Lock/logout interactions

Will Stephenson wstephenson at kde.org
Fri Mar 7 15:48:24 CET 2008


You'll have seen the recent crop of blogs and dot comments about logging out 
of KDE.

It seems we have 2 problems: 

1) Forced double choice of leave options when leaving KDE via Kickoff, because 
the user opens the Leave menu, then selects how they want to leave KDE, then 
these all open the ksmserver dialog* with the same choice of 
logout/reboot/shutdown, and a 60 second countdown until the previous choice 
happens automatically.

* the one that dims the desktop, KSMServer::logout() in 
kdebase/workspace/ksmserver/shutdown.cpp

2) 'logout' and 'leave' terminology is confused
Examples: 
* In Kickoff, 'leave' returns to the general process of leaving the KDE 
desktop.
* In Kickoff, 'logout' logs the current user out and returns to the display 
manager.
* In the desktop context menu, 'logout' shows the ksmserver dialog, 
including 'logout' again - end session, 'shutdown' - shutdown and suspend 
options, and 'reboot' options.
* In the lock/logout applet, 'logout' shows the ksmserver dialog, as above
* Ctrl-alt-del shows the ksmserver dialog, in the keyboard shortcuts list for 
krunner, this is described as 'Logout'

2 suggestions:
1) Make the Kickoff leave action_s_ all lead to a ksmserver countdown dialog 
which only offers the previously chosen action, do it now, or cancel.

2) Disambiguate logout so 
"Log out": end session, return to display manager
"Leave": offer choice of ways to leave
Possibly change "Log out" to "End session" or "Sign out"

So the context menu gets a "Leave..." entry, the Lock/Logout applet becomes 
the "Lock/Leave" applet, and the action defaulting to ctrl-alt-del (or acpi 
power button) becomes "Leave".

Thoughts?
 
Will


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