Re: GNOME 2.0 Must Fix Item #6

[Adam Elman <aelman users sourceforge net>]

At 9:48 AM -0400 8/31/01, Kevin Vandersloot wrote:
> This one should be pretty straightforward. Note that recent versions of
> gdm have some of the changes suggested in the usability test. For fun I
> did a mockup of a possible improvement to the logout dialog here:
>
> http://www.personal.psu.edu/users/k/f/kfv101//GNOME/logout-mockup.png

One minor comment, one larger one...

Minor comment: if we're gonna go with this the wording oughta be 
consistent.  Either both the label and the button should say "Reboot" 
or they should say "Restart".  (I prefer "Restart".)

Larger comment: While I think this is a definite improvement over the 
current radio buttons, I'm struck that having the choice here at all 
is throwing a bit of complexity in the user's face at a time when 
they aren't terribly interested in it.  At logout/shutdown/reboot 
time, you really just want to get the hell out of the environment so 
you can go home/get on with your life. :)

I think it's fine to have an "Are you sure" dialog (at least until 
session management means that logging out is totally non-destructive 
:) but I would actually suggest that we move the choice of Log 
Out/Shut Down/Restart to the _menu_ rather than bringing up this 
dialog box.  Then the dialog box becomes a simple "Are you sure? 
Logout/Cancel" rather than offering all these buttons.

Another reason why this might be a good idea is that it'd be easier 
for admins to simply remove "Shut Down" and "Reboot" from the menu in 
cluster situations when having user access to such things is 
undesirable (or, in some situations, totally irrelevant: for 
instance, if the user is accessing a session via a remote X 
terminal).  Otherwise we have to have at least two different versions 
of the dialog box designed.

A third reason: if I want to shut down the computer, "Log Out" isn't 
necessarily the obvious choice from the menu as to how to do that. 
Having an explicit "Shut Down" option there would be clearer.


Adam
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