Ubuntu
software-center package

Software Centre search function is useless for finding packages as they are hidden under "technical items"

Bug #985963 reported by John
46
This bug affects 6 people
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
software-center (Ubuntu)
Confirmed
Medium
Unassigned

Bug Description

Searching for packages in the software centre gives very poor results. For example, I wanted to install numpy.

Search 'numpy':
4 unrelated results that happen to mention Numpy in their description (oddly enough, the numpy package mentions numpy in its description too, but doesn't get returned as a search result).

Search 'Numerical Python':
3 new unrelated results

Search 'Scipy':
4 unrelated results

Search 'Scientific Python':
6 unrelated results

Search 'Matplotlib':
This one *actually works* and returns a list of all the matplotlib packages.

How on Earth is this supposed to be a replacement for Synaptic? I can't find anything I need with it.

This is on Ubuntu Software Centre 5.2, fresh install / fully updated Ubuntu 12.04 beta 2.

Tags: saucy trusty
Revision history for this message
Michael Vogt (mvo) wrote :

Thanks for your bugreport.

The packages are found but they are hidden under "technical items" on the bottom of the screen. I will ask for design input what we can do to present results more naturally.

summary: - Software Centre search function is useless for finding packages
+ Software Centre search function is useless for finding packages as they
+ are hidden under "technical items"
Changed in software-center (Ubuntu):
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
John (lowe-john-spam) wrote :

Ahh.... Even if the 'technical items' link was made more prominent then it would solve this problem. I didn't even notice it there. Glad that the search function does actually work as it's supposed to.

Revision history for this message
Gary Lasker (gary-lasker) wrote :

Hi mpt, I wonder if we could get your take on this. It seems that the "Technical items" link may still not be noticeable enough. What does user testing show for this case?

Thanks!

Changed in software-center (Ubuntu):
status: Confirmed → Incomplete
assignee: nobody → Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
Changed in software-center (Ubuntu):
status: Incomplete → New
Revision history for this message
Launchpad Janitor (janitor) wrote :

Status changed to 'Confirmed' because the bug affects multiple users.

Changed in software-center (Ubuntu):
status: New → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

We haven't done any usability testing on searching for packages, as opposed to applications. That would be pretty far down our priority list, unfortunately.

If there was actually a package named "numpy", it would show up as #1 in the search results without having to click "Show technical items". See for example the results for "licq", which returns the base licq package (because it's an exact name match) above the KDE4 and Qt4 Licq applications.

But there isn't a package named "numpy". The base packages seem to be called python-numpy and python3-numpy. If one of those was renamed to numpy, the problem would be solved. (It's the same with SciPy: python-scipy and python3-scipy.)

With their current names, though, I don't know on what algorithmic grounds we could possibly make either of those two packages show up in default search results for "numpy" without sowing confusion in most other searches.

As for making the link easier to see, I do think it should be black rather than orange. That might help, but beyond that I'd rather get more data before changing its appearance much.

Changed in software-center (Ubuntu):
assignee: Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) → nobody
Revision history for this message
Adam Niedling (krychek) wrote :

The problem is still the same in Ubuntu 13.04.

Adam Niedling (krychek)
tags: added: saucy
Adam Niedling (krychek)
tags: added: trusty
Revision history for this message
Adam Niedling (krychek) wrote :

I think this is fixed in Ubuntu 15.10.

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