mintInstall start screen

[kneekoo]

Hello everyone!

I would like your opinion on a start page for mintInstall. What if we start the application and we don't see the "All applications" page but a screen that contains the titles of the most important (if not all) application categories with the top-3 or top-5 best rated software for each category? I think that would be both nice and beginner-friendly, plus loading the data could be done in the background, while the start screen would be displayed, which would mean mintInstall could actually start faster.

Considering it's something theoretically easy to implement, maybe Clem will like the idea and integrate it, but let's talk about it first. How do you guys "see" this feature? At least I know the welcome screen had success, so a sort of a welcome screen for installing software could also find a lot of fans.

[remoulder]

a screen that contains the titles of the most important (if not all) application categories

You mean like the Mint Software Portal? I believe in earlier versions of LM, there was no mint install and the menu item took you straight to the online portal, which to me seems a better way to go. Why duplicate the same functionality locally and remotely but have different UIs? I understand the dev team have plans in this area, but I think their efforts might be better served turning the online portal into a kind of Mint app store (yes I know store has misleading connotations). As I've said elsewhere, the current Mint Install seems to have become a kind of mini-synaptic and has some UI problems, and though I like synaptic, I don't think this offers the user friendliness Mint aims to present to new users. Just my 2c worth.