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<!DOCTYPE html PUBliC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
<head>
<meta http-equiv="content-type"
content="text/html; charset=ISO-8859-15">
<meta http-equiv="content-language" content="en">
<meta name="author" content="Benjamin Mesing">
<meta name="keywords" lang="en" content="Package, Debtags,
Apt, Search">
<title>Help - Debian Package Search</title>
<link rel="SHORTCUT ICON" href="../icons/packagesearch.png">
</head>
<body>
<center><h2>Debian Package Search Help Page</h2></center>
<p>
This tool is aimed to help you searching the packages you need. It should make the task of searching
a pleasant experience. Originally I designed it for the purpose of finding a single package where
you have a clear imagination of what you want. But you can also use it to simply browse and explore
your packages. Perhaps there is something in the database that you simply <i>must</i> have :-).<br>
The program is <b>not</b> meant to be a package managment tool like synaptic. This is far beyond
its purpose. It is not able to install a single package, but if you have found the one you
where searching for, you can simply type <tt>apt-get install <i>packagename</i></tt> to install it.
</p>
<h3>The User Interface</h3>
The main window is split into two parts:
<ol>
<li>The upper part where you can enter the search you want to perform.</li>
<li>The lower part which shows the results of your current search on the left, and
information about the selected package on the right</li>
</ol>
The different types of search and informations available are offered by <b>plugins</b>.
Every plugin offers a number of different search and information types.
In the following I will have a closer look on the search types offerd by the plugins
distributed with the application.
<h3>A More Detailed View on the Search</h3>
<p>
In the upper pane you can enter the search criterias you want to search for. The
result consists of the packages which match all your active searches. Always the active searches are shown in the top left pane, so you always have an overview
over the active search.
</p>
By default there are four main criterias you can use for searching:
<table border="2">
<caption></caption>
<tbody>
<tr>
<td><strong>Search by Categories</strong><br>(Debtags Search)</td>
<td>The debtags search is based on the debtags system developed by Enrico Zini.
The main idea behind it is, that every package is characterized by a
number of categories called <b>tags</b>. The tags are organized in
a hierarchy, where each tag is inside a so called <b>facet</b>
(group of categories).<br>
Each package is given a number of such <b>tags</b>. E.g. the image editor
gimp is tagged by <tt>interface::x11, media::rasterimage, uitoolkit::gtk,
use::editing</tt>. As tagging is still under development
not all packages might be tagged completely, and those tagged may not be tagged
as you would expect them to be.<br>
You can select the tags you want to search for on the right side under the page
<i>Debtags</i>.<br>
The currently selected tags will be shown on the left side where they can be removed through a context menu.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Search Related Packages</strong><br>(Related Search)</td>
<td>
You can search for packages related to another package using the related search.
You can select this on the right side under the page <i>Related</i>.
Here you can enter a package name. The search will
find all packages which have similar tags as the given one.<br>
The packages may only differ in the number of "Maximum Distance" tags from the
one you entered.<br>
Or more formal: <br>
|(A union B) difference (A intersect B)| <= MaxDistance
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Search by Pattern</strong><br>(Apt Search)</td>
<td>On the left side below the <i>Search for pattern</i> text you can enter
on or more patterns seperated by a spaces. If the "Search Descriptions" option is selected the package names and the descriptions will be searched for the patterns entered there. If not only the names will be searched. All the patterns you entered must be found.<br>
You can search for exact phrases enclosing them with double quotes and
you can exclude patterns or phrases by preceding them with a minus ('-').<br>
<b>Note:</b> The use of wildcards or regular expressions is not supported.
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td><strong>Search by Filename</strong><br>(Filename Search)</td>
<td>With this search you can search for patterns in filenames contained in the packages. You can enter the pattern on the right side
under the page <i>Filenames</i>.
You can check the search installed packages only option if you
want to search only in the packages locally installed which is
generally faster than searching all packages.<br>
<b>Additional information</b>: Searching installed packages only
uses <tt>dpkg -S</tt> as backend while searching all packages
uses <tt>apt-file search</tt>.
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<br>
Additionally you can select to search the installed or not installed packages only.
<h3>The Result View</h3>
The bottom left pane shows the results of your current search. The result contains the packages
matching <b>all</b> the searches you have specified. The packages are shown with some short
information in the list on the left. <br>
If you select a package you can view its details in the bottom right pane. You can either select
a package from the result list, or choose it from the dropdown list above the package
information where all packages available are listed.<br>
You can right-click on a package (request a context menu) in the result and choose to generate an apt-get line for it. This creates a line <tt>apt-get install <i>packagename</i></tt> and copies the content to the clipboard. Note that it copies to global mouse selection and the global clipboard.<br>
You can customize the columns shown and the order of the columns by requesting a context menu in the package list and choose <i>Customize columns</i>.
<h3>The Plugin System</h3>
<p>
Plugins can be controlled through the plugin menu. They can be enabled/disabled
through <i>Plugins</i> -> <i>Control Plugins</i>. The settings for the plugins
can be changed via <i>Plugins</i> -> <i>Plugin Settings</i>. The settings made will
be saved in the configuration file. In the <i>System</i> menu you can find system
options for the different plugins.
</p>
<p>
The next table shows the plugins distibuted with the application, for external plugins
take a look at the documentation distributed together with them. It shows
the search and information types offered by the plugins.
</p>
<table border="2">
<tbody>
<tr>
<td>Apt Plugin</td>
<td>
<ul>
<li>search by pattern</li>
<li>show package description</li>
<li>show information like author, installed version, available version etc
in the detailed section</li>
<li>search by installed status</li>
<li>show installed status</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Debtags Plugin</td>
<td>
<ul>
<li>search by tags</li>
<li>search related packages</li>
<li>show the tags for packages in the detailed section</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
<tr>
<td>Filename Plugin</td>
<td>
<ul>
<li>search by filenames</li>
<li>show filenames for packages</li>
</ul>
</td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<h3>Other Plugin Specific Notes</h3>
<h4>Debtags Plugin</h4>
<p>
From time to time the debtags database should be updated as it becomes a little
out of date. This can be done either via the command line
(<tt>debtags update</tt>) or
using the GUI choosing <i>System->Debtags Update</i>. The debtags database is
where the information about the tags that are assigned to each package
is stored. You must be root to do this.<br>
You can choose which <b>facets</b> (groups of categories) you are interested in
to reduce the complexity of the list of tags.
To do this choose <i>Plugins</i> -> <i>Plugin Settings</i> and select the
Debtags tab there.
</p>
<h4>Apt-File Plugin</h4>
<p>
For this plugin you need to update the file database which is used to perform
searches for files. It can be updated either via the command line
(<tt>apt-file update</tt>) or using the GUI choosing
<i>System->Apt-File Update</i>. You must be root to do this.
</p>
<p>
If you have further questions please contact me at <a HREF="mailto:bensmail@gmx.net">bensmail@gmx.net</a>
</p>
<hr>
<font size="-2">
Date: 2005-03-14<br>
</font>
</body>
</html>
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