I realized that my main article on Apt-offline does't provide a sufficient selection of samples of set-commands, perhaps because I assume tnat most people would use the GUI, except when using Apt-offline to install the GUI, in which case you would use the set-command I provided for this case.
In general, the set-command begins with "sudo apt-offline set apt-offline.sig," where "sudo" is a means of requiring the administrative password to be entered in order to begin making any changes (it's also required in order to perform Apt-offline install-ops, which are the final step in the process of making changes via Apt-offline). "Apt-offline set" is the logical beginning for an Apt-offline set-command. "Apt-offline.sig" is the name of the signature file which the command is intended to generate, and I recommend leaving the name as it is, for reasons explained many times elsewhere (it's part of my system for efficiently using Apt-offline). But you could get fancy and insert a path before the signature file name, so that the signature file would end up somewhere else besides the Home directory (wherever you put it, make sure it's a permanent directory, such as Downloads), and you could use a different name for the signature file in each case. But it's just more work.
The rest of the set-command depends on what sort of change you want to make. You can perform an update, install apps, upgrade apps, etc. To do an update, the command would be "sudo apt-offline set apt-offline.sig --update." To install a couple of apps, it would be "sudo apt-offline set apt-offline.sig --install-packages <app1>,<app2>." (Note that there's just a comma between the app-names.) A complete listing of set-command options can be found on Apt-offline's man-page at https://manpages.debian.org/testing/apt-offline/apt-offline.8.en.html.
Apt-offline's command syntax is fairly easy to master, and you could create command-templates containing the options which you normally use, and just copy the template and substitute the particulars in to create the command required for each case. Once you become adept at using the commands, you'll find that it's more efficient to use the commands than to use the GUI.
