Y PPA Manager 0.0.7.5 Adds Unity Launcher Quicklists

Y PPA Manager is a GUI tool to easily add PPAs, search a package in all Launchpad PPAs, remove duplicate PPAs (only works with separate .list files), backup PPAs and other PPA-related tasks. Check out the Launchpad page for a complete features list.

Y PPA Manager 0.0.7.5 has just been released, the new version adding quicklists for Ubuntu 11.04 Unity launcher. That means that you can now right click the Y PPA Manager icon and select to add a PPA, search all the Launchpad PPAs and so on without having to launch the main Y PPA Manager interface.

The new version also comes with a lot of bug fixes like the icon not showing up (sometimes) in the Unity launcher, a bug that caused Y PPA Manager to ask for password multiple times when chaging the settings or using the PPA duplicate removal feature, changed some NotifyOSD icons, the Y PPA Manager icon when seen in Synapse / Kupfer, etc. uses the right font now and many other minor fixes and tweaks.

To take advantage of the new "quicklists" feature, search for Y PPA Manager in Dash, drag and drop the icon on the Unity launcher and then right click the icon.

Install Y PPA Manager

Add the Y PPA Manager PPA and install it in Ubuntu (9.10, 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04) using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

If you find a bug, please report it @ Launchpad.

Y PPA Manager 0.0.7 Released (Easily Search A Package In All Launchpad PPAs)

Today I've released Y PPA Manager 0.0.7. This is a bug-fix release so there are no new features but with this version, the regular search should work better - well, as good as the actual Launchpad search can be (for better results, check the "deep search" box when performing a search).

A small recap of what Y PPA Manager does: it's a GUI to easily add/remove/purge a PPA, find and remove duplicate PPAs with a click, list packages in a PPA you've previously added, backup PPAs and search all launchpad PPAs. There are two ways to search PPAs:

- simple search - will simply use the Launchpad search and return all the possible results:

- deep search - will scan all the PPAs the Launchpad search returns and only display the PPAs which have the package you've search for (so you must enter the exact package name) - only if it's available for your Ubuntu version. This will also list the package version next to the PPA name so you don't have to click "list packages" for each PPA to be able to see the package version. The only downside for "deep search" is that it takes longer then a regular search:

I don't usually post bug-fix releases on WebUpd8 when it comes to Y PPA Manager but I wanted to take advantage of a new release to ask you two things:

• I've recently discovered quite a few small but annoying bugs in Y PPA Manager - some were submited by you, the Y PPA Manager users, but usually I must hunt down and find all of these myself and well, I can't find them all so my request is: if you find a bug, please report it!
• The reason there were no new features in this release is because I have no idea what you'd want Y PPA Manager to do so if you want a new feature, please leave a comment and I'll try to implement it (please keep in mind that Y PPA Manager is written in BASH with YAD for a GUI so I can't implement fancy stuff and there's not a lot I can do about its user interface).

Install Y PPA Manager in Ubuntu

Y PPA Manager is available for Ubuntu 9.10, 10.04, 10.10 and 11.04 - install it using the commands below:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

Tip: I recommend installing the patched NotifyOSD package from Leolik's PPA - that will allow Y PPA Manager to specify the time to display the notification bubbles so they will dissapear depending on importance and not always after 10 seconds (that's how the default NotifyOSD in Ubuntu works).

Y PPA Manager Launchpad page.

Y PPA Manager 0.0.5, Released

Y PPA Manager is a GUI tool to add, remove, purge, list and search for Launchpad PPAs. It works with Ubuntu and Linux Mint.

Y PPA Manager 0.0.5 was released today - the new version finally adds a GUI for the settings:

• PPA Purge behavior: auto - don't require any user input; manual - opens a terminal window asking the user how to solve the issue (this is the default and highly recommended behavior).
• Ubuntu version: this only affects the search. So if you want the Y PPA Manager search to display packages for some other Ubuntu version, simply change the Ubuntu version here. Supported versions: karmic, lucid, maverick or natty (use the Ubuntu version names for Linux Mint too!).
• Downloads folder: This is the folder where Y PPA Manager downloads the file you select from a PPA (default: ~/Downloads/y-ppa-manager).

Y PPA Manager 0.0.5 also adds a repositories backup/restore feature as well as an option to scan and remove duplicate PPAs (this only works for PPAs which are in separate .list files; it doesn't work if you add the PPAs to the sources.list file). You can find the backup/restore and duplicates scanner under "Advanced" - the PPA Purge feature has also been moved here so it doesn't clutter the UI.

Install Y PPA Manager 0.0.5:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager yad

If you encounter any bugs, report them @ Launchpad.

Y PPA Manager 0.0.4 Released With A New "Deep Search" Feature

Y PPA Manager is a GUI tool to add, remove, purge, list and search for Launchpad PPAs.

Today I've released a new Y PPA Manager version that adds a new feature: deep search. The regular Y PPA Manager search displays all the PPAs that the Launchpad search returns for the word you search for - that includes PPAs that don't have packages for your Ubuntu version, PPAs that only have the searched keyword in the description as well as PPAs in which that package was available but it has been removed recently.

The new "deep search" works like this:

• it scans all the PPAs returned by the Launchpad search and only displays the PPAs that have the exact package you've searched for available at the time you've performed the search
• the Y PPA Manager displays the exact version for the package you've searched for as well as the PPA in which that package can be found in one place so you don't have to check the packages in each PPA to know the version of the packages returned by the search
• "deep search" will only return packages available for your Ubuntu version (or whatever version you've specified in the config file)

Please note that the "deep search", just like the regular search makes use of the Launchpad PPA search so if Launchpad doesn't find a certain PPA, Y PPA Manager won't list it either. There's nothing I can do about this.

But enough talk. Here is a screenshot with an example Y PPA Manager deep search results for "nautilus":

As you can see, the old regular search actions are still available: you can add the PPA, perform a new search or list the packages in a PPA to get a better idea of what's inside that PPA:

Because of the way the "deep search" works, it takes more then a regular search to complete so you may still use the regular search for quicker results. Also, you must enter the exact package name when using the "deep search" feature. But of course, the results will be more accurate and it's a lot easier to see the version (no extra clicks required) using the deep search.

Install Y PPA Manager

Try it for yourself! Add the Y PPA Manager PPA and install it in Ubuntu Karmic, Lucid, Maverick and Natty (also works in Linux Mint) using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

Oh, there's one more feature I've implemented a while back but I forgot to tell you about it: when adding a PPA using Y PPA Manager, the GPG key is imported on port 80 so if you're behind a firewall you won't get GPG key errors anymore (this only works for the new PPAs you add - for the already added PPAs, use Lauchpad Getkeys)!

For more info on Y PPA Manager, see THIS post and the Y PPA Manager Launchpad page. A video with Y PPA Manager is available in THIS post.

Report any bugs you may find @ Launchpad.

Y PPA Manager 0.0.2 Adds Linux Mint Support

Y PPA Manager is a project I work on in my spare time. It's a GUI tool to add, remove, purge, list and search for Launchpad PPAs. For more info on Y PPA Manager, check out this post: Y PPA Manager: Easily Search, Add, Remove Or Purge PPAs In Ubuntu.

Today I've released a new version which fixes some bugs and brings Linux Mint support (thanks to Matthew Markell for the help!) for all the Y PPA Manager tools.

If you didn't try Y PPA Manager yet, here is a video I've recorded, demoing the PPA search feature (which can list the packages - including their versions in a PPA, download .debs from a PPA and so on):

Install Y PPA Manager in Ubuntu and Linux Mint

Add the Y PPA Manager PPA and install it using the following commands (available for Ubuntu Karmic, Lucid, Maverick and Natty and Linux Mint: Helena, Isadora and Julia):

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

Once installed, you can find Y PPA Manager under Applications > System tools.


Remember to submit any bugs you may find @ Launchpad.

Y PPA Manager: Easily Search, Add, Remove Or Purge PPAs In Ubuntu

Y PPA Manager is a project I've been working on for a couple of weeks for easily managing and finding Launchpad PPAs in Ubuntu. Y PPA Manager is a tool for easily managing Launchpad PPAs that uses YAD for a graphical user interface (a Zenity fork which comes with a lot of improvements) and comes as a .deb and with a Launchpad PPA for easy updates. Please note that this is a pre-alpha release as I'm the only one who's ever used Y PPA Manager so far.

Y PPA Manager features (in this first release):

• Add PPA
• Delete PPA - displays all the enabled PPAs (disabled PPAs will not be listed) and you can delete any PPA from that list
• Purge PPA - uses the "ppa-purge" tool to downgrade the packages in the selected PPA to the version in the official Ubuntu repositories and disables that PPA
• List packages in a PPA enabled on your computer - lists all the packages that are available for your Ubuntu version in the selected PPA (only PPAs that you have added to your system and are enabled will show up here)
• Search in all Launchpad PPAs - will perform a search in all the Launchpad PPAs for the package you enter in the search form. The search uses the Launchpad PPA search so it may return empty PPAs if the PPAs have a description that matches your search, or a PPA with packages for a different Ubuntu version then your current Ubuntu version (or the Ubuntu version you've set Y PPA Manager to search for - see info regarding the settings below). You will be able to perform the following operations on a PPA: add it, list all the packages in that PPA for your Ubuntu version (or the Ubuntu version you've set Y PPA Manager to search for in the settings) - including the package versions, download selected packages from a PPA, copy PPA link (so you can then paste it in a web browser).
• Settings - there is no GUI option for this yet. But you can modify a few settings by editing the /etc/y-ppa-manager.conf file (you'll find info on the possible settings inside that file). Options include: setting the Ubuntu version for the "Search all Launchpad PPAs" feature, setting the PPA-Purge behavior (automatic - the user will not be prompted; manual: a terminal window will open asking the user what to do from the available list of options in aptitude) and setting the PPA .deb download path.

(Searching for "vlc" using Y PPA Manager")

While most of the features are wrappers for some command line tools (Add PPA uses "add-apt-repository", Purge PPA uses "ppa-purge"), there is one feature you won't find in any other Desktop tool: the search feature. There is a search tool for Launchpad PPAs but it did not display the packages in the PPA it finds - Y PPA Manager on the other hand can display all the packages in a PPA that come up in the search results, along with their versions. You will then be able to add that PPA, download some .deb files from it or copy its link.

(Packages in a PPA)

It's nothing major but there wasn't a tool for performing all these operations in the same GUI, this being the reason why I'm launching Y PPA Manager.

Y PPA Manager is of course not perfect since there are a lot of limitations to both bash and YAD, but I don't know any "real" programing languages. I've wrote it for my own use and to learn a few things but as usual I wanted to share it.


Y PPA Manager only works with Launchpad PPAs (so it won't work for other 3rd party repositorties) and Ubuntu!

Install Y PPA Manager

Y PPA Manager should work on Ubuntu Karmic, Lucid, Maverick and Natty so there are packages available for all these Ubuntu versions. However, please note that I've only tested it on Ubuntu Lucid and Maverick (32 bit).

To add the Y PPA Manager PPA and install it, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:webupd8team/y-ppa-manager
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install y-ppa-manager

Once installed, you can find Y PPA Manager under Applications > System Tools.

Known issues

• The icons (which are actually .desktop files) in the main Y PPA Manager interface are not sorted properly. This is a very weird issue, either related to YAD or Ubuntu (so it's not a bug in Y PPA Manager) as the desktop files are properly sorted when running the script locally yet they seem to be displayed randomly when installing the .deb. If you know how to fix this, please let me know! This was fixed in the latest YAD.
• I haven't added progress bars to Y PPA Manager as I find them useless. If you have a decent Internet connection, they would only be displayed for a second so I really don't see the need for progress bars. However if this will be requested, I can implement it.
• There is a delay when adding a PPA on a computer which has the GPG key server port blocked. It eventually works but you'll have to wait a bit - this is not a bug in Y PPA Manager (you'll experience the same thing when using the "add-apt-repository command). Hopefully the Ubuntu GPG keyserver will change the port sometime to prevent such issues.
• I am not advanced at bash so please don't judge the code =)

Also, keep in mind that this is the very first release!

Don't forget to report any bugs you may find @ Launchpad. Also if you have an idea / suggestion, let me know in the comments!