[issue178] Ideas for improved Search output on the command line

[Francis Giannaros at Labix Tracker]

New submission from Francis Giannaros <francisg at gmail.com>:

I tried out rug recently, and it had many annoying things but I was quite 
impressed by the way the search was organised. 

A current example search on my setup for i.e. kdebase is like this:

kdebase3 - The KDE Core Components
kdebase3 - The KDE Core Components
kdebase3 - The KDE Core Components
kdebase3 - The KDE Core Components
kdebase3-32bit - The KDE Core Components
kdebase3-SuSE - SUSE KDE Extension
kdebase3-SuSE - SUSE KDE Extension
kdebase3-SuSE-debuginfo - SUSE KDE Extension
kdebase3-SuSE-debuginfo - SUSE KDE Extension
kdebase3-debuginfo - The KDE Core Components
kdebase3-debuginfo - The KDE Core Components
kdebase3-devel - KDE Base Package: Base, Build Environment
kdebase3-devel - The KDE Core Components
kdebase3-devel - KDE Base Package: Base, Build Environment
kdebase3-devel - KDE Base Package: Base, Build Environment
kdebase3-extra - KDE Base package: Extra Applications

What's good about it I think is: info such as title and description are 
displayed quite obviously; further, the information provided still remains 
clear despite the size of the terminal. 

What I think it doesn't contain (which would be quite handy): no version 
number, no architecture (more of an issue, generally, for i.e. AMD64 users), no 
indication of whether it's installed or not, and, to a less vital extent (IMO): 
no indication of the channel it comes from.

An example "mockup" of what it could look like, adopting some of rug's ideas:

S | Channel      | Name                  | Version    | Arch
--+--------------+-------------------------+------------+-------
v | suse-updates | kdebase3              | 3.5.3-21.2 | i586
v | suse-online  | kdebase3              | 3.5.1-69   | x86_64
i | suse-updates | kdebase3              | 3.5.3-21.2 | x86_64
v | suse-online  | kdebase3              | 3.5.1-69   | i586
i | suse-online  | kdebase3-32bit        | 3.5.1-69   | x86_64
  | suse-online  | kdebase3-debuginfo    | 3.5.1-69   | i586
  | suse-online  | kdebase3-debuginfo    | 3.5.1-69   | x86_64
v | suse-online  | kdebase3-devel        | 3.5.1-69   | x86_64
v | suse-online  | kdebase3-devel        | 3.5.1-69   | i586
v | suse-updates | kdebase3-devel        | 3.5.3-21.2 | i586
i | suse-updates | kdebase3-devel        | 3.5.3-21.2 | x86_64
v | suse-online  | kdebase3-extra        | 3.5.1-69   | i586

(Version+Arch could perhaps be the same, as in Smart GUI).

What's good about this? (i) Extra information: architecture (instead of 
multiple entries seemingly the same), Version information, and Status 
information (is it installed, is it not etc). (ii) Organisation: column 
organisation makes all the information very easily accessible. 

What's bad? (i) No description, though I guess that could be included in a 
column. (ii) what do you do when the information is too large for the terminal? 
If you have no description this becoemes quite unlikely in most situations, but 
if it happened, then things are forced onto a new line and you lose 
organisation. 

Conclusion? I think Smart would do really well to have some of these nice 
things. It'd be nice to get around the same information that the *GUI would 
display* in a basic search without the extra tabs at the bottom (yes, 
channel-info is an extra, just an idea :p), which is currently: (i) status, 
(ii)name, (iii) version and architecture.

----------
messages: 576
nosy: apokryphos
priority: wish
project: smart
status: unread
title: Ideas for improved Search output on the command line

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Labix issue tracker <tracker at labix.org>
<http://tracker.labix.org/issue178>
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