Re: long messages in gnome-lokkit (edited)

[Simos Xenitellis <simos74 gmx net>]

On Tue, 2 Oct 2001, R.I.P. Deaddog wrote:

> On Mon, 1 Oct 2001, Alan Cox wrote:
>
> > Seriously. Its a wizard based interface. It is there to make it easy for end
> > users by throwing the info they need at them before asking the questions.
> > This is an important piece of UI design because end users do not understand
> > firewalls and do not use firewall tools often enough to internalize either the
> > background to the decisions or the controls.
> [......]
> > Gnome-lokkit is a tool aimed at your grandmother.
>
> Then it's THIS point that needs some consideration. Do average Joe users
> have such patience to scroll and scroll to read such long messages? And
> do they have the necessary background to read and understand all the
> jargons inside the text, such as "UDP", "port", "snooping attack"? It
> sounds to me that the wording of the paragraphs are for sysadmins, not
> grandparents.
>
> For normal behaviour, newbie users will usually look at the first page,
> scroll down a bit more, and lose their patience and click "next". Some
> are lazy enough to not scrolling the text at all.
>
> Besides, these 2 messages can be shortened a bit after rephrasing. For
> example, in high security mode, after mentioning *ONLY* what kind of
> connections are allowed, it goes on with even longer message to tell
> what kind of connections are not allowed. Isn't this clumsy and
> unnecessary?

don't shoot the developer.
If I was a developer spending my free time writing open-source
applications, the least I would expect would be such comments on my work.
If you feel that a change should be made to the messages, write an
alternative and send it to the developer. As a translator, you might have
better understanding of the needs of different user levels.
I see in several linux-* lists such comments that start flames and break
down the usefull work.

simos