Ubuntu Wiki

Things Discussed in the Session

• When Maximised there are lots of Empty space so we need suggestions on what to include. (As in categories)
  • Probably Chrome/Firefox Themes/Extensions?
  • provide more info for apps in Featured and What's New
    • short description, screenshot
    • mpt says that the problem we have is quality of data
      • developer should be able to specify screenshot, app name for display, category, etc.

      • something like StackExchange? (alternativeto.net?)

  • add a "recommendations" section as we integrate Zeitgeist
• mpt says that the problem we have is quality of data
  • developer should be able to specify screenshot, app name for display, category, etc.

    • something like StackExchange? (alternativeto.net?)

• purchase experience
  • make it more embedded into the main app
  • better progress for the overall task
  • other than that, fine tune on server side
    • save credit card details, for instance
  • login dialog
    • will use the Ubuntu SSO one, it will be improved
  • Zeitgeist features
• mpt will update his 4.0 mockup (currently a year old)
• screenshots
  • do we need our own server? mvo likes sharing with debian
• Launchpad
  • would like to implement server-side metadata so that we could remove the need for app-install-data
  • talked about a plan at Prague
  • it's a fairly large task to do this
• download bundles
  • talk to apt-on-cd folks
• categorized list view
  • there are performance difficulties with this

List of bugs/enhancements/topics from Peter

• app:
  • ppa's don't always appear/disappear when sources are added/removed
  • what do we want to do about s-c supporting (multi)touch? (whatever that really means..)
  • it would be nice if s-c supported querying apps based on mimetype to an extent usable by other apps (think ubufox plugin finding etc)
  • revisit argument parsing (ie pkgname1/Appnamepart1 Appnamepart2 vs pkgname1/Appname pkgname2)
  • current refreshes after cache updates are generally not nice
  • people want to know which deps are being pulled in
  • is the current selection of categories working?
  • how to get apps into the correct categories?
• backend:
  • haven't checked if it's plausibly doable - but ideally we don't duplicate entries in the db (ie think pkgname and pkgname/appname when there is only one app provided by the pkg) (this will simplify list view coding, and fix a few bugs)
  • try to use more of the same code for the details for list views / details views
  • can we download multiple apps at once (aptdaemon)
• details:
  • allow upgrading on a single package basis - when we launch s-c in the details view we want to know the exact status, ie not only is it installed/removed, but also is it outdated?
  • support of multiple actions is required here, ie we need to present 'remove' and 'upgrade' as an option in the main interface - not neccessarily just hidden in the file menu
  • the updates text would seem a bit long and meaningless - do we need it? (ie details view is getting busier and busier - what are our priorities?)
  • how to deal with multiple versions of one app (ie ppa/deb file/from archive/old version from archive etc) (second action bar for deb files in sketches)
  • are the addons we choose of high enough quality?
  • simulate action before enabling action button (to avoid aptdaemon errors when for instance broken dependencies)
  • deb files need bg for quick visual identification
  • license field is vague - can we get more precise info?
  • one click addon install? (ie no action bar)

  • does having a pkgname in a version field really make sense? (not that I have any better suggestions atm )

  • it would be sweet if all errors had the same page layout - ie not sometimes error in description field, sometimes in summary field etc.
• lists:
  • searches are slow
  • lists need sorting by appname, not pkgname
  • commercial apps need to be recognisable as such
  • search quality is low - ie precise pkgname matches don't even appear as first result
  • installed pkg counts don't work (they take time to calculate as well)
  • sometimes action buttons of previous app are displayed
  • don't list unavailable pkgs in partners
  • hide addon pkgs and transitional pkgs from list views? (unless we have a precise search match)
• history:
  • want appnames rather than packages
  • must always be up-to-date (currently the history is only parsed on startup)
  • want something clickable, so we can either view details, or revert a change, etc
  • hide deps which were pulled in, either completely, or under an expander
  • can we forget about history after a while, or am I meant to care about what I did at 21:11:10 on the 3rd of July 2006?
  • some of the timings are far to precise (ie no one cares about the seconds)
  • what about relative time rather than absolute time (ie 'two weeks ago')?
  • is categorisation per day the best choice?
  • it's not very easy to visually distinguish between the pkgname, version, action, date
  • currently expanding a day and then changing the filter hangs
• the project:
  • bug reports are great things - how to deal with them effectively (ie closing old/unusable bugs, swiftly dealing with recent good bugs etc)
  • work items vs bugs (but yeah - this spans way beyond just s-c..)
  • inspiring community involvement - how do we show what we're currently working on etc? Would a weekly summary be an interesting idea?
  • testing (regressions..)
• startup speed:
  • main theme is just 'only do what you need to do when you need to do it'
  • use cat/subcat/list/details views as the primary pane types which we load on demand, rather than the available pane, installed pane, channel pane etc - installed/available etc can just be a flag - currently we load like 3 details views on startup and history panes and stuff we don't need on startup)
  • import statements in the code itself (ie avoids running stuff we don't need on startup), rather than up the top of the file (when possible)
  • importing xml parsing utils takes time - avoiding xml for featured / what's new is doable - not sure about the categories menu
  • plugins take time to load (think oneconf)

  • performance regression tracking (unlikely for natty )

  • load channel listings after startup (ie sidebar)