SUMMARY STEPS TO REPRODUCE 1. Open Discover 2. In the search box, type "k4dir" because we're looking for "k4dirstat" but can't remember the full string name. OBSERVED RESULT The spinning wheel spins endlessly with the message, "Still looking..." EXPECTED RESULT k4dirstat should appear as a match almost immediately. The only way to get a match is to search exactly for "k4dirstat". Maybe there should be fuzzier matching to help us. SOFTWARE/OS VERSIONS Operating System: KDE neon 5.20 KDE Plasma Version: 5.20.5 KDE Frameworks Version: 5.78.0 Qt Version: 5.15.2 Kernel Version: 5.4.0-65-generic OS Type: 64-bit ADDITIONAL INFORMATION
Is k4dirstat the name of a user-facing app, or a non-GUI package? what does `appstreamcli search k4dirstat` show?
Yes, k4dirstat is very much a user-facing GUI app; it's like Filelight yet pre-dates it. I prefer k4dirstat because the block-centric visual approach is more intuitive to me than the ring-based readout of Filelight. Here's an overview of k4dirstat: https://www.linuxlinks.com/k4dirstat/ Anyhoo... $ appstreamcli search k4dirstat Unable to find component matching k4dirstat!
(In reply to Michael from comment #2) > Yes, k4dirstat is very much a user-facing GUI app; it's like Filelight yet > pre-dates it. I prefer k4dirstat because the block-centric visual approach > is more intuitive to me than the ring-based readout of Filelight. > > Here's an overview of k4dirstat: https://www.linuxlinks.com/k4dirstat/ > > Anyhoo... > > $ appstreamcli search k4dirstat > Unable to find component matching k4dirstat! All right, that's the problem: it doesn't have any AppStream metadata! Discover only shows apps with AppStream metadata. Since you're using Neon, I happen to know what's going on: Neon removed the AppStream metadata for all GUI apps that come from Ubuntu, because using that software is unsupported in Neon. The intention is for users to get their GUI software form Flatpak or Snap. So this is in fact the intended state of affairs. You're welcome to still install the app of course, but you'll need to use command-line tools, and if the app breaks or blows up your system, don't complain to the Neon devs about it. :)
> Neon removed the AppStream metadata for all GUI apps that come from Ubuntu, > because using that software is unsupported in Neon. The intention is for users > to get their GUI software form Flatpak or Snap. So this is in fact the intended > state of affairs. Okay, I see now. I didn't know that that was their policy. But back to my original concern: why does typing a partial string query, in this case "k4dir", stop Discover from showing a match? Discover *pretends* it's looking with its "Still looking..." message, but that's deceptive because the message never changes and it confuses the user. However, if I type the full string "k4dirstat", then Discover says, "oh here it is". So is this a bug that Discover pretends to be looking for something if you don't specify it exactly?
Because you were leveraging a fallback that we have in place for people to still be able to install packages, which in fact is in its way to be removed by 5.22.
The extended explanation is that Discover has a hidden feature to return results for packages without AppStream metadata if you search for the exact name, but not a partial string. We recently removed this hidden feature for Plasma 5.22 because it resulted in confusing situations just like these. :)
Okay, thank you both for the added explanation, much appreciated :)
You're welcome!