Re: A proposal to improve dselect

[jacek]

Kirk Hilliard wrote:

> I absolutely agree.  While an X based version of dselect might be
> nice, what with the added utility of a mouse, scroll bars, and
> possible multiple windows, the text based dselect must have the same
> functionality and almost nearly the same ease of use.

That's what I was thinking about...of course there should be a text based version too, for all the people who do not want or do not need X. Maybe it would be better to have only ONE installer instead of dselect and dpkg. Because I'm a newbie I'd personally love an EASY installation using X (of course with a X version supporting my hardware). E.g. I loved to compile the kernel using make xconfig. All was easy to survay, of course the help provided for some options could be better. The help given by dselect does not give to me (a newbie) sufficient information (about some packages) whether I need a package or not and what the packege is supposed to do.

>           2.  Alternatively, let the non-error status messages overwrite
>               each other.
>           3.  Alternatively, show the non-error status messages in a
>               separate window.

What U think about dselect showing a summary of the messages at the end of the installation which U could scroll or something. Why dselect has to produce error messages at all?? It should prevent errors in a way. Dselect has to become more intelligent and user friendly and allow an easy installation for a newbie too.

>       C.  Mouse option (and even X)
>           1.  Let it optionally run as a gpm client.  The mouse could be
>               used to scroll (would scroll bars be appropriate even
>               without the mouse?), expand headings (as with the folding
>               editor), and toggle package markings.
>           2.  Port it to X, with the same functionality as the souped up
>               text based version, but prettier (in some people's eyes).

Yes in my eyes it IS much prettier and will be hopefully EASY to use....:-)))

> Unix *is* user friendly -- it's just picky about who it makes friends
> with.  Let's make dselect more sociable.
 

It was very picky about me....:-)))

 

 

Greetings

 

 

Jacek