Bugzilla – Bug 156586
"Perform Update" screen is more confusing than useful
Last modified: 2008-07-16 15:45:12 UTC
There are a lot of usability problems with the information presented during the updating of the packages: - If you scroll up the log, it get's scrolled down automatically again on any new output, which makes the scrollbar useless - The information in the log is no information. It simply prints "Downloading python (3.37MB) python-1.2.42 (17.2MB)" What? That's 1st redundant, 2nd confusing information (different sizes) - The "Next CD ..." line has a time attached to it that has nothing to do with the next CD and "Next CD" is not exactly useful for NFS/FTP installs (apart from updating inconsitencies) I suggest to get rid of the scollview for the log and present in the lower section of the screen sth like Installing from CD 1 (128 packages, 01:29 left) (*)Downloading python [ progress bar ] Next CD 2 where (*) is a status bar like thing transitioning Downloading python Installing python (3.37MB -> 17.2MB) Configuring python which would also give visual feedback (transition to Configuring) after the progress bar is at 100% and we just managed to unpack. Ideally the new room for information could be filled with information on the group of packages installed next (if they had a useful ordering), like Base system, X packages, Gnome, KDE, Latex, etc. - the individual package names/versions do not provide any useful information. So a description of the package group could be displayed there. Apart from the last suggestion, this should be easy to do and would improve usability of the update process.
While usability, it's really YaST we're talking about.
Then lets assign it to YaST ;-)
- log scrolling - you have to catch and hold the scrollbar, scrolling log is better than a fixed one -> 'sh' - installing package - 1. you see downloading the package, 2. you see installing the package; 1. you see the dowloaded package size, 2. you see the installed package size -> 'jsrain, lslezak' - next CD, you can have CD images on NFS and/or FTP (we often have it) -> 'jsrain, sh' I guess, this is gonna be a tough discussion :)
"Next CD" only appears when your installation source has multiple CDs. This can happen if you are really installing from CDs or if you copied multiple CDs to a network installation server into separate directories (CD1..CDn). If users don't like that output in the latter case, there is a simple solution: Copy all content into one large directory rather than splitting it up per CD.
- installing package - has been updated, now it only shows one line of the information (without unneeded downloading) [Beta8] sh: what about that scrollbar? is that just a Qt issue that you drag the scrollbar and a new installed package will reset your user-scrolling?
The purpose of this thing is that it scrolls when there is new output. If you want to continue reading where you are, simply keep the scrollbar grabbed. That widget would be useless if it didn't scroll any more once the user touched it.
That doesn't work in a useful way. If you keep the scrollbar grabbed, and try to search for something everytime a new line of output is added, the current grabbed position of the scrollbar changes its meaning, so slightly scrolling up will instead scroll down an arbitrary amount of space. Just try it - its not usable this way. Which is why I argued to just remove the scrollbar ;)
Comment 6: Actually a better behavior exists, implemented by the *compilation* buffer in emacs: only scroll automatically when the cursor (scroll bar here) is at the bottom already. Of course it depends on what Qt allows us.
OK, let's leave the rest on HuHa :) ;)
What "rest"?
The "rest" = the scrolling issue, see comment #8