Online Desktop run-through
 

I spent some time running through initial login to the online desktop
session with a clean account and the current Fedora 9 packages. Here are
my notes about what went wrong or could be improved.

I double starred the stuff that I think is at the top of what we should
fix immediately.

If you are going to work on something, follow up here. (I'll make
sure that important stuff from the residual gets filed in bugzilla
and post bug links here.)

- Owen

* When Firefox was started, it came up with two tabs, both with the
Fedora start page

* It seemed a little less than obvious that you should click on
the "Enable Online Desktop" link to proceed, especially with the
browser window sitting there. There wasn't a clear flow that
enabling the online desktop was the *first* step.

** Bigboard was configured to use the default "Milky" theme rather than
the Fedora theme.

* When I did click on "enable the online desktop", I then had *three*
browser tabs

* After going to my mail, and clicking on the link, I had *four*
browser tabs.

* Mugshot stacker was started (because it was installed on the system)
and showed a stack with an initial share about "setup your account"
even though I hadn't enabled Mugshot.

* When I changed my name on the account tab, the window title didn't
update to match, as it would if I reloaded the page.

* If I chose to enable Mugshot from my account page, I got taken to
the login dialog with (at the bottom)

"You can login with your _online.gnome.org_ account"

The link there is actually a weird trap because it implies you can
follow that link to log in, then you end up back where you are
already logged in. (Need to do the discussed login-link URL's
from the online.gnome.org account page.)

** The desktop data engine didn't pick up my login until I manually
restarted it. I think this was because I didn't have a Firefox
profile at all (or even a .mozilla dir) when I started the
desktop-data-engine, so it couldn't establish an inotify watch.

** A "GNOME Online" person appeared in the People stock.

* There was no obvious way to add more people to the people stock.
If there are no online.g.o contacts, a minimal thing would be to
have a button to launch Pidgin.

** People stock slideouts got a bright red header in the Milky theme
(theme bug causing the header not to be drawn themed.)

* Clicking on "Enable application tracking" opened another browser
tab, with another copy of my account dialog.

* None of the text in explaining what this "application tracking"
thing referred to the benefits I got for the online desktop.
We really need to turn on application tracking *by default* when
you create an account through this path.

** /applications-learnmore was all centered, as is the top text
on /applications when tracking is not enabled.

* Hard to find out how to add more stocks to the bigboard

* The two start page were eating 5% cpu showing their anim GIFs.

* Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images -
they look funny blending into the background.

** I got fooled when trying to add a stock to the sidebar by
the "Add to sidebar" button next to the google gadget link entry.
Unless we fix the google gadget stuff very soon, we should just
remove it from the F9 packages.

* Apps stock should be labelled "Applications" not "Apps"?

* In the Apps browser, selecting an application (which shows the
profile to the left) should also highlight the selected app,
since otherwise you don't feel you have good click-feedback.
Same for the People browser

* Very hard to switch the online desktop to a different user, since
the logout link on the web doesn't actually log the d-d-m out.
(Send a "Recheck" headline message over XMPP.)

** Logging into GMail in mail stock:
- Should show Connecting... between the point where you apply
a new password and it succeeds or fails
- In the case of failure, should be button or link to get
back to the point of logging in again, instead of having
to navigate back through sidebar preferences.

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Online Desktop run-through
 

On Wed, 2008-04-02 at 16:58 -0400, Owen Taylor wrote:

> ** The desktop data engine didn't pick up my login until I manually
> restarted it. I think this was because I didn't have a Firefox
> profile at all (or even a .mozilla dir) when I started the
> desktop-data-engine, so it couldn't establish an inotify watch.

Taking this one.

> ** People stock slideouts got a bright red header in the Milky theme
> (theme bug causing the header not to be drawn themed.)

This one now fixed.

- Owen

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Online Desktop run-through
 

2008/4/2 Owen Taylor <otaylor@redhat.com>:
> * When Firefox was started, it came up with two tabs, both with the
> Fedora start page

The two tabs are intentional apparently. See:
https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=437065

> * It seemed a little less than obvious that you should click on
> the "Enable Online Desktop" link to proceed, especially with the
> browser window sitting there. There wasn't a clear flow that
> enabling the online desktop was the *first* step.

Should we set the browser homepage to online.gnome.org?

> ** Bigboard was configured to use the default "Milky" theme rather than
> the Fedora theme.

I will look at this one.

> * When I did click on "enable the online desktop", I then had *three*
> browser tabs
>
> * After going to my mail, and clicking on the link, I had *four*
> browser tabs.

Do you expect a different behavior or are you just pointing out we
open up too many tabs to just get the thing setup?

> ** A "GNOME Online" person appeared in the People stock.

I will try to track this down.

> * There was no obvious way to add more people to the people stock.
> If there are no online.g.o contacts, a minimal thing would be to
> have a button to launch Pidgin.

It would be nice to auto-launch Pidgin on login, except for the first
login you'd
just a screen to setup the accounts.

Perhaps we should have a button which launches/configure Pidgin the
first time and once things are configured we start it automatically.

> * Hard to find out how to add more stocks to the bigboard

We could split preferences and stocks management. Preferences could be
provided by a normal GNOME capplet and stocks configuration by a
"Widgets..." menu item (or something).

> * Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images -
> they look funny blending into the background.

Yeah, I'll look at this one.

> * Apps stock should be labelled "Applications" not "Apps"?

I agree, I'll fix it.

> * In the Apps browser, selecting an application (which shows the
> profile to the left) should also highlight the selected app,
> since otherwise you don't feel you have good click-feedback.
> Same for the People browser

The interaction with the apps list in the browser is a little
confusing. You have to click to select and then click again to launch.
In most cases the selection doesn't seem to provide any additional
information, perhaps we should rethink this a bit so that we can have
single click -> launch?

Marco

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Online Desktop run-through
 

On Mon, 2008-04-07 at 15:13 +0200, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:
> 2008/4/2 Owen Taylor <otaylor@redhat.com>:
> > * When Firefox was started, it came up with two tabs, both with the
> > Fedora start page
>
> The two tabs are intentional apparently. See:
> https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=437065

Ah.

> > * It seemed a little less than obvious that you should click on
> > the "Enable Online Desktop" link to proceed, especially with the
> > browser window sitting there. There wasn't a clear flow that
> > enabling the online desktop was the *first* step.
>
> Should we set the browser homepage to online.gnome.org?

There's no actual content there, just a login and an account settings,
so I don't think so for now. If we ever add more of a "home page" it
might make sense.

Long term, I think we need a wizard type interface when you log in
without an account previously specified. (That is dependent on being
able to create an "unverified" account without an email round-trip,
since otherwise you are bouncing back and forth between the wizard
and the browser to check your mail.)

> > ** Bigboard was configured to use the default "Milky" theme rather than
> > the Fedora theme.
>
> I will look at this one.

Thing walters already fixed this one.

> > * When I did click on "enable the online desktop", I then had *three*
> > browser tabs
> >
> > * After going to my mail, and clicking on the link, I had *four*
> > browser tabs.
>
> Do you expect a different behavior or are you just pointing out we
> open up too many tabs to just get the thing setup?

The latter ... that the user gets a gigantic pile of tabs that's going
to be confusing, and we need to think about how to avoid that. Maybe
just the wizard.

> > ** A "GNOME Online" person appeared in the People stock.
>
> I will try to track this down.

This is going to be a server side fix. (Not saying you ruled out from
fixing it for that reason, but there's a lot more setup there!)

> > * There was no obvious way to add more people to the people stock.
> > If there are no online.g.o contacts, a minimal thing would be to
> > have a button to launch Pidgin.
>
> It would be nice to auto-launch Pidgin on login, except for the first
> login you'd
> just a screen to setup the accounts.
>
> Perhaps we should have a button which launches/configure Pidgin the
> first time and once things are configured we start it automatically.

That would be slick.

> > * Hard to find out how to add more stocks to the bigboard
>
> We could split preferences and stocks management. Preferences could be
> provided by a normal GNOME capplet and stocks configuration by a
> "Widgets..." menu item (or something).

They are split up now, right? That is, they are parallel items along
with Logout in the bigboard menu. A right click menu on the stock
headers with "Remove from sidebar" "Add new widget" or whatever
might provide an alternate route to get there.

> > * Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images -
> > they look funny blending into the background.
>
> Yeah, I'll look at this one.
>
> > * Apps stock should be labelled "Applications" not "Apps"?
>
> I agree, I'll fix it.

Those sounds good.

> > * In the Apps browser, selecting an application (which shows the
> > profile to the left) should also highlight the selected app,
> > since otherwise you don't feel you have good click-feedback.
> > Same for the People browser
>
> The interaction with the apps list in the browser is a little
> confusing. You have to click to select and then click again to launch.
> In most cases the selection doesn't seem to provide any additional
> information, perhaps we should rethink this a bit so that we can have
> single click -> launch?

Hmm, that would introduce some inconstancy with the other browsers.
You probably want to be able to explore what apps are there without
accidentally launching them? I guess the question is whether the
browser is for exploration or for launching stuff that you already
know about.

(On the other hand, the files stock on the sidebar feels lie it should be
single click to open, right click to "Open With" or get more information.)

- Owen


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Online Desktop run-through
 

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 3:47 PM, Owen Taylor <otaylor@redhat.com> wrote:
> > > * It seemed a little less than obvious that you should click on
> > > the "Enable Online Desktop" link to proceed, especially with the
> > > browser window sitting there. There wasn't a clear flow that
> > > enabling the online desktop was the *first* step.
> >
> > Should we set the browser homepage to online.gnome.org?
>
> There's no actual content there, just a login and an account settings,
> so I don't think so for now. If we ever add more of a "home page" it
> might make sense.

Yeah, I was thinking in perspective there.

> Long term, I think we need a wizard type interface when you log in
> without an account previously specified. (That is dependent on being
> able to create an "unverified" account without an email round-trip,
> since otherwise you are bouncing back and forth between the wizard
> and the browser to check your mail.)

Make sense in general to me. I'm not sure it should be a wizard dialog
though, it could just be a web page displayed in the browser (we start
it up by default anyway).

> > > ** A "GNOME Online" person appeared in the People stock.
> >
> > I will try to track this down.
>
> This is going to be a server side fix. (Not saying you ruled out from
> fixing it for that reason, but there's a lot more setup there!)

Heh ok, I'll focus on the client stuff for now and leave this to someone else ;)

>
> > > * There was no obvious way to add more people to the people stock.
> > > If there are no online.g.o contacts, a minimal thing would be to
> > > have a button to launch Pidgin.
> >
> > It would be nice to auto-launch Pidgin on login, except for the first
> > login you'd
> > just a screen to setup the accounts.
> >
> > Perhaps we should have a button which launches/configure Pidgin the
> > first time and once things are configured we start it automatically.
>
> That would be slick.

I will look into it then.

> > > * Hard to find out how to add more stocks to the bigboard
> >
> > We could split preferences and stocks management. Preferences could be
> > provided by a normal GNOME capplet and stocks configuration by a
> > "Widgets..." menu item (or something).
>
> They are split up now, right? That is, they are parallel items along
> with Logout in the bigboard menu. A right click menu on the stock
> headers with "Remove from sidebar" "Add new widget" or whatever
> might provide an alternate route to get there.

I doubt a right click menu would be more discoverable :/

The idea was to keep it inside the bigboard menu (which the user *has*
to discover if nothing else to be able to logout), but labelled more
explicitly, "Widgets..." for example. Which would require to split the
non-widgets preferences out of that dialog, presumably to a capplet.

Obviously there is some value in keeping all the bigboard preferences
together, so I'm not sure it's a good idea.

> Hmm, that would introduce some inconstancy with the other browsers.
> You probably want to be able to explore what apps are there without
> accidentally launching them?

My feeling is that there is enough information in the main view to be
able to explore them. Consistency between the browsers is a good point
though.

> I guess the question is whether the
> browser is for exploration or for launching stuff that you already
> know about.

Yeah. My understanding of the Applications widget is still poor. How
does popular applications affect the list exactly? Is there any way to
expand the number of items in the widget either manually or on the
base of the latest/most used applications (by the local user)?

Marco

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Online Desktop run-through
 

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 10:18 PM, Marina Zhurakhinskaya
<marinaz@redhat.com> wrote:
> Once you enable application tracking, the list should consist of your most
> used applications. You can view popular applications by following "Find New
> Applications" link in the Applications Browser. If you don't have the
> application tracking enabled, the list will have the global list of popular
> applications.

I see, that make sense.

It doesn't work for me though. I have tracking enabled but I still see
a "Popular Actions" at the top of the widget. And launching
applications doesn't seem to affect the list at all (not even on
http://online.gnome.org/applications).

I'll try to track it down on the client side.

Marco

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Online Desktop run-through
 

On Mon, Apr 7, 2008 at 10:18 PM, Marina Zhurakhinskaya
<marinaz@redhat.com> wrote:
> Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:
> Some observations about these screen shots:
> -- In a addition to the sub-header which is shown in gray, there is a
> longer description of the application in the application overview area.
> -- There is a More Info link which links to the
> http://online.gnome.org/applications page about the application.
> -- There is a "Show in sidebar" check box for pinning the application in
> the Applications widget.

All of these seem to work inconsistently. "Nibbles" for example misses
all of the details.

http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=526937

> -- The subcategories show only the applications you have used at some
> point. The More links take you to the page with that particular category
> that contains all the applications in that category that you have installed,
> as well as the applications that you have used, even if you do not have them
> installed.

This is gone, not sure if intentionally.

> -- The sub-header for the applications that you don't have installed is
> used to say "(Not Installed)". An "Install" button is displayed instead of
> the "Run" button in the overview area for such applications.

I think I've seen it working at some point, but right now I don't have
any uninstalled application in my list.

> -- The area at the bottom is supposed to be used for "advertising" popular
> applications that you do not have installed. (I don't remember if they'd be
> show in the overview area or you'd be taken to the web page about them if
> you click on one of them.)
>

This seem to be working here.

Marco

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Online Desktop run-through
 

2008/4/2 Owen Taylor <otaylor@redhat.com>:
> * Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images -
> they look funny blending into the background.

Turns out to be a canvas bug. (this also fixes other UI issues, like
the confusing bigboard menu layout and separation between milky
bigboard and application windows).

Marco

Index: common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c
================================================== =================
--- common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c (revision 7249)
+++ common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c (working copy)
@@ -1543,7 +1543,7 @@
guint32 border_color_rgba;

if (box->border_color_set)
- border_color_rgba = box->border_color_set;
+ border_color_rgba = box->border_color_rgba;
else
border_color_rgba = hippo_canvas_style_get_border_color(style, side);

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On Wed, 2008-04-09 at 13:49 +0200, Marco Pesenti Gritti wrote:
> 2008/4/2 Owen Taylor <otaylor@redhat.com>:
> > * Sidebar Preferences should put a border around the preview images -
> > they look funny blending into the background.
>
> Turns out to be a canvas bug. (this also fixes other UI issues, like
> the confusing bigboard menu layout and separation between milky
> bigboard and application windows).
>
> Marco
>
> Index: common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c
> ================================================== =================
> --- common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c (revision 7249)
> +++ common/hippo/hippo-canvas-box.c (working copy)
> @@ -1543,7 +1543,7 @@
> guint32 border_color_rgba;
>
> if (box->border_color_set)
> - border_color_rgba = box->border_color_set;
> + border_color_rgba = box->border_color_rgba;
> else
> border_color_rgba = hippo_canvas_style_get_border_color(style, side);

While I can forgive myself making the typo, I really should have noticed
the missing borders :-)

Thanks for the catch ... please commit.

- Owen


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Online Desktop run-through
 

On Tue, Apr 8, 2008 at 3:07 PM, Marco Pesenti Gritti <mpgritti@gmail.com> wrote:
> > -- There is a "Show in sidebar" check box for pinning the application in
> > the Applications widget.
>
> All of these seem to work inconsistently. "Nibbles" for example misses
> all of the details.
>
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=526937

This is because we are not successfully fetching all the applications:

"14:51:21 [46912496198016] bigboard.stocks.AppsStock DEBUG don't have
local cache for http://online.gnome.org:80/xml/allapplications"
"14:51:21 [46912496198016] bigboard.stocks.AppsStock DEBUG Got 0 apps
for all apps from http"
"14:51:21 [46912496198016] bigboard.stocks.AppsStock DEBUG all apps are loaded"

The following patches fixes it, but I couldn't track down why we are
using cache-only there. Anyone knows it?

Marco

Index: bigboard/stocks/apps/apps.py
================================================== =================
--- bigboard/stocks/apps/apps.py (revision 7285)
+++ bigboard/stocks/apps/apps.py (working copy)
@@ -247,11 +247,11 @@
url = urlparse.urljoin(baseurl, self.__relative_url)
_logger.debug("Sending http request for %s" % url)

- AsyncHTTPFetcher().xml_method_refetch(url,
- {},
- self.__on_got_xml,
- self.__on_error,
- self.__on_error)
+ AsyncHTTPFetcher().xml_method(url,
+ {},
+ self.__on_got_xml,
+ self.__on_error,
+ self.__on_error)

def go(self):
self.__do_download()

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