[maemo-developers] Beyond Application Manager Categories

[From: gary liquid]

Removing the option to install applications listed inside our configured
repositories takes away greatly from the system.

The UI is at fault, not the actions it performs and data it contains within
it.

Gary

On Fri, Nov 7, 2008 at 2:28 PM, Marius Vollmer <marius.vollmer at nokia.com>wrote:

> Hi,
>
> with the recent category discussion coming to a close, I already have
> something to think about that might go beyond categories.
>
> But first, many thanks to everybody involved in the recent category
> cleanup!  I will catch up carefully and will do my best to make the
> necessary changes to the Application Manager.
>
>
> Ok.  I think a central component like the Application manager is OK for
> the routine maintenance task of keeping your software uptodate.  You
> want to be notified about available updates and hit a big button to
> install them all.  Maybe you want to review a bit what you are about to
> install.
>
> But the current AM is a pretty unfriendly place for browsing a long list
> of available applications.  In the past, I kept saying that I don't want
> the AM to turn into a portal for applications, that should be left to
> the browser.  We have downloads.maemo.org, which is this portal.  Are
> people using it?  As a thought experiment, could we remove the "Browse
> installable applications" button from the AM and get by with just
> downloads.maemo.org?  Should we work on better integration?
> Downloads.maemo.org could use information from the device to give a view
> that is nicely tailored to each device.
>
> There is another angle: many applications are extensible with plugins
> and add-ons, etc.  There is a lot of potential there to simplify
> juggling with these packages.  For example, there is no point to even
> show the pidgin-l10n-klingon package if you don't have Pidgin installed.
> This add-on management is probably a bit hard to do for a portal site
> like downloads.maemo.org.  But the current AM is not much better.
>
> Applications might want to do their own add-on management, or want to
> defer to a central application that is good at it.  For example, the
> theme selector could list available themes in addition to the installed
> ones.  The media player might be able to figure out that a codec add-on
> is missing and offer to install it.  This goes into the direction of
> PackageKit and "package management as a system service".  Something to
> keep in mind.  It'll take some non-trivial amount of work and
> commitment.
>
> But, maybe we can get something worthwhile with only a few changes to
> the current Application manager.
>
>  - We can let applications open a specific category in the Application
>   manager, with the idea that useful add-ons for that application are
>   found in that category.
>
>   This would put more pressure on the categories: the Boingo category
>   might want to come back, for example.
>
>  - Or we can let applications compute their own list of packages (using
>   debtags, say), and ask the Application manager to install them.  This
>   would essentially create a temporary category under control of an
>   appliction.  Will users understand what is going on?
>
> Opinions?
>
> Kristiina and Tero (in CC) have a need for something like this.  Am I on
> the right track here?
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