDSOneiricSessionNotes Specifically, check the last two lines of the following section: * Simplify the UI (this may be a big topic and so we might move this to its own blueprint) * Remove the left navigation pane, it takes a lot of space but where to put the information * the expander is tiny and often unnoticed * should expand by default, especially Get Software It's for this reason this work item was added to the spec. (Note that I was the one who originally set this bug as Invalid, but it was the opinions put forth at the session that made me reconsider). Indeed it is true that the For Purchase items are available from Get Software, but it is not possible to easily browse *only* the available For Purchase apps from that section, I think a lot of people want to do just that. Since the expander for Get Software in the treeview is small, however, it's easily overlooked and so the contained items remain invisible. In fact, this bug was originally filed for this use case; the reporter wanted to browse items for purchase but was unable to find the For Purchase subitem to select it (likely for him this node had gotten collapsed at some point). Fwiw, I don't think *all* sources should be available, but the For Purchase and Independent nodes are special cases and I do think we ought to make them visible by default. What is the use of hiding them? People are interested in those specifically, and they are delivered by default with Ubuntu (unlike PPA nodes, that are added by the user). I guess I don't see how it hurts to expand Get Software by default, but I do see how it helps (as described above). Note also that the Installed Software item is collapsed by default and its expansion state persisted as before. Maybe we should wait to see if we get any complaints about Get Software being expanded by default? Please let me know what you think. Thanks! -- You received this bug notification because you are a member of Ubuntu Bugs, which is subscribed to Ubuntu. https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/774590 Title: An option to Purchase software is not visible in Ubuntu 11.04 S/w center -- ubuntu-bugs mailing list ubuntu-bugs@lists.ubuntu.com https://lists.ubuntu.com/mailman/listinfo/ubuntu-bugs