KDE Telepathy Error Notifications

[Vishesh Handa]

On Fri, Feb 22, 2013 at 2:11 AM, Martin Klapetek
<martin.klapetek at gmail.com>wrote:

> On Thu, Feb 21, 2013 at 7:23 PM, David Edmundson <
> david at davidedmundson.co.uk> wrote:
>
>> As Martin posted a review recently I remembered I forgot to send a
>> summary of a discussion we had at FOSDEM.
>>
>> Right now our notifications suck. Most the time they appear they're just
>> annoying rather than informative.
>> We had a talk and decided to work out what we actually wanted to happen
>> rather than just randomly hacking with no direction. We outlined a list of
>> situations where accounts can't connect/fail to connect which covers pretty
>> much all the categories and talked through what should happen in each case.
>>
>> Terminology used below:
>>   not connected to network = network manager knows if you're offline
>>   not connected to internet = network manager thinks you're online, but
>> really you're not for whatever reason.
>> (this isn't quite accurate, but it'll do for the purposes of describing)
>>
>> When trying to connect:
>>
>>  - Computer not connected to network
>>     Don't even allow to go online. Block it in the UI and show that we
>> are offline.
>>     Supress any errors
>>
>>  - Computer not connected to internet / host is down
>>     1 notification for all errors.
>>
>
> ...is it going to reconnect? Or just show error and stay offline?
>
>
>>  - Hostname is wrong
>>     notify... (same as above)
>>
>>  - Username/Password/Certifcate wrong
>>     Prompt for password/certificate
>>     Keep prompting until user hits cancel
>>     No notification if you hit cancel
>>
>> Suddenly disconnected:
>>  - Computer no longer connected to the network
>>     Do Nothing
>>
>>  - Computer no longer connected to internet / host breaks
>>     Try reconnecting...and then... ???
>>
>
> I'd say show notification "we tried to reconnect 3 times, but no luck,
> staying offline, sorry".
>

I'm not completely sure I understand this, but if this is the same case as
I'm connected to the network but not the internet. Then how about instead
of trying 3 times, you try after an increasing time limit.

Initially maybe after 10 seconds? 30 seconds, a minute? 5 minutes? Also,
more importantly, you show the user that you are now disconnected and
you'll be trying to connect again in <x> amount of time, AND allow the user
to say "Connect now".

This is essentially, what the google talk plugin for gmail does. I think
it's quite sensible.

-- 
Vishesh Handa
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