A redesigned version of Ubuntu’s ‘Software Updater’ application is likely to arrive in Ubuntu 13.04 ahead of its release in April.
Writing about the planned UI tweaks, developer Michael Terry says a patch containing a number changes has been ‘proposed’ to Ubuntu.
The changes themselves aren’t drastic, but are an improvement.
Overall, the Software Updater gets a leaner, higher look with padding consistent with the rest of Ubuntu’s system applications set.
The redesign also adds headers to explain the purpose of the checkboxes to the left of package updates, and puts ‘download’ size inline — a more obvious place for it and makes scanning the list easier too.
Multiple packages specific to a given application will be grouped under the application’s name by default (as can be seen with ‘Backup’ in the screenshot below).
Interestingly, this patch proposes hiding the name package name in favour of a just a description of the package, library, app or tool does.
I can see that change being something developers might be annoyed by (assuming they don’t prefer to update from the Terminal), but it is something that will benefit users. When upgrading core system components knowing what a package does it more important.
The exception to this will be desktop applications. They retain their name in this new view, as can be seen in the image above with Ubuntu’s ‘Backup’ app (packaged name ‘deja-dup’).
Terry says that he is ‘confident’ that the changes will make it into Ubuntu 13.04 ahead of its release in April, and given the modest changes involved but the big improvements they make, I hope they do.