search

linuxmint / cinnamon

A Linux desktop featuring a traditional layout, built from modern technology and introducing brand new innovative features.
GNU General Public License v2.0
4.56k stars 743 forks source link

Feature request: Nemo actions, automatically solve dependencies of the selected actions #12287

Open MenthaSuaveolens opened 4 months ago

MenthaSuaveolens commented 4 months ago

Nemo actions is a nice tool for selecting actions. After selecting the action, the action isn't active until one installs the required packages for the selected action. It would be nice if an action is selected, that then the required packages are installed too. Now one has to figure out what extra packages are needed in order to get the action active.

rcalixte commented 4 months ago

This would sound great in practice but would be terribly difficult to implement across distributions and maintain as packages change. This is also compounded by the fact that Actions are universal and not bound by any particular version of Cinnamon or underlying distribution. Just take a look at something as "simple" as Python 3 here. What is transparent is the work that maintainers do to get Cinnamon ported to different distributions that make these differences invisible to the average user while hiding a messy underbelly. This also does not include the fact that some users may not want software automatically installed on their computers.

For this reason, the dependency structure for Actions simply checks for the binary in the path. This not only supports system packages, but locally compiled packages, and even symlinks. What would be beneficial would be for the READMEs for Actions to include installation instructions for Arch-based, Debian-based, and Fedora-based distributions to hopefully minimize the friction. Are there any in particular that you have found that are lacking proper documentation?

MenthaSuaveolens commented 4 months ago

Including the README's would be great. The problem now is that people will install an action and will not be aware that additional software must be installed in order to get the action active. If the README pops up as an indication that there is still work to do after selecting the action that would be indeed beneficial and minimize the friction.

rcalixte commented 4 months ago

Including the README's would be great.

This might be something that could be done at some point.

The problem now is that people will install an action and will not be aware that additional software must be installed in order to get the action active.

Agreed that this is a pain point for many users.

If the README pops up as an indication that there is still work to do after selecting the action that would be indeed beneficial and minimize the friction.

It is beyond the scope of the beta but I think it might make sense to try to surface something in the user interface.

mtwebster commented 4 months ago

This isn't really a bug report - in the future feature requests should open a discussion (https://github.com/orgs/linuxmint/discussions/categories/development)

I'll move this to the cinnamon repo.