Subject: Please add config option to disable bubble help text and change the wording of it

From: Stefan Baur <[email-masked]>
Date: Wed, 11 Dec 2013 15:28:50 +0100

Package: x2goclient
Severity: wishlist
Version: 4.0.1.2

Upon connection, an info bubble pops up, containing a *totally cryptic 
session name* and disappearing after five seconds or so.

No non-technical user can make use of that message, seriously. And even 
technical users will have a hard time memorizing a cryptic session name 
within 5 seconds.

Please, also add an option to disable this popup, and seriously consider 
changing the displayed info to something more user friendly like 
"Connection to host <host>, session <sessionname> established as user 
<user>." It's okay to add the cryptic string somewhere where techies can 
find it if they need it, maybe in an About-Box or so, but please - think 
of the chil^W ordinary non-technical end user.
And again, I'm kind of disappointed that we're adding silly eye candy 
when there still are serious bugs to fix.

---

From: Ricardo Díaz Martín <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 21:16:31 +0100

Package: x2goclient
Severity: wishlist
Version: 4.0.1.2

Hi Stefan,

I'm the developer that coded at first time the notification message about
the connection status. Somebody else modified after the code to introduce
extra information.

2013/12/11 Stefan Baur <[email-masked]>

> technical users will have a hard time memorizing a cryptic session name

Complete agree. Not happy to see the session name there.

> find it if they need it, maybe in an About-Box or so, but please - think of
> the chil^W ordinary non-technical end user.
>

I'm agree to show info more user friendly but not agree to add an option to
disable this popu-p. Not sure who was the developer that added the session
id to the pop up. If the developer read this post maybe he could explain to
us why add this info in the pop-up.

> And again, I'm kind of disappointed that we're adding silly eye candy when
> there still are serious bugs to fix.
>

I added the pop-up because if you set on the x2goclient option "hide
windows on connect" (as I usually do with my users settings) looks like
nothing happens when you click on connect button. So some users try to do
again and again and connection stuck. It's no an "eye candy".

In addition, it's complete true there are serious bugs to fix instead to
add this feature so you have some options:
- Read in deep the code and send patches to fix them. And of course do it
for free and using the time you must to be with your family, friends or
doing some sports or something else...
- Fork the project and add the features you want
- Pay for commercial support to fix the bugs and your wishes

I don't want to be rude but it's an opensource project and not very happy
when somebody use the words "silly eye candy" talking about the time other
people spent for free.

Regards,
Ricardo Diaz

---

From: Mike Gabriel <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 21:24:12 +0000

Hi Ricardo,

> us why add this info in the pop-up.

/me shyly raises his hand...

I don't care too much for the session name in the bubble. I find it  
very helpful, but I lack normal user perspective, of course. However,  
I also think that we should make the bubble configurable. Actually it  
might be nice to be able to switch notifications on and off in the  
session profile. The default should be: bubbles turned on.

@Ricardo: can you fix the user unfriendliness of the current bubble in  
X2Go Client?

@myself: I will add the configurability of the notifications for the  
next X2Go Client release (4.0.1.3).

> when somebody use the words "silly eye candy" talking about the time other

@Ricardo: Stefan is one of those persons who is very supportive to  
X2Go behind the scenes. He also already contracted Alex for e.g.  
development of the published applications support.
@Stefan: supposing that someone adds ,,silly eye candy'' can be  
insultive, indeed. It's always good to check with the contributors  
(see debian/changelog) and check for the use case and give feedback  
during he development phase (and not 5 minutes before the releases is  
due). (-> X2Go Client from the nightly builds for Debian and Ubuntu  
had the bubbles for 2-3 months now and noone complaint so far).

light+love,
Mike

-- 

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fon: +49 (1520) 1976 148

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---

From: Stefan Baur <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 22:20:59 +0100

Am 14.12.2013 21:16, schrieb Ricardo Díaz Martín:

>>     And again, I'm kind of disappointed that we're adding silly eye
>>     candy when there still are serious bugs to fix.
>
>
> nothing happens when you click on connect button. So some users try to
> do again and again and connection stuck. It's no an "eye candy".

Okay, different use case, it seems. While I'm also setting "hide windows 
on connect", I'm using the autolauncher in combination with it, so that 
after login, the application that my users need the most immediately 
pops up.  So maybe we could hide it when autolaunch (--autostart=<app>) 
is used? Still, I don't see why making it a configurable option would be 
bad. Either your users behave and don't change settings on their own, so 
it stays the way you configured it for them, or you set the 
--no-session-edit parameter to force them.

> - Read in deep the code and send patches to fix them. And of course do
> it for free and using the time you must to be with your family, friends
> or doing some sports or something else...

While I'm not a "frontline" coder, and only do debugging when Mike#1 
tells me what and how to do, I do happen to check for issues and report 
bugs/oddities, plus I'm occasionally active in x2go-i10n (since no 
English native speaker seems to have enough time to check our English 
messages), and a lot of that actually happens in my free time, like the 
last evaluation of the x2goclient.exe that Mike#2 had asked for.

Also, I have a few things in the works that add value to the 
ThinClientEnvironment part of the project, it's just that I'm not 
committing the source directly but showing it to Mike#1 first, since TCE 
is his "baby" and he will know best where to add my code or how to tweak 
it to play along nicely.
Just two examples: One thing, passed on to him about a year ago, was 
code to auto-detect an X2Go server similar to how WPAD 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol) works.
Judging from a note I recently saw regarding the X2Go Session Broker, 
I'm guessing he's either using it or it has inspired him to come up with 
something similar.
Another thing is an X2Go ThinClient that can be booted off a CD or USB 
memory stick, for cases where PXE booting isn't available.
This is not for older clients that don't have a PXE boot rom - you can 
simply boot gPXE or iPXE off a CD on those - but for cases where PXE 
booting isn't available for other reasons, like:
- You are allowed to run an X2Go server, but do not have permission to 
change or set up a PXE/NFS environment (a common situation when someone 
wants to demonstrate X2Go in a corporate setting).
- You are travelling somewhere, want to connect to your X2Go server 
somewhere else over the Internet, didn't bring your own computer, only a 
USB key fob, and don't trust the Windows installation found on the 
machine you're being offered to use (if you can trust it, you can of 
course simply use x2goclient.exe in portable mode).

Looking back in the X2Go-dev mailing list history, I can see 17 messages 
from you and 113 (yes, one hundred and thirteen compared to seventeen) 
messages from me. So let that sink in for a moment before you continue 
barking up the wrong tree.

> - Pay for commercial support to fix the bugs and your wishes

And that last point is what I've done previously, more than once. Maybe 
you'd like to check on the wiki who sponsored the development of the 
published applications feature, for example?
http://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/doc:sponsors
http://wiki.x2go.org/doku.php/doc:deployment-stories:electronic-glovebox
Or the Windows "interim" x2goclient that comes with the old pulseaudio, 
that avoids the stuttering noises when playing Flash videos? That would 
be me (or, to be exact: the company that I am the sole owner of), in 
both cases.

Also, you might want to check who provides the Apple Mac Mini (that is, 
the machine itself, the power, and the network connection) free of 
charge that is used for the MacOS x2goclient builds? Again, me/my company.

Your attitude, however, is one that might force me to reconsider my 
investment of time and money into the project. Especially as the Mac 
stuff is currently of zero commercial value to me: I bought that machine 
only so that the project could deliver a great user experience across 
all three major operating system platforms (while some of my customers 
are Mac owners, I learned that they prefer to run Windows on Apple 
hardware, so they run x2goclient.exe).

> I don't want to be rude but it's an opensource project and not very
> happy when somebody use the words "silly eye candy" talking about the
> time other people spent for free.

I don't want to be rude, either, but "free" isn't a valid excuse for 
"bad". Nor has it ever been.

See, you started with a seemingly harmless addition of an information 
"bubble". Then someone else came along and added the session name. This 
is somewhere between feature creep and a color-of-the-bicycle-shed 
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_Parkinson%27s_Bicycle_Shed_Effect) 
discussion, and I would like to remind everybody involved that we should 
avoid that.

We should stick to the K.I.S.S. principle, get the serious bugs worked 
out, then add new features.
I also doubt it makes debugging of currently existing bugs easier while 
new code for new features keeps getting added.

-Stefan

---

From: Stefan Baur <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 14 Dec 2013 22:46:11 +0100

Am 14.12.2013 22:24, schrieb Mike Gabriel:

> I don't care too much for the session name in the bubble. I find it very
> helpful, but I lack normal user perspective, of course. However, I also
> think that we should make the bubble configurable. Actually it might be
> nice to be able to switch notifications on and off in the session
> profile. The default should be: bubbles turned on.

And that's just the point. You're a developer. You need debug messages. 
Displaying a session name for that reason is totally okay, and I can see 
why you want those info bubbles with that content.
BUT:
1) The session name (i.e. the pseudorandom mumbo-jumbo, not the "human 
readable name" - it's okay to display that one to a regular user) should 
only be displayed inside the bubble if the client is in "debug mode". 
Either by adding a --debug or by ticking a checkbox in the options.
2) In debug mode, the message should appear for a longer period of time, 
so that you have a chance to copy and paste it. For me, it disappeared 
before I had a chance to even move my mouse over it from the center of 
my screen. And no, I'm not using a 100" screen. ;-)
3) I still believe that the best way to solve the issue would be to make 
it configurable, like:
- If "Debug" is set, always pop up, display the cryptic name along with 
the session name, and stay visible for at least 10 seconds
- If "Debug" is not set, but "Autostart" is set, completely hide the 
bubble. (optional)
- If neither is set, display the bubble for 4-5 seconds, only showing 
human readable information.

An ordinary user *will* be confused and irritated by that extra info.

[...]

> @Ricardo: Stefan is one of those persons who is very supportive to X2Go
> behind the scenes. He also already contracted Alex for e.g. development
> of the published applications support.

Thanks for putting that into perspective, Mike#1.

> insultive, indeed. It's always good to check with the contributors (see
> debian/changelog) and check for the use case and give feedback during he
> development phase (and not 5 minutes before the releases is due). (->
> X2Go Client from the nightly builds for Debian and Ubuntu had the
> bubbles for 2-3 months now and noone complaint so far).

The thing is, so far, I'm only using the Windows client in my daily 
business, so I don't have a chance to catch those changes early on, 
unless you manage to provide nightlies for Windows as well.

The TCE stuff I'm working on in my free time is used by my 68-year old 
Dad (and I'm preparing a second ThinClient for my Mom), and I don't want 
to (ab)use him as a guinea pig for new X2Go features, so I'm not 
updating his client/server installations (aside from security patches - 
  the sources.lists on his machines actually exclude the regular debian 
archive and only include security.debian.org and the x2go wheezy repo) 
unless absolutely necessary.
And for my own personal computer, while it's dual-boot, I'm using 
Windows 7 most of the time, even off duty. Kind of sad, but true - and 
also a usability issue (the move from KDE3 to Win7 was easier than the 
move from KDE3 to KDE4 - and IMO, that's *not* because the Microsoft 
guys did a particularly good job with Win7 *hint, hint*).

Okay, enough ranting for today.

Kind Regards,
Stefan

---

From: Ricardo Díaz Martín <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 16 Dec 2013 08:52:06 +0100

2013/12/14 Stefan Baur <[email-masked]>

> after login, the application that my users need the most immediately pops
> up.  So maybe we could hide it when autolaunch (--autostart=<app>) is used?
> Still, I don't see why making it a configurable option would be bad. Either
> your users behave and don't change settings on their own, so it stays the
> way you configured it for them, or you set the --no-session-edit parameter
> to force them.
>
>
>
> While I'm not a "frontline" coder, and only do debugging when Mike#1 tells
> me what and how to do, I do happen to check for issues and report
> bugs/oddities, plus I'm occasionally active in x2go-i10n (since no English
> native speaker seems to have enough time to check our English messages),
> and a lot of that actually happens in my free time, like the last
> evaluation of the x2goclient.exe that Mike#2 had asked for.
>
> committing the source directly but showing it to Mike#1 first, since TCE is
> his "baby" and he will know best where to add my code or how to tweak it to
> play along nicely.
> Just two examples: One thing, passed on to him about a year ago, was code
> to auto-detect an X2Go server similar to how WPAD (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Web_Proxy_Autodiscovery_Protocol) works.
> Judging from a note I recently saw regarding the X2Go Session Broker, I'm
> guessing he's either using it or it has inspired him to come up with
> something similar.
> USB key fob, and don't trust the Windows installation found on the machine
> you're being offered to use (if you can trust it, you can of course simply
> use x2goclient.exe in portable mode).
>

Very thanks to write 113 (yes, one hundred and thirteen) messages. It's
simple amazing. I wrote only 17... bad karma

> that avoids the stuttering noises when playing Flash videos? That would be
> me (or, to be exact: the company that I am the sole owner of), in both
> cases.
>
> the machine itself, the power, and the network connection) free of charge
> that is used for the MacOS x2goclient builds? Again, me/my company.
>
> investment of time and money into the project. Especially as the Mac stuff
> is currently of zero commercial value to me: I bought that machine only so
> that the project could deliver a great user experience across all three
> major operating system platforms (while some of my customers are Mac
> owners, I learned that they prefer to run Windows on Apple hardware, so
> they run x2goclient.exe).
>
>
>
Oh my good! Please don't reconsider your very huge investment (mac mini is
very nice and expensive machine currently better than IBM mainframe). And
thanks for paying the development of the published applications feature!
Maybe it's nice for you because the product you sale is just this feature.

> "bad". Nor has it ever been.

Sorry but people that fill a bug using word "silly" and still thinking it's
the right way to do it got no more my respect.

> "bubble". Then someone else came along and added the session name. This is
> somewhere between feature creep and a color-of-the-bicycle-shed (
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Avoid_Parkinson%27s_
> Bicycle_Shed_Effect) discussion, and I would like to remind everybody
> involved that we should avoid that.
>

Thanks for the link.