Ability to check changelog of already installed update [Feature Request]

[tpapastylianou]

This scenario has happened too many times to me. I see a bunch of updates, I click install, and then I remember seeing that one update whose changelog I wanted to check, because I'm curious what's changed.

If I remember this while the update is still running, I simply cancel the whole thing, check the changelog, and then run the whole update again. If the update is finished before I have a chance to cancel it, then that changelog is gone forever.

Unfortunately the 'History' tab doesn't have those changelogs, it only mentions what version changed to what.

Would it be possible to add the changelog information to that list? Or at least a link to wherever the changelog itself resides on the internet?

[calexil]

+1 for this

[PeriGK]

I like your last idea. In View -> History of updates, it would be very handy to have a link pointing to the changelog text.

[LinuxOnTheDesktop]

Might I add the following?

I use the Debian program apt-listchanges to display changelogs. The program even works with MintUpdate - up to a point. Let me explain.

When I tell Mint Update to install a package, apt-listchanges makes a GTK window appear and that window displays the changelog - but, only, of one of the packages about to be updated. If the user is about to update more than one package, she gets to see the change log of only one of the packages. (Well, the user gets to see only one of them via the apt-listchanges GTK window. Mint Update itself can display all the changelogs, but in a manner I find more cumbersome; and, if we are going to have integration of python3-gi with Mint Update, it would be nice were the integration to work properly.)

Possibly the fault lies with apt-listchanges changes itself. Or perhaps I have misconfigured apt-listchanges.

[stephan-dev]

I installed apt-listchanges several months ago, I didn't know how to make it work in CLI. It was a delight to see it work seamlessly with mintupdate. Except the box displayed after package download and before install is always empty, and even if it wasn't, it disappears immediately, so no time to read. Mint 19.3 cinnamon. +1 for feature request.

for the record : apt changelog [package] works well with Mint packages

[tpapastylianou]

I remember I had the epiphany that "there's probably already an apt command for this" right after I posted this issue, and have indeed been using apt changelog since for this scenario.

However, useful as this may be in terms of a workaround for anyone still visiting this thread, from a UX point of view it is still not a solution to this issue. To use the venerable "car analogy", it would be a bit like taking your car to the mechanic for maintenance, and then when you want to know "what was done with it", instead of just telling you what they just fixed, they say "go to our accountant's office downtown and ask for a list of repairs relating to this car; make sure to mention your exact order id". Or, to be more exact, they don't even say this, it's up to you to figure out that "there's probably already an accountant office for this" and find if such an office actually does exist and if so where.

So yes, you'll still get your car report if you visit the accountant, but really it's something that should have simply been available to you on demand at the mechanic's in the first place.