Re: Gnome Usability Test

["Guillermo S. Romero / Familia Romero" <famrom infernal-iceberg com>]

azari geo yahoo com (2001-07-23 at 0759.36 -0700):
> Ximian default) I don't really think non-root users need to be able
> to shutdown a machine from the logout button, and since on a some

Have you considered machines in a multiuser place. I admined some, and
I allowed the people I trusted to restart / turn off the machine,
while others were not allowed at all (at least not without getting
dirty, pulling the cord and risking damaged filesystems with a nice
"crash" mark in the logs). And no, that does not mean that all must
have the root password. Things like that or sudo allow a chain of
delegation.

Also, home people must not run as root, but they must be allowed to
turn off / restart machines cleanly. If you are asking that people
must use root for that, you got it backwards. Home machine should
allow any local user to turn off them, like any other OS do. And why
wait to the login screen again? You are only delaying the action.

In both cases the requirements are the same, the only difference are
the users that have right or not for the task.

> systems picking the shutdown or reboot option as non-root doesn't
> work, it may be even more confusing to users, who could possibly

That does not work cos they did not have the rights for that. Like
some users are not allowed to read things in /var/log/. You are trying
to remove a thing that goes with the system GNOME runs over, and that
if properly handled is good, not bad, so no real reason to remove, but
to do it right.

> just sit around expecting the computer to shut down.  I think
> simpler is better in this case, and just a shutdown button and
> cancel button should suffice.

If not allowed to do those things with the computer, ask for root
password or say "you have no rights for that". Even all the other
methods avaliable are smart enough to report it. The file based method
(allowed users are listed in /etc/shutdown.allow) told you that nobody
listed in that file was logged in at that moment, so the request was
ignored. Sudo is the same, if you can not run something it says "you
can not (and it has been logged)".

I think the GNOME task is to make things possible and in a nice and
friendly way, ship nice defaults, and let the rest of people change
things as needed (offices, kiosks, schools, homes with kids).

Dialog with buttons (big, I know, but the text explains all), a Help
button so user can get advice (maybe not needed with the long text and
with the proper handling of rights, see below).

---
        What do you want to do?

        * Save current session

       [ Logout <username> only ]
 [ Logout & Restart machine <machinename> ]
[ Logout & Turn off machine <machinename> ]

[ Help ]
---

Buttons are really big, which is not normal for such widgets. OK, what
about this then:

  +----------------------------------------------------+
  |                                                    |
  | This session is for user <username>                |
  | in machine <machinename>.                          |
  | What to do?                                        |
  |                                                    |
  | [Logout user] [Restart machine] [Turn off machine] |
  |                                                    |
  | *  Save session settings for next time             |
  |                                                    |
  +----------------------------------------------------+

I think all info is avaliable in a quick way and solves some of the
problems issued by the HCI test.

Restart and turn off must check user rights (that is OS dependant),
then ask for user password if allowed & required, or root password if
the action is allowed from GUI (some admins do not want to allow that)
or just report that it is not allowed at all (and why).

Note that username and machinename are included, so people know what
they are handling (important when not your session or with remote
served displays).

GSR