Y PPA Manager 0.0.7 Released (Easily Search A Package In All Launchpad PPAs)

Today I've released Y PPA Manager 0.0.7. This is a bug-fix release so there are no new features but with this version, the regular search should work better - well, as good as the actual Launchpad search can be (for better results, check the "deep search" box when performing a search).

A small recap of what Y PPA Manager does: it's a GUI to easily add/remove/purge a PPA, find and remove duplicate PPAs with a click, list packages in a PPA you've previously added, backup PPAs and search all launchpad PPAs. There are two ways to search PPAs:

- simple search - will simply use the Launchpad search and return all the possible results:

- deep search - will scan all the PPAs the Launchpad search returns and only display the PPAs which have the package you've search for (so you must enter the exact package name) - only if it's available for your Ubuntu version. This will also list the package version next to the PPA name so you don't have to click "list packages" for each PPA to be able to see the package version. The only downside for "deep search" is that it takes longer then a regular search:

I don't usually post bug-fix releases on WebUpd8 when it comes to Y PPA Manager but I wanted to take advantage of a new release to ask you two things:

• I've recently discovered quite a few small but annoying bugs in Y PPA Manager - some were submited by you, the Y PPA Manager users, but usually I must hunt down and find all of these myself and well, I can't find them all so my request is: if you find a bug, please report it!
• The reason there were no new features in this release is because I have no idea what you'd want Y PPA Manager to do so if you want a new feature, please leave a comment and I'll try to implement it (please keep in mind that Y PPA Manager is written in BASH with YAD for a GUI so I can't implement fancy stuff and there's not a lot I can do about its user interface).

Install Y PPA Manager in Ubuntu

Y PPA Manager is available for Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04 - install it using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

Tip: I recommend installing the patched NotifyOSD package from Leolik's PPA - that will allow Y PPA Manager to specify the time to display the notification bubbles so they will dissapear depending on importance and not always after 10 seconds (that's how the default NotifyOSD in Ubuntu works).

Y PPA Manager Launchpad page.

Y PPA Manager 0.0.4 Released With A New "Deep Search" Feature

Y PPA Manager is a GUI tool to add, remove, purge, list and search for Launchpad PPAs.

Today I've released a new Y PPA Manager version that adds a new feature: deep search. The regular Y PPA Manager search displays all the PPAs that the Launchpad search returns for the word you search for - that includes PPAs that don't have packages for your Ubuntu version, PPAs that only have the searched keyword in the description as well as PPAs in which that package was available but it has been removed recently.

The new "deep search" works like this:

• it scans all the PPAs returned by the Launchpad search and only displays the PPAs that have the exact package you've searched for available at the time you've performed the search
• the Y PPA Manager displays the exact version for the package you've searched for as well as the PPA in which that package can be found in one place so you don't have to check the packages in each PPA to know the version of the packages returned by the search
• "deep search" will only return packages available for your Ubuntu version (or whatever version you've specified in the config file)

Please note that the "deep search", just like the regular search makes use of the Launchpad PPA search so if Launchpad doesn't find a certain PPA, Y PPA Manager won't list it either. There's nothing I can do about this.

But enough talk. Here is a screenshot with an example Y PPA Manager deep search results for "nautilus":

As you can see, the old regular search actions are still available: you can add the PPA, perform a new search or list the packages in a PPA to get a better idea of what's inside that PPA:

Because of the way the "deep search" works, it takes more then a regular search to complete so you may still use the regular search for quicker results. Also, you must enter the exact package name when using the "deep search" feature. But of course, the results will be more accurate and it's a lot easier to see the version (no extra clicks required) using the deep search.

Install Y PPA Manager

Try it for yourself! Add the Y PPA Manager PPA and install it in Ubuntu Karmic, Lucid, Maverick and Natty (also works in Linux Mint) using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

Oh, there's one more feature I've implemented a while back but I forgot to tell you about it: when adding a PPA using Y PPA Manager, the GPG key is imported on port 80 so if you're behind a firewall you won't get GPG key errors anymore (this only works for the new PPAs you add - for the already added PPAs, use Lauchpad Getkeys)!

For more info on Y PPA Manager, see THIS post and the Y PPA Manager Launchpad page. A video with Y PPA Manager is available in THIS post.

Report any bugs you may find @ Launchpad.

YAD: Zenity On Steroids [Display Graphical Dialogs From Shell Scripts]

Those of you who like writing bash scripts and use Zenity for a GUI should give YAD a try. YAD (Yet Another Dialog) is a fork of Zenity with many improvements, such as custom buttons, additional dialogs, pop-up menu in notification icon and more. I've been using it for Y PPA Manager so if you want to see it in action, give Y PPA Manager a try.

Unfortunately even though Zenity is constantly updated, these updates only bring language updates and fixes. Here is where YAD shines: basically most of the stuff you ever wanted to do in Zenity is available in YAD: you can have as many buttons as you want, each with the text you want, a really nice icons dialog (which I've used as the main Y PPA Manager UI) and many more. Here's an example of a YAD dialog you could never get using Zenity:

If you want to convert a script from using Zenity to YAD, there are a few things you'll have to change, but it's worth it. YAD doesn't have all the useless dialogs such as --error, --info, --notification, --question or --warning - instead, it has a --form dialog to which you can add whatever message, buttons and icons you want. For help on using YAD (it's quite easy!), see the examples sections at it's Wiki or have a look at Y PPA Manager code. Here is the code (thanks to ananasik) used to generate the dialog in the above screenshot:

yad --title="Desktop entry editor" --text="Simple desktop entry editor" --form --field="Type:CB" --field="Name" --field="Generic name" --field="Comment" --field="Command:FL" --field="Icon" --field="In terminal:CHK" --field="Startup notify:CHK" "Application" "Name" "Generic name" "This is the comment" "/usr/bin/yad" "yad" FALSE TRUE --button="WebUpd8:2" --button="gtk-ok:0" --button="gtk-cancel:1"

Install YAD in Ubuntu

If you're using Ubuntu, you can install the latest YAD from the Y PPA Manager WebUpd8 PPA (available for Ubuntu Karmic, Lucid, Maverick and Natty):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install yad

To see all the available options, type:

yad --help-all

For those of you who don't use Ubuntu, download YAD source @ Google Code.

If you find a bug or have a feature request, don't hesitate in reporting it on YAD's Google Code page - it's developer is really nice and he always tries to help.