Easy-Codec-Installation shows only-supported-applications by default (and no codecs)

Thank you for your bug, that's because the gnome-app-install has not uploaded yet the modified version required for the changes made

Thanks.

This is fixed with my recent upload. Please note that this upload changed the default from "all applications" to "Only supported applications" as was written in the AlwaysEnableUniverseMultiverse spec. This makes the direct codec installs less user-friendly.

Cheers,
 Michael

It needs to be immediately obvious how to proceed with installing the codecs, regardless of AlwaysEnableUniverseMultiverse. Can you describe the current user experience and offer suggestions on how to improve it to meet this goal?

This bug was reported in February. But now I am using the latest Feisty Beta, fresh install with updates and I have the same problem as bug submitter above. "totem just told me I was missing the mp3 codec and did not install it or take me to the place to install it".

One of the first things I tested when I installed the beta was the Easy-Codec-Installation as I've been interested and following its development. I tried what I thought the average new user might experience - I double clicked and mp3 file.

I was happy to not see the usual non helpful totem error appear, and to see the Add/Remove Applications dialogue load and start searching. Unfortunately the search returned nothing. Not exactly a helpful first time experience as the below user found when discussing this in the forums:

Quote:

"Usually, when I doubleclick on an mp3 file in Nautilus it starts "searching for appropriate application" and then "Add/Remove Applications" dialog pops up, there is "0.10:decoder-audio/mpeg" in search box and on the bottom of the dialog it says "There is no matching application available".
A few times it wasn't searching for anything and just told me that I need a MPEG-1 Layer 3 (MP3) decoder in order to play file. Nothing else."

It didnt take me long to realise that the "show" option box was by default set to "Supported Ubuntu applications" (thats from memory) I know I had to change it to "All available applications" for the codecs to appear.

After I informed them of this on the forum they then replied:

"Somehow I never noticed that option box in Add/Remove dialog!"

So it seems it's not the most intuitive - I always thought this about that default search option for gnome-app-install in previous releases but assumed it was made that way to encourage people only to install supported/stable packages but always felt it was a bit misleading for new users. Time to review this perhaps?

Same here as DeanMoreton, installed Beta in VirtualBox and updated fully. Then tried doubleclicking an mp3. Add/Remove appeared but no codecs were found. I had to manually select All applications instead of Supported apps. This kinda defeats the purpose of EasyCodecInstall.

Automatically promoting non free software to users would be a bad choice. There is already a hint in the package description that advises the user to select "all open source" or "all applications" to search for more applications. Perhaps this one could be improved.

Perhaps we should add a small feature to the search engine, that checks if there is a match in the all applications or open source applications space at all. So we could show a message, that the current feature is not provided by supported/open source applications, but that there is a non-free alternative.

That's a good point aamukahvi gave:
>I had to manually select All applications instead of Supported apps.
>This kinda defeats the purpose of EasyCodecInstall.
Hopefully this will get fixed :)

This is fixed with 0.3.38.

It will show a dialog box first that explains that the search includes unsupported software and then show all (whitelisted) codecs that match.

Cheers,
 Michael