[kdepim-usability] KMail Wizard draft

[Ingo Klöcker]

On Thursday 23 September 2004 12:36, Ellen Reitmayr wrote:
> Hi,
>
> for users not so familiar with all the options offered in the
> configuration tool, the wizard should provide a complete replacement
> for the settings tool. That means that you should ask for some more
> features which are relevant for every day users. That is:
>
> - Identity: Reply-To, Organization, Signature (no cryptography and
> advanced options)

Should all three Signature options (input field, from file, from 
command) be available? Or should the wizard just offer the input field?

> - Network/Incoming: Password/SavePW, Check mail every ... minutes
> ** In most email applications incoming servers are specified before
> oputgoing servers - should we change the sequence? **

We've already swapped the corresponding tabs in the configuration 
dialog. So we should probably also swap the wizard pages.

> - Network/Outgoing: Server requires authentication + user name

As I wrote in my reply, KMail should try to determine whether 
authentication is possible before the user is asked unnecessary and 
possibly confusing questions. We've received quite a few bug reports 
from people who have enabled authentication (because they didn't know 
better) and then couldn't send mail.

> - Identity/Network management is missing -> How does the user know
> that identity and network are split up, and what their names are? You
> should add a field 'Name of this account' and apply that name to both
> identity and network.

I still think that we should automatically create reasonable names for 
the identity and for the accounts. For the identity this would be the 
email address. For the account this would be "login at server" where login 
is the login name and server is the name of the POP3/IMAP server.

> Another point:
>
> - What happens if a user does not complete the wizard, e.g. does not
> specify an outgoing server? Which fields are required, which are not?
> I would suggest that it is possible to finish the wizard even if one
> of the tabs is not filled.

Sure. But without outgoing server sending mail would obviously be 
impossible. Of course, the user should be able to re-run the wizard in 
order to finish the setup. The tricky part is that re-running the 
wizard should not destroy any advanced settings the user has changed 
via the normal configuration dialog.

Regards,
Ingo
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