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Changing the "nature" of setup.exe


Hello, all.

This is my first post to the list. I hope my idea meets with some consideration.

I know from recent experience that it is all too easy to update, and at the same time install practically everything available, when one has 'in one's hands' a downloaded copy of the latest setup.exe. I went looking for mmv a few weeks back and wound up with all of my Cygwin base stuff updated, plus Cygwin/X items I would never have installed if given the choice. I find the term "Partial" -- selected by the "View" button top right in the "Select Packages" window of the current setup utility -- abstruse and potentially misleading. A better approach might be to take a page from Synaptic Package Manager in Linux and have a "Mark upgrades" (for download and/or install) button instead. I grant that the "Partial" button is described on http://cygwin.com/cygwin-ug-net/setup-net.html#setup-packages , but all the same, I hold there are better ways to give the user the same results.

Call me dense, but I wasn't even aware the "View" button was accompanied by a sizable Tooltip until my last upgrade. Not that it matters: I tried invoking it a second or two ago and it didn't appear.

While we're about it, why not give serious consideration to re-do'ing the whole shebang? Synaptic provides a good model, as does the "Add/Remove" utility -- I can never remember the installed name of that app for the life of me -- from recent builds of GNOME, and let's not forget Adept. Leaving out the aptitude-based repository functions of those utilities, just the look-and-feel are more familiar to those of us weaned on Windows Updater or Apple Software Update (I myself have a Mac OS/ OS X background). I can see where the current "layout" of setup.exe does borrow significantly from somewhere. I mean, there _is_ a Search, and most packages (when chosen by category) are linked to their dependencies simultaneously with the user clicking in those teensy little checkboxes. Still, when mistakes like the one I described above are not only possible but likely -- when one is keen on installing or upgrading Cygwin, maybe for the second or third time, one seldom takes the time to re-read instructions or tips (however critically-stressed) on the website -- a redesign that takes such things into consideration is well past due, in my opinion.

Thanks for giving this a read.

SJ Wright
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