[GSoC] Pybombs GUI - Condensed progress for past four weeks

Prefix Manager:

Prefix management in the pybombs-gui is split into two parts. One is the prefix config dialog and the other is a prefix chooser. The prefix config dialog works like the pybombs prefix init command. Bonus, you can even add a virtualenv to the prefix by just ticking a checkbox, while creating it - just like pybombs-cli.

The prefix chooser does what it says - choose a prefix from the list of available prefixes and load the respective recipes. The idea here is to present the user with those packages that are specific to the prefix, rather than displaying recipes from all the recipe repositories. Currently, the tableview is posing a bit of a problem by not refreshing the content after choosing a prefix. Fixing this is the top priority now.

Recipe Manager:

The recipe manager dialog displays a list of recipe aliases, the source and the directory in which those recipes reside. By default, pybombs ships with basic recipes required to run it in a minimal mode. One can add the other recipes similar to the pybombs recipes add <recipe-alias> <recipe-repo uri> command. Again, functionality is similar to what you see with the pybombs-cli.

When pybombs-gui is launched, it checks for the existing prefixes and if it doesn't find any suitable prefix or recipes to load, the prefix config dialog followed by a recipe manager dialog are presented to the user and the main window is displayed only when the user has created a prefix and added the recipes. If the default prefix is present, the main window loads those recipes specific to that prefix.

Main Window:

The main window displays the prefix specific recipes, baseline packages and the sdk packages (if any) separately as stated above. A package can be selected by right clicking the row it is present and based on the package's status(install/ update/remove), a context menu is provided to the user to choose from. Apart from the status of the package, the module info also can be viewed on a per package basis. One thing that I am not really sure about adding to this context menu is the package flags - forcebuild from source and forcedinstall flags. Just a small addition - Can be done ! Once the user is happy with the selected packages, applying changes will automatically take care of installing, updating and removing the packages in a sequential manner (can turn out to be a time consuming process).

Apart from the abovementioned dialogs, there is a running config dialog which displays the current local and global config. And there's also a new recipe dialog which helps to create a recipe from within pybombs.

What's left ?

There are serious to less serious issues I am currently dealing with and hoping to complete the deliverable as soon as possible. Here are a list of problems I am currently working on to finish this deliverable:

• The app throws a lot of stdout, stderr and other pybombs' specific log messages. One solution can be to redirect this output to a textedit for better logs.
• Use an intelligent way to cater the elevated privileges issue. Solution is to use polkit to present the authentication system whenever pybombs' gui requires elevated privileges. I am still learning on how to use it and a help in any form in this direction is much welcome (Actually I will be more happy to have someone help me fixing this).
• Refresh the table content once the changes are applied to the packages. Currently, the app doesn't refresh the table content in the main window until and unless it gets the focus back or sometimes restart. Serious issue, but can be fixed with little effort.

Apart from working on the GUI, I am alos working on fixing the pybomb's backend a bit. Finally the repository is hosted at gitlab as mentioned in my previous update. Also, I am recording some screencasts to mark the progress (explaining GUI is tough.Duh). Also, I will be updating the progress on blog every Friday, hereafter. For now, Pip-pip !