Installation

1. git clone this-repo ~/.local/share/cinnamon/applets/pacman-updater@smanilov
2. Build the update viewer: cd pacman-update-viewer && cargo build --release
3. Alt+F2, r to restart Cinnamon
4. add pacman-updater@smanilov to Applets

Usage

1. this applet will run checkupdates (you need to install it separately) repeatedly and count the number of returned lines
2. if updates are available, a notification is shown as N (M) where N is the number of packages being updated and M is the total count of all transitively impacted installed packages (via required_by traversal)
3. from the taskbar, the user can click the smiley and run the updater; this opens a terminal running pacman-update-viewer — a TUI that lists pending updates sorted by impact factor as a collapsible tree
4. inside the viewer:
   • ↑/↓ navigate the list; PgUp/PgDn move a page; Home/End jump to the first/last item
   • → expands a node to show all installed packages that depend on it
   • ← collapses an expanded node, or moves to the parent if already collapsed
   • i shows pacman -Qi output for the current item in a scrollable popup
   • / filters the visible root packages by name; Esc cancels and Enter keeps the selected match
   • a toggles between pending updates and all installed packages
   • t transposes the tree between required_by (used-by) and depends_on (deps) traversal
   • g toggles package group labels
   • r runs sudo pacman -Syu (suspends the TUI, then resumes it); also runs fc-cache -fv on success
   • u installs the currently selected package with sudo pacman -S, then rebuilds depgraph.json
   • d removes the currently selected package with sudo pacman -R, then rebuilds depgraph.json
   • h or ? opens the help popup
   • q quits; exits with code 0 only if an update or install succeeded
5. if there are no pending updates but depgraph.json exists, the viewer opens directly in all-packages mode instead of exiting
6. after the update completes successfully, depgraph.json is refreshed automatically; it is also refreshed on applet startup and rebuilt after package installation or deletion from inside the viewer

Data

depgraph.json is written by the applet and contains the dependency graph between pacman managed packages. It is updated on startup and after each successful sudo pacman -Syu. The viewer also rewrites it after package deletion. An example follows:

{
  "last_updated": 1774870313,
  "packages": {
    "firefox": {
      "name": "firefox",
      "version": "123.0-1",
      "depends_on": ["nss", "gtk3"],
      "reason": "explicit",
      "required_by": [],
      "groups": []
    },
    "nss": {
      "name": "nss",
      "version": "3.98-1",
      "depends_on": ["nspr"],
      "reason": "dependency",
      "required_by": ["firefox"],
      "groups": []
    }
  }
}