Re: [Tails-dev] [gsoc] tails-greeter progress report

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Autor: intrigeri
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CC: tails-dev
Temat: Re: [Tails-dev] [gsoc] tails-greeter progress report
Hi,

† wrote (15 Jul 2011 19:20:53 GMT) :
> 15.07.2011 23:19, intrigeri пишет:


>> Since there is still no new tag in the Git repository, and no
>> mention of a particular commit we should look at, I'm testing the
>> current state of the Git repo (commit 8c6f2609c).


> I've sent private email with subj "please test 0.0.3~6.gbpa1b424" on
> 12.07 but recent repo is definitely better.


Indeed. I am sorry I wasn't responsive to your asking me to test your
code on Tuesday; in the future, I suggest posting such requests on the
tails-dev mailing-list, which is no more work for you, but increase
the chances someone catches the ball and has a look to your results.

On the other hand, when I review on Friday what you've done this week
after reading your weekly report, I don't expect to test the code in
the state you pointed me to on Tuesday; isn't it obvious? So the only
way I can feel your reply is called nitpicking, and I don't like
communicating like this.

Almost every week from the beginning of the GSoC coding time, I've
explained in length the need for a new clearly tagged version
explicitly mentionned in your report; this is the "why". Also, we have
spent one hour going through a great part of the "release" process
together on IRC today, so I think the "how" is covered as well. I am
thus confident you'll eventually do better next week at report time :)

>> Also, the UI has a note that reads "the selection cannot be changed
>> once you press the button"; while this seems to be technically
>> correct (according to the debug log, selecting a language for the
>> second time triggers actions relative to the first chosen
>> language), it's very confusing UI-wise to read this, while being
>> able to choose a language once again, despite what the message
>> says. If tails-greeter does not support choosing the language a
>> second time (which I suggested initially to ease your task), great,
>> but the UI must reflect it.


> I don't get it completely - probably smth wrong with my English.


Thank you for splitting the problem into smaller pieces.

> a) Does UI behave the way it should right now? If not - what's the
>    expected difference?


It depends on the short/long term perspective and on implementation
complexity.

I'm talking of the following usecase: "user selects language A, then
changes her mind and selects language B, both before clicking the
Forward button".

Currently, the backend does not support this usecase: according to the
debug log messages, the action of selecting language B has no effect,
which is obviously inconsistent UI-wise.

If it's hard to properly support this usecase, then OK, let's not
support it to begin with; it seems to be what you decided to do; but
in that case, the UI must be changed to be consistent and
understandable:

  1. the user must not be able to use more than once the widget that
     allows her to select a language.
  2. selecting a non-default language should be enough to go forward;
     clicking the "Forward" button should only be needed when using
     the default language.


On the other hand, making the UI consistent this way, in order to
palliate backend limitations, needs probably as much work as fixing
the root cause of the problem, i.e. the backend limitations
themselves.

So I think a best bet is to go directly the long term way, and have
the backend support the usecase described above. In that case, the
only needed UI change is the removal of the warning text.

What do you think?

> b) Does explanation text misleading? If yes - which one you'd like
>    to see instead?


See above.

>> It would be great if the interface between this script and
>> tails-greeter was documented on the wiki:
>> https://tails.boum.org/todo/TailsGreeter/#index4h2


> I've added it (with small cleanup) but it's preliminary anyway: we
> got to figure out what do we do about non-utf8 encodings so this
> might be changed even in near future.


Nice start, but insufficient to describe the interface I think: you
describe what information is transmitted (i.e. locale name), but you
don't describe how it is transmitted (i.e. first argument to the
program).

> And just to make sure I won't forget about it till when: right now
> there is no difference in UI between languages tails-greeter support
> and languages which are supported only by the system. So the user
> can choose 'chinese', click next and still see 'english' on the next
> widget(s). This is probably wrong as well and deserve further
> discussion.


Do you mean "and see English text on the next widget(s)"?

If so, I don't think it's a problem. I bet speakers of language X
prefer to get their GNOME interface and web browser in the X language
rather than English fallback, regardless of whether tails-greeter is
100% translated into X or not.

See you on Monday,
--
intrigeri <intrigeri@???>
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