Except that the "mockup" is inspired by an existing UI (Synaptic) which has been used successfully for years, and which IMHO is one of the best (if not the best) package management UIs out there.
I like Synaptic a lot too, but I also agree with some of Jeremy's suggestions. eg., replacing "channels" with "repositories", etc..
Why artificially restrict the target user base for Pirut this way? Wouldn't it be better if Pirut was useful for everyone? Right now it really isn't, and Synaptic, Yumex or smart --gui are much better options for experienced users.
Ack. Pirut is also often hard for beginners or intermediate users. There are people who know some of the intricate configuration details, but do not want to use 'vi' or 'emacs' to do the stuff. I feel that the number of such users is much more than the abolute newbies or super geeks.
Another method of dealing with the different requirements of new and experienced users is to do what Firefox does: present a basic UI by default, but make it extensible by dozens of extensions.
Ack. Use reasonable defaults and provide means to alter them, taking enough care not too clutter the GUI and confuse the end-user (need not be an absolute newbie). eg., the advanced configuration can be hidden in a drop-down box or separate tab, etc..
This is working well for KDE, Synaptic and many other software packages.
Well KDE is often bashed for too much configurability, but Synaptic is used by an enormous number of Ubuntu users on a GNOME desktop including relative newcomers. /me thanks everyone for their feedback Cheers, Debarshi -- GPG key ID: 63D4A5A7 Key server: pgp.mit.edu -- fedora-devel-list mailing list fedora-devel-list@xxxxxxxxxx https://www.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/fedora-devel-list