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Description of problem: In gnome-packagekit's various list views, when an item is selected that has details available, the text view that shows the detail is superimposed on the list view, shortening it. This causes some confusing/irritating behavior; an example is attached. Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable): gnome-packagekit-0.1.9-4.fc9.i386
Created attachment 299491 [details] example screencast
It's no so clear in the screencast, but all I'm doing is pressing the down key a few times.
Where should we put the extra information in your opinion?
Is there a way to do it without changing the size of the list view area, e.g. by vertically resizing the window?
Just my opinion but i don't mind the resized list view when info is shown. Making the window suddenly get bigger is not a good idea because it may not fit the screen, etc, and that causes weirdness when it gets sized up as big as it can but not big enough (i.e. very narrow strip of info view, having to resize the pane by dragging just so you can see it, etc). This is predictable behavior right now once you see it the first time... the window size is what you set it to be and you can always see the info. GTK apps have been notorious for having bad automatic resizing, especially on smaller screens. The 'very narrow bottom window pane' problem for instance happens with alot of apps.
Although, the info view area seems to have way too much wasted space (like double spaced text). Making this a much smaller info area would help the issue of it hiding the list.
Well, another option would be making it always visible. That way you know (or can decide) up front exactly how much of everything you're going to be able to see.
Yeah that would probably work out fine and would make sense because you can't do anything in the UI without it showing up anyway.
Created attachment 303138 [details] example What about something like this?
Actually, I think it should be the way gpk-update-viewer works currently in F9 (info pane always visible) for two reasons: Consistency with the way lists are presented in gpk elsewhere (vertically, not horizontally), and consistency in the way gpk provides details on updates (both currently use an info pane, and gpk-update-viewer's is now always visible).
I've committed the new UI: http://people.freedesktop.org/~hughsient/temp/gpk-log.png It's way easier to read, and is much more HIG friendly. This is in master, not stable, so will appear in 0.2.0.
Could the sub-text of each transaction (package names) be made to wrap at the window size and stretch that list element down? Then if a user increases the window size they will get fewer text wrapped lines, but even with a small window it does not force side scrolling like that to read the whole list of things that changed. With the huge number of updates in rawhide I understand that will be a messier window with the wrapping, but for release versions it will be much nicer (get 10 updated packages, you'll see the ten package names right there and not have to scroll).
That's what I want too - but that requires writing a custom renderer (no support in GTK) and it's no small task.
I see, well that support would be a great addition to GTK then, especially if it could be pushed upstream, so much more fluid UIs can be developed that properly flow to dynamic window sizes. I know that has been a longstanding limitation with the toolkit, so hopefully someone able to contribute to that can get it done. Cheers.