[Synaptic-devel] crashing problem and translation issues

[Steve Salazar]

Hi.  First (before I start complaining), synaptic is fantastic.  Synaptic 
with fedora is a perfect match.  Thanks very much to all the developers.

I am having a problem with synaptic crashing repeatably whenever I do a 
cancel on an operation that is about to be completed.  For example, I select 
a package for upgrade but that requires that I install another package.  I 
decide I don't want to do that after all so I click cancel.  synaptic 
vanishes from my screen and says this on the console:

address@hidden ~] synaptic

(synaptic:1878): Gtk-CRITICAL **: file gtkwidget.c: line 2042 
(IA__gtk_widget_hide): assertion `GTK_IS_WIDGET (widget)' failed

I have been having this problem with synaptic for a long time.  It has 
gotten more stable but still occurs.  A friend of mine who uses fedora also 
says he has the same problem.  I don't experience this instability with 
other apps (at least not systematically, rhythmbox for example crashes way 
more than synaptic does)

Second little point, this is about translation (I think):  The use of the 
word "Reload" to mean what apt calls "update" should be reconsidered I 
think.  First of all, the term reload does not suggest anything obvious to 
anyone unless they are specifically looking for "update" because they 
already know what they are looking for.  At the very least "reload" should 
be modified to be  informative like "reload package list".  I understand 
that there is a desire to keep button names from getting too long, but "Mark 
All Upgrades" is as long.  Not that I'm suggesting making it shorter. I'm 
just acknowledging that sometimes a longer name is required to make the 
functions of each button obvious.  Also, I would suggest instead of "Reload 
Package List" sticking with "Update Package List" for the simple reasons 
that a) "Reload" is in fact less accurate in describing of what is actually 
happening and b) synaptic is, for better or worse, a front end for *apt*, so 
arbitrarily changing the name of specific functions is breaking consistency 
with other tools and commands causing potential confusion for people that 
are familiar with those tools for basically no reason.  I know that the 
popup tool tip does explain the function of this button in more detail but 
hovering to get more info is not something that most users would think to 
do.  I think the choice here (unless someone can think of a single word that 
conveys the meaning better) is either to use longer more descriptive button 
text or to at least lean on people being familiar with standard apt words 
like "update" (which btw is what they are going to see in any documentation 
they read on "how to install these packages" or "how to use my repository", 
etc.)

My 2 cents.  Thanks again.

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