Re: [Usability]Re: The path to 2.4 -- part 1

[Christian Rose <menthos menthos com>]

tis 2003-02-11 klockan 01.03 skrev Bryan W. Clark:
> >>this author suggested that when doing
> >>file management function from within Nautilus, if an operation requires
> >>permissions that the user does not have, then prompt for the root
> >>password... e.g., if I want to copy a file to /usr/bin and I'm not
> >>logged in as root, simply prompt for the root password... or if I want
> >>to view another user's home directory but I don't have permissions,
> >>simply prompt for the root password...
> >
> >If this happens, make sure there is a gconf key to disable even asking -
> >admins might not want user's to even see that dialog pop up.  (I
> >wouldn't.)
>
> I would hope that this would be option would off by default so that 
> users who want this type of functionality simply have to turn it on and 
> other users are never aware of it's presence.

Off by default doesn't make much sense. We already have good admin docs
(thanks to Sun) that gives hints for admins of how to customize the
desktop for their environment and users. Admins are often technical
people that can supposedly in most cases handle some of the basics of
gconf with help from documentation. Adding documentation about an
additional key is not a difficult task.

In contrast, having to educate thousands of (novice) desktop users in
standalone environments of how to toggle a gconf key to be able to do
some copying seems like a much bigger task, and not necessarily one we
would like to throw at our users at all.

Whether this should be off by default in order to prevent users on
standalone systems from dangerous copying that will ruin their system is
another matter, though. But I'd argue that many distributions ship
administration tools that are just a root password away anyway, which
could just as easily hose the system if used uncarefully. Maybe an
advice of the dangers if copying to a system folder would be in order,
but I don't think we should disallow it.


> ( I can see this as a big 
> usuability issue, one more dialog box for users to handle! )

Usability isn't about removing dialog boxes. Usability is about removing
them when they don't make sense, and just as much about showing them
when they make sense (when there's something really important to tell,
like in this case) instead of being silent and unresponsive.

Usability is also about allowing for users to immediately correct their
mistakes or how to achieve the goal (or informing about how to correct
them if it can't be made directly) instead of just plain telling them
that they did wrong and leave it like that.

In fact, Nautilus *already* displays a dialog in these cases that just
tells "you don't have enough privileges to write to this folder" and a
Close button. This is problematic because of several reasons:

* It may be plain wrong. The user may have the necessary permissions
(think of an admin user that wisely doesn't use his box as root).
* It doesn't tell what can be made in order to achieve those permissions
* It doesn't tell how to achieve the copying in some other way, or even
that it's possible (and that the lack of possibility here is only a
limitation of the software)
* And, as already mentioned, it doesn't allow for input of the password
to achieve the permissions for those users that already have access to
the password. Instead they must go back and resort to some other (not at
all mentioned) and totally different mechanism to achieve the goal.


Christian