I spent some time running through initial login to the online desktop session with a clean account and the current Fedora 9 packages. Here are my notes about what went wrong or could be improved.
I double starred the stuff that I think is at the top of what we should fix immediately.
If you are going to work on something, follow up here. (I'll make sure that important stuff from the residual gets filed in bugzilla and post bug links here.)
- Owen
* When Firefox was started, it came up with two tabs, both with the Fedora start page
* It seemed a little less than obvious that you should click on the "Enable Online Desktop" link to proceed, especially with the browser window sitting there. There wasn't a clear flow that enabling the online desktop was the *first* step.
** Bigboard was configured to use the default "Milky" theme rather than the Fedora theme.
* When I did click on "enable the online desktop", I then had *three* browser tabs
* After going to my mail, and clicking on the link, I had *four* browser tabs.
* Mugshot stacker was started (because it was installed on the system) and showed a stack with an initial share about "setup your account" even though I hadn't enabled Mugshot.
* When I changed my name on the account tab, the window title didn't update to match, as it would if I reloaded the page.
* If I chose to enable Mugshot from my account page, I got taken to the login dialog with (at the bottom)
"You can login with your _online.gnome.org_ account"
The link there is actually a weird trap because it implies you can follow that link to log in, then you end up back where you are already logged in. (Need to do the discussed login-link URL's from the online.gnome.org account page.)
** The desktop data engine didn't pick up my login until I manually restarted it. I think this was because I didn't have a Firefox profile at all (or even a .mozilla dir) when I started the desktop-data-engine, so it couldn't establish an inotify watch.
** A "GNOME Online" person appeared in the People stock.
* There was no obvious way to add more people to the people stock. If there are no online.g.o contacts, a minimal thing would be to have a button to launch Pidgin.
** People stock slideouts got a bright red header in the Milky theme (theme bug causing the header not to be drawn themed.)
* Clicking on "Enable application tracking" opened another browser tab, with another copy of my account dialog.
* None of the text in explaining what this "application tracking" thing referred to the benefits I got for the online desktop. We really need to turn on application tracking *by default* when you create an account through this path.
** /applications-learnmore was all centered, as is the top text on /applications when tracking is not enabled.
* Hard to find out how to add more stocks to the bigboard
* The two start page were eating 5% cpu showing their anim GIFs.
* Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images - they look funny blending into the background.
** I got fooled when trying to add a stock to the sidebar by the "Add to sidebar" button next to the google gadget link entry. Unless we fix the google gadget stuff very soon, we should just remove it from the F9 packages.
* Apps stock should be labelled "Applications" not "Apps"?
* In the Apps browser, selecting an application (which shows the profile to the left) should also highlight the selected app, since otherwise you don't feel you have good click-feedback. Same for the People browser
* Very hard to switch the online desktop to a different user, since the logout link on the web doesn't actually log the d-d-m out. (Send a "Recheck" headline message over XMPP.)
** Logging into GMail in mail stock: - Should show Connecting... between the point where you apply a new password and it succeeds or fails - In the case of failure, should be button or link to get back to the point of logging in again, instead of having to navigate back through sidebar preferences.
On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 16:58 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
** The desktop data engine didn't pick up my login until I manually restarted it. I think this was because I didn't have a Firefox profile at all (or even a .mozilla dir) when I started the desktop-data-engine, so it couldn't establish an inotify watch.
Taking this one.
** People stock slideouts got a bright red header in the Milky theme (theme bug causing the header not to be drawn themed.)
This one now fixed.
- Owen
2008/4/2 Owen Taylor otaylor@redhat.com:
- When Firefox was started, it came up with two tabs, both with the
Fedora start page
The two tabs are intentional apparently. See: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=437065
- It seemed a little less than obvious that you should click on
the "Enable Online Desktop" link to proceed, especially with the browser window sitting there. There wasn't a clear flow that enabling the online desktop was the *first* step.
Should we set the browser homepage to online.gnome.org?
** Bigboard was configured to use the default "Milky" theme rather than the Fedora theme.
I will look at this one.
- When I did click on "enable the online desktop", I then had *three*
browser tabs
- After going to my mail, and clicking on the link, I had *four*
browser tabs.
Do you expect a different behavior or are you just pointing out we open up too many tabs to just get the thing setup?
** A "GNOME Online" person appeared in the People stock.
I will try to track this down.
- There was no obvious way to add more people to the people stock.
If there are no online.g.o contacts, a minimal thing would be to have a button to launch Pidgin.
It would be nice to auto-launch Pidgin on login, except for the first login you'd just a screen to setup the accounts.
Perhaps we should have a button which launches/configure Pidgin the first time and once things are configured we start it automatically.
- Hard to find out how to add more stocks to the bigboard
We could split preferences and stocks management. Preferences could be provided by a normal GNOME capplet and stocks configuration by a "Widgets..." menu item (or something).
- Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images -
they look funny blending into the background.
Yeah, I'll look at this one.
- Apps stock should be labelled "Applications" not "Apps"?
I agree, I'll fix it.
- In the Apps browser, selecting an application (which shows the
profile to the left) should also highlight the selected app, since otherwise you don't feel you have good click-feedback. Same for the People browser
The interaction with the apps list in the browser is a little confusing. You have to click to select and then click again to launch. In most cases the selection doesn't seem to provide any additional information, perhaps we should rethink this a bit so that we can have single click -> launch?
Marco
On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 15:13 +0200, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:
2008/4/2 Owen Taylor otaylor@redhat.com:
- When Firefox was started, it came up with two tabs, both with the
Fedora start page
The two tabs are intentional apparently. See: https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=437065
Ah.
- It seemed a little less than obvious that you should click on
the "Enable Online Desktop" link to proceed, especially with the browser window sitting there. There wasn't a clear flow that enabling the online desktop was the *first* step.
Should we set the browser homepage to online.gnome.org?
There's no actual content there, just a login and an account settings, so I don't think so for now. If we ever add more of a "home page" it might make sense.
Long term, I think we need a wizard type interface when you log in without an account previously specified. (That is dependent on being able to create an "unverified" account without an email round-trip, since otherwise you are bouncing back and forth between the wizard and the browser to check your mail.)
** Bigboard was configured to use the default "Milky" theme rather than the Fedora theme.
I will look at this one.
Thing walters already fixed this one.
- When I did click on "enable the online desktop", I then had *three*
browser tabs
- After going to my mail, and clicking on the link, I had *four*
browser tabs.
Do you expect a different behavior or are you just pointing out we open up too many tabs to just get the thing setup?
The latter ... that the user gets a gigantic pile of tabs that's going to be confusing, and we need to think about how to avoid that. Maybe just the wizard.
** A "GNOME Online" person appeared in the People stock.
I will try to track this down.
This is going to be a server side fix. (Not saying you ruled out from fixing it for that reason, but there's a lot more setup there!)
- There was no obvious way to add more people to the people stock.
If there are no online.g.o contacts, a minimal thing would be to have a button to launch Pidgin.
It would be nice to auto-launch Pidgin on login, except for the first login you'd just a screen to setup the accounts.
Perhaps we should have a button which launches/configure Pidgin the first time and once things are configured we start it automatically.
That would be slick.
- Hard to find out how to add more stocks to the bigboard
We could split preferences and stocks management. Preferences could be provided by a normal GNOME capplet and stocks configuration by a "Widgets..." menu item (or something).
They are split up now, right? That is, they are parallel items along with Logout in the bigboard menu. A right click menu on the stock headers with "Remove from sidebar" "Add new widget" or whatever might provide an alternate route to get there.
- Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images -
they look funny blending into the background.
Yeah, I'll look at this one.
- Apps stock should be labelled "Applications" not "Apps"?
I agree, I'll fix it.
Those sounds good.
- In the Apps browser, selecting an application (which shows the
profile to the left) should also highlight the selected app, since otherwise you don't feel you have good click-feedback. Same for the People browser
The interaction with the apps list in the browser is a little confusing. You have to click to select and then click again to launch. In most cases the selection doesn't seem to provide any additional information, perhaps we should rethink this a bit so that we can have single click -> launch?
Hmm, that would introduce some inconstancy with the other browsers. You probably want to be able to explore what apps are there without accidentally launching them? I guess the question is whether the browser is for exploration or for launching stuff that you already know about.
(On the other hand, the files stock on the sidebar feels lie it should be single click to open, right click to "Open With" or get more information.)
- Owen
On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 3:47 PM, Owen Taylor otaylor@redhat.com wrote:
- It seemed a little less than obvious that you should click on
the "Enable Online Desktop" link to proceed, especially with the browser window sitting there. There wasn't a clear flow that enabling the online desktop was the *first* step.
Should we set the browser homepage to online.gnome.org?
There's no actual content there, just a login and an account settings, so I don't think so for now. If we ever add more of a "home page" it might make sense.
Yeah, I was thinking in perspective there.
Long term, I think we need a wizard type interface when you log in without an account previously specified. (That is dependent on being able to create an "unverified" account without an email round-trip, since otherwise you are bouncing back and forth between the wizard and the browser to check your mail.)
Make sense in general to me. I'm not sure it should be a wizard dialog though, it could just be a web page displayed in the browser (we start it up by default anyway).
** A "GNOME Online" person appeared in the People stock.
I will try to track this down.
This is going to be a server side fix. (Not saying you ruled out from fixing it for that reason, but there's a lot more setup there!)
Heh ok, I'll focus on the client stuff for now and leave this to someone else ;)
- There was no obvious way to add more people to the people stock.
If there are no online.g.o contacts, a minimal thing would be to have a button to launch Pidgin.
It would be nice to auto-launch Pidgin on login, except for the first login you'd just a screen to setup the accounts.
Perhaps we should have a button which launches/configure Pidgin the first time and once things are configured we start it automatically.
That would be slick.
I will look into it then.
- Hard to find out how to add more stocks to the bigboard
We could split preferences and stocks management. Preferences could be provided by a normal GNOME capplet and stocks configuration by a "Widgets..." menu item (or something).
They are split up now, right? That is, they are parallel items along with Logout in the bigboard menu. A right click menu on the stock headers with "Remove from sidebar" "Add new widget" or whatever might provide an alternate route to get there.
I doubt a right click menu would be more discoverable :/
The idea was to keep it inside the bigboard menu (which the user *has* to discover if nothing else to be able to logout), but labelled more explicitly, "Widgets..." for example. Which would require to split the non-widgets preferences out of that dialog, presumably to a capplet.
Obviously there is some value in keeping all the bigboard preferences together, so I'm not sure it's a good idea.
Hmm, that would introduce some inconstancy with the other browsers. You probably want to be able to explore what apps are there without accidentally launching them?
My feeling is that there is enough information in the main view to be able to explore them. Consistency between the browsers is a good point though.
I guess the question is whether the browser is for exploration or for launching stuff that you already know about.
Yeah. My understanding of the Applications widget is still poor. How does popular applications affect the list exactly? Is there any way to expand the number of items in the widget either manually or on the base of the latest/most used applications (by the local user)?
Marco
2008/4/2 Owen Taylor otaylor@redhat.com:
- Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images -
they look funny blending into the background.
Turns out to be a canvas bug. (this also fixes other UI issues, like the confusing bigboard menu layout and separation between milky bigboard and application windows).
Marco
Index: common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c =================================================================== --- common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c (revision 7249) +++ common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c (working copy) @@ -1543,7 +1543,7 @@ guint32 border_color_rgba;
if (box->border_color_set) - border_color_rgba = box->border_color_set; + border_color_rgba = box->border_color_rgba; else border_color_rgba = hippo_canvas_style_get_border_color(style, side);
On Wed, 2008-04-09 at 13:49 +0200, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:
2008/4/2 Owen Taylor otaylor@redhat.com:
- Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images -
they look funny blending into the background.
Turns out to be a canvas bug. (this also fixes other UI issues, like the confusing bigboard menu layout and separation between milky bigboard and application windows).
Marco
Index: common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c
--- common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c (revision 7249) +++ common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c (working copy) @@ -1543,7 +1543,7 @@ guint32 border_color_rgba;
if (box->border_color_set)
border_color_rgba = box->border_color_set;
border_color_rgba = box->border_color_rgba;
While I can forgive myself making the typo, I really should have noticed the missing borders :-)
Thanks for the catch ... please commit.
- Owen
On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 16:58 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
I spent some time running through initial login to the online desktop session with a clean account and the current Fedora 9 packages. Here are my notes about what went wrong or could be improved.
I double starred the stuff that I think is at the top of what we should fix immediately.
If you are going to work on something, follow up here. (I'll make sure that important stuff from the residual gets filed in bugzilla and post bug links here.)
OK, here's a followup with bug numbers and summary status of the stuff we've fixed:
- Owen
- When Firefox was started, it came up with two tabs, both with the Fedora start page
Marco determined it was "as expected" for Firefox (will be different pages eventually)
- It seemed a little less than obvious that you should click on the "Enable Online Desktop" link to proceed, especially with the browser window sitting there. There wasn't a clear flow that enabling the online desktop was the *first* step.
Deal with a "wizard" later.
** Bigboard was configured to use the default "Milky" theme rather than the Fedora theme.
Colin fixed, in Rawhide now.
When I did click on "enable the online desktop", I then had *three* browser tabs
After going to my mail, and clicking on the link, I had *four* browser tabs.
I think the answer again is an explicit sign up process with a "wizard" before we launch Firefox when you start.
- Mugshot stacker was started (because it was installed on the system) and showed a stack with an initial share about "setup your account" even though I hadn't enabled Mugshot.
http://bugzilla.mugshot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1387 http://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=441958
- When I changed my name on the account tab, the window title didn't update to match, as it would if I reloaded the page.
http://bugzilla.mugshot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1390
If I chose to enable Mugshot from my account page, I got taken to the login dialog with (at the bottom)
"You can login with your _online.gnome.org_ account"
The link there is actually a weird trap because it implies you can follow that link to log in, then you end up back where you are already logged in.
http://bugzilla.mugshot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1391
(Need to do the discussed login-link URL's from the online.gnome.org account page.)
http://bugzilla.mugshot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1392
** The desktop data engine didn't pick up my login until I manually restarted it. I think this was because I didn't have a Firefox profile at all (or even a .mozilla dir) when I started the desktop-data-engine, so it couldn't establish an inotify watch.
I fixed, in Rawhide now.
** A "GNOME Online" person appeared in the People stock.
Colin fixed, on the server now.
- There was no obvious way to add more people to the people stock. If there are no online.g.o contacts, a minimal thing would be to have a button to launch Pidgin.
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=527444
** People stock slideouts got a bright red header in the Milky theme (theme bug causing the header not to be drawn themed.)
I fixed.
Clicking on "Enable application tracking" opened another browser tab, with another copy of my account dialog.
None of the text in explaining what this "application tracking" thing referred to the benefits I got for the online desktop. We really need to turn on application tracking *by default* when you create an account through this path.
http://bugzilla.mugshot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1393
** /applications-learnmore was all centered, as is the top text on /applications when tracking is not enabled.
http://bugzilla.mugshot.org/show_bug.cgi?id=1389
- Hard to find out how to add more stocks to the bigboard
Marco suggested splitting "Sidebar Preferences..." into "Sidebar Preferences" and "Widgets". I'm not sure that really helps, since a lot of people won't know "Widgets". The Preferences dialog would be pretty tiny too. No bug filed pending inspiration.
The two start page were eating 5% cpu showing their anim GIFs.
Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images - they look funny blending into the background.
Marco fixed.
** I got fooled when trying to add a stock to the sidebar by the "Add to sidebar" button next to the google gadget link entry. Unless we fix the google gadget stuff very soon, we should just remove it from the F9 packages.
Marina fixed.
- Apps stock should be labelled "Applications" not "Apps"?
Marco fixed.
- In the Apps browser, selecting an application (which shows the profile to the left) should also highlight the selected app, since otherwise you don't feel you have good click-feedback. Same for the People browser
Marco fixed.
- Very hard to switch the online desktop to a different user, since the logout link on the web doesn't actually log the d-d-m out. (Send a "Recheck" headline message over XMPP.)
http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=527434
** Logging into GMail in mail stock:
- Should show Connecting... between the point where you apply a new password and it succeeds or fails
- In the case of failure, should be button or link to get back to the point of logging in again, instead of having to navigate back through sidebar preferences.
Marina fixed.
On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 18:47 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
I fixed, in Rawhide now.
Please be aware that rawhide is frozen, and if you have builds that you wish to appear in Fedora 9, you will need to follow http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/FinalFreezePolicy
On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 20:55 -0400, Jesse Keating wrote:
On Thu, 2008-04-10 at 18:47 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:
I fixed, in Rawhide now.
Please be aware that rawhide is frozen, and if you have builds that you wish to appear in Fedora 9, you will need to follow http://fedoraproject.org/wiki/ReleaseEngineering/FinalFreezePolicy
Thanks for the link. To clarify, anything I described as "In Rawhide", I believed was built prior to the freeze on Tuesday and in the current compose.
- Owen
desktop@lists.stg.fedoraproject.org
-
Jesse Keating -
Marco Pesenti Gritti -
Owen Taylor