[pacman-dev] [PATCH] Put not explicitly installed packages in grey during update/install/removall

[Jason St. John]

On Sun, Feb 2, 2014 at 8:45 AM, Guillaume Bouchard
<guillaume.bouchard at liris.cnrs.fr> wrote:
>> That colour cases the dependencies to stand out more on a terminal with
>> a white background.  I'd say bold would be better...
>
> ;) I agree on that part. I guess the best idea must be to create a
> color class for depend and for explicit so that changing it latter may
> be easier.
>
>> However, the colour coding really is unclear.  How do people come into
>> the knowledge of what it means?  For example, during an update I might
>> think that a new package being pulled in as a dependency so it is
>> highlighted.   Or is it entirely obvious and I am thinking too hard?

I agree that this would not be obvious to users.

>
> You are right. Perhaps a caption, like:
>
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
> $ sudo pacman -Su
> :: Starting full system upgrade...
> resolving dependencies...
> looking for inter-conflicts...
>
> Packages (21): **(Explict packages appears in bold)**
>
> Name                              Old Version     New Version      Net
> Change  Download Size
>
> ...
>
> Total Download Size:    154.72 MiB
> Total Installed Size:   491.30 MiB
> Net Upgrade Size:       -1.28 MiB
>
> :: Proceed with installation? [Y/n]
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> ?
>
> (I had never though a *so simple* hack would generate so much discussion ;)
>
> --
> Guillaume
>

I don't like the idea of a caption that says something like
"explicitly installed packages appear in bold".

An extra column would be better than a caption, but I don't know how
everyone feels about that...

I see three ways of doing this with a column:
1.) have a column title of "Explicitly Installed?" with a "yes" or
"no" label for each package, optionally coloring the "yes" or "no"
text for easy reading
2.) like the first way, but put an asterisk if the package is
explicitly installed and leave it blank if the package is a dependency
3.) have a column title of "Installed..." with labels of "explicitly"
or "as a dependency"

Of those three, I think I prefer the second method.

Jason