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When the user selects a repo in the drop down of the install new software dialog, when the repo fails loading an annoying dialog pops up. Instead we should look at finding ways to report about this error directly in the "install new software" dialog. Some ideas: - hover over the repo and get some diagnostic - when the repo is selected, use the list area to tell the user about the pb. We have to remember that the goal here is not to offer full repo management which now leaves in a pref page.
cc'ing Miles as he made a similar suggestion in bug 250316 comment 23. > > User can link to prefs if they still don't know what to do. > > Yep. With perhaps a message up top that says same thing while user is typing. > And you could still validate the URL format dynamically. The message thing up > top is nice because after enter you could get an error message at top that says > "No software site found at http://blah". That gets rid of one more modal. > My problem with using the wizard for this is that the error state is known asynchronously and does not necessarily reflect the ability of the user to continue the wizard. I kind of like the idea of explaining an empty list, which was also mentioned by Max in another bug....where we could explain that the list was empty because everything in the site is installed.
Another issue for me is that I don't want so much decorating up there in the combo list (it is already quite busy looking). I'm trying to balance the ability to fast-path add a site/filter with the case where the user is browsing all sites and doesn't want the clutter.
Yeah, I do appreciate the issue with UI latency. Isn't the next / finish button disabled until some item is selected? But I guess that begs the question of whether any existing selections should be released when the user types in a new location. I'm thinking yes. The Team (SVN) project checkout is an example of where asynchronous state updating works well with continuing dialog, but that is a simpler case. Import projects also has an async case -- it even displays an embedded progress bar when you've selected a (very large) directory with projects. re: clutter there is typically a message in the wizard so you would really only be talking about changing that to something more context sensitive. But it would be more dross no doubt. Import Settings is a case where the message is updated when something isn't sensible, i.e. the user selects "choose specific preferences" and then doesn't select anything. But this could get opaque fast. I'd be happy with Max's idea as well. You could just have an embedded message with an error icon. The key is for the user to be able to say "I can't click anything -- i have a message here that says 'blah doesn't appear to be a vaild Eclipse software Updte site.'" BTW, totally OT but thx to you and John for nominating me for Top Contributor bug 257953. I was really tickled. Code wise I'm busy with a couple of my own Open Source (http://www.metascapeabm.com/ http://sourceforge.net/projects/ascape) projects and have to force myself not to get *too* distracted. But I may be proposing an Eclipse project soon. So you could say that I'm contributing to Eclipse.. but while its nice to give back, another way to look at it is that all of you are contributing to *my* project. :D
(In reply to comment #3) > Yeah, I do appreciate the issue with UI latency. Isn't the next / finish button > disabled until some item is selected? yeah, but if you get antsy and select a different repo the list could be completely repopulated before you ever got the first error report. So in that case, the question is where to put the first error. But I guess that begs the question of > whether any existing selections should be released when the user types in a new > location. I'm thinking yes. The Team (SVN) project checkout is an example of > where asynchronous state updating works well with continuing dialog, but that > is a simpler case. Import projects also has an async case -- it even displays > an embedded progress bar when you've selected a (very large) directory with > projects. I'll look, the embedded progress bar only works when the work is not in a job. ;-( unless you jump through a few hoops. <snip> > BTW, totally OT but thx to you and John for nominating me for Top Contributor > bug 257953. I was really tickled. Code wise I'm busy with a couple of my own > Open Source (http://www.metascapeabm.com/ > http://sourceforge.net/projects/ascape) projects and have to force myself not > to get *too* distracted. But I may be proposing an Eclipse project soon. So you > could say that I'm contributing to Eclipse.. John's idea, I just +1'ed him. Just wanted you to know we appreciate. >but while its nice to give back, > another way to look at it is that all of you are contributing to *my* project. > :D > Maybe your project can send out Christmas cookies to us? ;-)
I think we have done well enough on this for 3.5. > Some ideas: > - hover over the repo and get some diagnostic > - when the repo is selected, use the list area to tell the user about the pb. We do the latter now. We still report the error dialog the first time the problem is encountered. However we now show an error indicator in the list when that repo is selected in the combo. This is a good reminder for the user that the repo is dead. There may be more we could do here, but not for 3.5. I'm going to mark this fixed. We can always open new bugs for better ideas.
