Re: [gdm-list] [PATCH] some pam related improvements

[Brian Cameron <Brian Cameron Sun COM>]

Ludwig:

> > > > Also, might there be a better solution.  We want the "Start Again"
> > > > button to be active at all times except when the GUI is prompting for
> > > > the first item.  Perhaps trying to set button sensitivity in the
> > > > current GDM_PROMPT, GDM_NOECHO locations isn't the right place.  So I
> > > > ask if the right fix is to rip out setting sensitivity or to move it so
> > > > it is setting it more intelligently?
> > > How do you know it's the first item? There can be multiple pam
> > > conversations that belong to one authentication run.
> > So you are saying that the GUI has no way of knowing which is the
> > first item?  I'd think the first item would be the first screen
> > or the first screen after any authentication failure.
>
> Hmm, maybe after GDM_RESETOK.

It seems you already provided me with a patch that keeps the "Start
Again" sensitivity functionality.  So I'll go ahead an apply that.
Thanks for working on this.

> >  > Anyways, with
> > > multiple pam prompts the button is also useful on the first screen
> > > to clear all entries.
> > Right, but "Start Again" could remain insensitive until at least on
> > field has a value.
>
> Is there a style guide or something that says that buttons need to
> be set to insensitive? IMHO it has no benefit in this situation.

No style guide.  I just think it looks a bit better when the buttons
are sensitive or insensitive in a sensible way.  If you wanted to
talk me into removing the sensitivity, you could probably do so.  But
I think it's good to discuss before changing the way it works.

> Btw, is there any reason why said button is called "Start Again"
> instead of just "Cancel"?

The button used to be called "Cancel" but then the GNOME usability
team told me that "Cancel" didn't make sense since you aren't
really "canceling" anything.  They said "Cancel" would make people
think that they were canceling the login operation (as if clicking
it might allow you to login without authentication or something).
Then we changed it to "Start Over", but then some British people
told us that "Start Over" is poor English wording.  So we changed
it to "Start Again".  I am a bit tired of changing this label by
now, but if you think a better label should go here, I'm happy to
discuss further.

One UI issue with the current label is that the "Start Again"
button is used to unselect any user picked in the Face Browser
so it might be better to have a label that indicates that the
button does two things:

- Restarts the login process
- The above implies that any user selected in the face browser
  is unselected.

Not sure if we could come up with a label that really captures
what this button does, but I'm happy to hear any suggestions.
"Cancel" has already been rejected by the UI team, though.  :)

> > Speaking of this, does the "OK" button need to be updated so that
> > it remains insensitive until all fields have something entered?
> > It probably doesn't work this way right now.
>
> Maybe you intentionally want to leave fields empty. There could for
> example even be a pam module that dynamically creates a user or
> switches to some guest account if you don't specify a username I
> guess.

I was just highlighting that the way we set insensitivity for the
OK button may also need to change to make your "multiple prompts"
feature work.  Something for you to think about as you do your
work.

> > > > I think this change also needs to be made to gdmgreeter.
> > > I haven't looked too closely into gdmgreeter yet.
> > Since I am making the changes you suggest to SVN head and we are
> > close to releasing GNOME 2.18, I would appreciate if you could
> > verify that gdmgreeter is working reasonably.  Now that we're in
> > beta I'd hate to release a version of GDM where gdmlogin works but
> > gdmgreeter does not.
>
> Oh, ok. I'm not familiar with the GNOME release schedule.

Now you know.  Thanks for being agreeable to making sure that we
keep gdmlogin and gdmgreeter in reasonale sync.  For your refernece
the GNOME 2.17/2.18 schedule is here:

  http://live.gnome.org/TwoPointSeventeen

Note that the "hard code freeze" is March 5th, so I would very
much appreciate it if we could wrap up the first-phase of the PAM
improvements by then, or at least make sure that GDM is in
reasonable working shape.  In other words, we don't want to apply
patches that leave GDM in a state where further patches are needed
to make it work properly, etc.  Note we are already past the UI
freeze (January 22nd) so I'm probably being a bit bad accepting
patches that make minor changes to button sensitivity and such.
However, I think making GDM work properly with PAM is important
even if it makes minor UI changes.

Also note string changes must be made by Febraury 12th so if you
want to get in any changes that affect translatable strings (e.g.
changing any labels or adding new strings), these changes have to be
figured out soon.

Brian