[Kde-pim] "Configure GnuPG Backend" dialog in KMail / Kleopatra

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Tuesday 15 September 2009, Thomas McGuire wrote:
> Hi,
>
> On Monday 14 September 2009 12:53:49 you wrote:
> > In my quest to polish KDE I thought I give my attention to the
> > "Configure GnuPG Backend" dialog in KMail that can be reached via
> > "Configure KMail --> Security --> Crypro Backends --> GpgME -->
> > Configure."
> > I wanted to finally write a patch to make the window look less like
> > a butt- ugly construction site, but it turned out to be a bit more
> > complicated. The strings are pulled from GnuPG itself and
> > kdepim/libkleo/ui/cryptoconfigdialog.cpp is also a bit... um...
> > sparse.
> >
> > Can anyone of you please point me were to find the file the icon
> >  definitions are saved?
>
> You'll see that cryptoconfigdialog.cpp makes use of
> CryptoConfigModule. That then makes use of the abstract class
> CryptoConfig, which can provide abstract CryptoConfigComponents. The
> icon name is then taken from
> CryptoConfigComponent::iconName(). That is the icon for the config
> component (page), it seems.
> The pages/components are created in CryptoConfigModule::init()
>
> In the component/page, the widgets are dynamically created, see
> CryptoConfigComponentGUI::CryptoConfigComponentGUI(). They consist of
> a bunch of CryptoConfigGroupGUIs. The constructor,
> CryptoConfigGroupGUI::CryptoConfigGroupGUI, actually creates the real
> options, like line edits or checkboxes, using a
> CryptoConfigEntryGUIFactory.
>
> Since most of the classes defined above are abstract classes, you
> need to look at the actual backend to see where that gets the config
> options from. See libkleo/backends/qgpgme/qgpgmecryptoconfig.cpp for
> GpgME.
> That backend seems to parse the output of gpgconf. In particular, the
> icon for the components/pages comes from
> QGpgMECryptoConfigComponent::iconName(). I think mName comes from
> QGpgMECryptoConfig::slotCollectStdOut(), but I'm not sure.
>
> I'm not sure if I like the whole approach a lot, just dumping all
> gpgconf options at the user seems overwhelming and complicated, I'd
> prefer a traditional GUI that groups the options in a user-friendly
> way, and does not present every option on earth.

The advantage of this approach is that the options always match what 
gpgme supports. There's a reason why gpgconf was designed the way it 
works.

IIRC then I have never changed any of the options in Crypto Backends and 
I do consider myself a hard core OpenPGP user. I don't really use 
S/MIME though. But then again, the most important options wrt S/MIME 
are present on the S/MIME Validation page and there I did change some 
of the options.

IMO it's not worth to spend any time/effort on improving the Crypto 
Backends configuration. If anything then I would hide it as much as 
possible from normal users who browse KMail's settings. Only hard core 
crypto users will ever want to tweak those options. And those users 
won't mind the "butt-ugly" look of the configuration.


Regards,
Ingo
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