Re: the about-me capplet

[Diego Gonzalez <diego pemas net>]

> - doesn't allow to change the user's full name
> 
With what James wrote i've been able to change the full name, but I have
a problem with this: in debian (don't know about other distros) chfn
requires the user to give his password to be able to change the
information. This means that the user would have to enter his password
each time he changed a gecos field. Now this is not very user firendly
and would mean displaying a changing interface depending on what fields
are changed.

For example: the capplet would need to ask the user his password when
changeing his home/work phone. But it would not popup the password
dialog if he changes his mobile phone. This is clearly inconsistent.

I could ask the password once when launching the capplet, but that would
be kind of weired: the user would be asked for his password everytime he
changes his avatar for GDM, or his address.

So, the question is, how should I do this?

> - when we experimented with changing the contact in the evolution
>   contact editor, the about-me capplet did pick up most of the changed
>   fields, but wierdly, the full name is taken from /etc/passwd
> 
Looking at what Jeff is proposing I could reduce the number of fields in
the capplet and put and advanced button that would launch evolution (I
think that right now there is no wa to make evolution popup the address
editor programatically, and as we are in feature freeze this would have
to wait until gnome 2.14). Also it would seem quite strange (and time
consuming, launching evo in by box takes several seconds) for the user,
and email and calendaring application is launched when he wants to
change some of his information.

So even if I would reduce the number of fields in the capplet I would
still have to decide what fields to leave. Do I remove all work related
information? do I remove all personal information.

Right now I think I could remove:

Contact tab:
	ICQ, AIM, Groupwise and Yahoo IM fields.
	Work fax phone number
Personal Info tab:
	Calendar
	Manager
	Assistant

Suggestions are welcomed.


> - is a bit heavy on work-related fields. I mean, who really wants to
>   know about my assistant (if I had one) ?
If you are in an enterprise EDS would take care that this fields are
updated in the LDAP server. So i see it's use. Any way 

> 
> - the "Personal Info" tab looks intimidating with all those long
>   entries
I don't know what to do in this case, the width of those entries is
determined by layout of the Address tab, I could change the layout there
but it would take us further away from the evolution UI (the address tab
is exactly the same as in evolution except for the second home address).


So, i'm pretty much open to suggestions that would improve the capplet,
but not being and UI expert and not having the possibility of doing UI
testing i'm pretty lost at what should be changed (as i tried to copy
all that i could from the contact editor form evolution, and it seems
that it is not that good designed).

Diego