always show unverified flatpaks that are already installed in search results

[Lanchon]

EDIT:

this issue reduces to showing unverified flatpaks that are already installed in search results, even if "show unverified flatpaks" is disabled.

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those who upgraded to mint 22 from previous versions of mint might have installed unverified flatpaks using the mintinstall GUI. after upgrading, users will not be able to see or uninstall these flatpaks from the same UI where they installed from, which can be disconcerting and problematic.

in order to uninstall these potentially unsafe unverified flatpaks, the user needs to wise-up and enable "show unverified flatpaks", which is itself problematic, find the flatpaks, remove them and the reset back the setting.

a few ideas come to mind:

• mintinstall should never hide any installed software.
• there is no way to know if unverified flatpaks are installed, nor a way to find which ones. it might be reasonable to add a "unverified flatpaks are installed" warning, and a button to list them.
• by extension, it might be reasonable to add a button to list all flatpaks.
• and what about a warning/list for flatpaks from unknown source?

i always thought that the ubuntu's software center was trying to do too much and did nothing well. mintinstall inherits that. i would much prefer a flatpak-only UI akin to synaptic, maybe integrating flatseal, but not necessarily.

[mtwebster]

All installed apps, regardless of verified status, are shown when you select 'Show installed applications' from the menu. They can also be uninstalled from there. It probably isn't a bad idea to show it in ordinary search results as well, while it is installed.

Mintinstall didn't inherit anything from Ubuntu's/Gnome's software center.

A vast majority of our users don't care about Flatpaks. We do, to the extent we've integrated it into the software manager and mintupdate, where it is given fairly equal footing with deb packages. If you want Flatseal, just install it. We're not going to ship an iso with Flatpaks pre-installed.

The handling of unverified flatpaks should become a non-issue eventually, once app developers and packagers (along with Flathub moving things along) take care of it.

anecdotal story:
I was going to install a an unverified chat client today, and wanted to check out their homepage:

It's probably nothing, but I'd rather novice/ordinary users not find out the hard way.

[Lanchon]

@mtwebster

thank you!

i'm sorry, i had internalized so completely the sequence "search, then act" to manage packages (from using synaptic, mintinstall, etc) that i didn't even think of manually looking up the package in a list. i assumed that if it didn't show up in the unfiltered "all packages" list, then it wouldn't show in filtered lists like "installed packages" either.

[regarding unverified flatpaks] It probably isn't a bad idea to show it in ordinary search results as well, while it is installed.

this is the only remaining point of this issue

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Mintinstall didn't inherit anything from Ubuntu's/Gnome's software center.

i thought that it was a fork.

A vast majority of our users don't care about Flatpaks.

that is a surprise to me. i thought that, for desktop use, packaged apps were a must.

in my case, flatpaks is the only i reason i would ever open mintinstall. for managing debs i use 80% synaptic, 20% command line.

so for me, the one and only utility of mintinstall is administering flatpaks, which is why i personally feel that all deb-related stuff in mintinstall is clutter in my workflow. i would love to have a tool in the style of synaptic but for flatpaks, and would then not use mintinstall. (there is one such thing, but not really there yet: https://flathub.org/apps/io.github.flattool.Warehouse)

i suppose my real problem is that i don't like mintinstall, here is why:

• clutter: i don't want to see extraneous content when i open the app, like banners and scrolling stuff, and different areas with different content types. i would like the package list area to contain a list of packages and nothing else.
• cards: i'd like a table, not cards. a table where i can choose what columns to view, ideally in what order, how to sort the contents, etc. if i'm forced to use cards, at least i'd want to be able to see a list of window-wide long cards, not a matrix of short cards with clipped text.
• details are hidden: dependent packages/runtimes, manual/auto installed flags, residual configs, etc (this is outside the scope of mintinstall)
• filters: mintinstall has just 2 preset filters (show only installed, hide unverified flatpaks) with two very different UIs. i'd like to have a left pane with unified filtering options:
  • all/installed/not installed
  • all/debian/flatpak
  • all flatpaks/verified/unverified
  • categories
  • some way to see dependent packages, such as runtimes (which is undoubtedly well outside the scope of mintinstall)

some of these things could be improved, but it's clear that i'd prefer to have a specialized tool for flatpaks, which is not the objective of mintinstall. last time i checked this didn't yet exist.

before flatpaks, mintinstall had its good rationale: a simplified yet usable UI for deb packages, appealing to non-power users. the problem is that now mintinstall is also the only UI for flatpaks, and by its own rationale, it does not cater for power users.