[Reportbug-maint] Bug#711387: reportbug.desktop doesn't work without Suggested packages

[Ben Armstrong]

Package: reportbug
Version: 6.4.4
Severity: normal

While helping a user on irc with reportbug 6.4.4, he reported that when he
selected the reportbug menu entry in gnome3, it didn't do anything at all. We
determined he needed to install python-gtk and python-vte to make it work. This
behaviour is unfriendly, especially to a would-be first-time bug reporter. We
should care about making things as easy for them as possible.

In this scenario, reportbug should probably either give the user useful
feedback if those dependencies are not present (e.g. tell the user to install
them if they try to use the menu entry), fall back to text version running in a
terminal, or else not include the reportbug.desktop file at all. In the latter
case, perhaps make a reportbug-gtk package with Depends for the needed packages
and have it include reportbug.desktop instead. There's the small matter after
that of having desktop metapackages depend on the right version, but that would
address the issue tidly without more draconian measures (like making them
Depends for reportbug itself, forcing unwanted GUI baggage on non-GUI users).

-- Package-specific info:
** Environment settings:
EDITOR="vim"
DEBEMAIL="Ben Armstrong <synrg at sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca>"
INTERFACE="text"

** /u12/home/synrg/.reportbugrc:
reportbug_version "2.20"
mode expert
ui text
realname "Ben Armstrong"
email "synrg at sanctuary.nslug.ns.ca"

-- System Information:
Debian Release: 7.0
  APT prefers stable
  APT policy: (500, 'stable')
Architecture: i386 (x86_64)

Kernel: Linux 3.2.0-4-amd64 (SMP w/2 CPU cores)
Locale: LANG=en_US.UTF-8, LC_CTYPE=en_US.UTF-8 (charmap=UTF-8)
Shell: /bin/sh linked to /bin/bash

Versions of packages reportbug depends on:
ii  apt               0.9.7.7
ii  python            2.7.3~rc2-1
ii  python-reportbug  6.4.4

reportbug recommends no packages.

Versions of packages reportbug suggests:
ii  claws-mail                      3.8.1-2
ii  debconf-utils                   1.5.49
ii  debsums                         2.0.52
pn  dlocate                         <none>
ii  emacs23-bin-common              23.4+1-4
ii  file                            5.11-2
ii  gnupg                           1.4.12-7
ii  postfix [mail-transport-agent]  2.9.3-2.1
ii  python-gtk2                     2.24.0-3
ii  python-gtkspell                 2.25.3-12
pn  python-urwid                    <none>
ii  python-vte                      1:0.28.2-5
ii  xdg-utils                       1.1.0~rc1+git20111210-6

Versions of packages python-reportbug depends on:
ii  apt               0.9.7.7
ii  python            2.7.3~rc2-1
ii  python-debian     0.1.21
ii  python-debianbts  1.11
ii  python-support    1.0.15

python-reportbug suggests no packages.

-- no debconf information