Revisit 'New & Updated` critera limits and ideas
This issue mainly refers to the New & Updated
section in the Category pages (like Develop
/ Play
), but could be relevant to the main Explore
page too.
Issue:
New & Updated
section is almost always empty, if flatpak
plugin is disabled in gnome-software
. This is because we currently display apps in the New & Updated
section based on the below criteria:
- Shortlist only apps added / updated in the last 30 days (say,
N
apps) -
N
should be>= 50
, else discard allNew & Updated
section, and move the apps toOther Software
section.
Below is the app count (only system packages like .deb
/.rpm
, not flatpaks) based on their added / updated release dates. This was on Debian Unstable
where apps are frequently updated (rather than say a slower Debian Stable
).
E.g. 34
apps were added / updated in the last 3 months
in the Create
category.
Category | 1 month | 3 months | 6 months | 12 months | All time | Total apps |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Create | 4 | 34 | 50 | 86 | 137 | 443 |
Work | 5 | 29 | 50 | 97 | 149 | 513 |
Play | 1 | 5 | 13 | 69 | 101 | 464 |
Socialize | 1 | 6 | 13 | 37 | 51 | 198 |
Learn | 3 | 7 | 9 | 37 | 54 | 308 |
Develop | 3 | 4 | 4 | 15 | 29 | 146 |
Reasons:
We would face this issue due to 2 main reasons:
-
I assume, this issue is mainly due to the fact that, most
flatpak
apps provide proper appdata / metainfo files with release dates, whereas in regular non-flatpak apps, most apps have.desktop
files translated to a minimal appdata / metainfo file, without any release date. - GNOME Software is being used in a stable distro like
Debian Unstable
/Ubuntu LTS
where apps are not frequently updated.
Suggestions:
Does it make sense to display the most recent 12 apps to be displayed under New & Updated
section ?
That way this section will be always populated, even if the user is on a stable distro like Debian Unstable
/ Ubuntu LTS
.
With this change, New & Updated
will not be absolutely New & Updated
(as in the last 30 days
), but relatively New & Updated
wrt to the distro being used.
We can add a hover to show actual release date of an app, as below: