Re: [Setup-tool-hackers] users-admin

[Hans Petter Jansson <hpj helixcode com>]

> I'm almost finished with advanced/basic state stuff in users-table. What
> do You think of it? What do You think about advanced user list? Should it
> display other fields too or should it keep showing only login name? It
> could go to editable state when in advanced mode and user clicks in cell.

Arturo and I discussed this a while back, and I think we agreed that the list
should have more detail in advanced mode, and probably also be editable
through ETable.


> Now I have to redo user_settings dialog to add some fields for advanced
> mode. What's the best way to do it? Should I make new dialog for that? Or
> maybe I'll add a window, which never gets displayed, put widgets for adv
> mode in it and if tool is in adv state, I'll reparent those widgets to
> current user_settings dialog? Or maybe I'll just add those widgets and
> don't show them before adv mode? In that case it doesn't look that good in
> basic mode...

Can you have a basic/advanced button in the dialogs as well, which inherits
its state from the main application? In that case, its state should not go
back up into the application, so it works only one way.

The way I envisioned this when I last gave it some deep thought, was a set of
functions:

- Set up and show the dialog.
- Unrealize the dialog and put changes in effect.

These two functions map to a function pair that depends on advancedness
level. They can be callback hooks set in the ToolContext (see src/common/),
for instance. Then you can use tool_set_complexity() and
tool_get_complexity() to set/get the complexity level (the functions are
already there).

If there are no callbacks for the current complexity, the common functions
should fall back to the ones that match most closely (tending towards basic).

I'm in favour of hidden widgets, making the interface easier to maintain. I'm
not sure how it would be ugly.


> Or... with NIS users and clustering coming, maybe we can use interface
> from Openconnect guys? Check out their screenshots... And that would mean
> ANOTHER switch in users-admin (first, from GtkList to GtkCList and then
> from GtkCList to e-table model) :)
> 
> url for screenshots is http://pepler.aklubi.ee/~tambeti
> 
> What do You think?

Okay, this looks like an object management system. I don't think we can use
that interface out of the box, since it represents a set of functions that
are too alien.

If the OpenConnect guys are willing to try their hand at a Glade interface,
they're welcome, but we still need some guidelines. I might write down a
summary of what I think is good interface philosophy one of these days, and
Arturo was talking about doing the same. Then we can argue and finally come
up with a decent synthesis.

Apart from that, the user depicted in User Properties needs a shave.

--
Hans Petter