GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 127043
Improved Crash Report Dialog
Last modified: 2004-12-22 21:47:04 UTC
this bug report has been created to track a discussion on the usability list http://mail.gnome.org/archives/usability/2003-November/msg00037.html Feel free to copy and paste what you consider to be the most relevant comments here. I heartily agree with Bryans sentiment that we should embrace and improve the Internet Explorer crash dialog, and add that we should keep the dialog as succint as possible.
Because I enjoy more SPAM, I put the usability maint in the CC I'm just going to place all the suggestions from the list here to start out. This is in order of appearance, not in order of the number of times the word crash is used. :-) --- The "$APPNAME" application has crashed. If you submit a report on this crash, you can help us improve our software. [ Exit application ] [ Submit crash report ] --- The "$APPNAME" application has crashed. If you tell us about this crash, you will be helping us improve our software. [ Exit application ] [ Report the crash ] --- The "$APPNAME" application has crashed. If you submit a report on this crash, you can help us improve our software. A wizard will guide you through the steps of submitting a crash report if you chose to do so. [ Exit application ] [ Submit crash report ] --- The "$APPNAME" application has crashed. Tell us what happened and you could help improve our software. [ Ignore crash ] [ Tell us what happened ] --- The application "$APPNAME" has crashed. If you would like to send a bug report to the developers of this application, click "Send Bug Report" below to open the Bug Reporting Assistant, which will generate a detailed crash report and help you send it to the right place. --- If you kindly take the time to describe what you were doing you will contribute to keep the problem from ocurring again. --- The "$APPNAME" application has crashed. Due to a programming error this application has stopped working. By sending a report you can inform the developers. [ Don't send ] [ Send report ] --- The application "$APPNAME" has crashed. Please help us to help you by submitting a bug report to the developers. Click "Send Bug Report" to enter the the Bug Reporting Assistant, or click "Don't Send" to exit without further action.
cc'ing some docs folks for their thoughts... Personally I wouldn't use the word "crashed" at all, it's potentially a bit scary/geeky to the uninitiated... maybe something like "quit unexpectedly"? I'm also a bit wary of using "us", who is "us"? The little men inside the computer? So, using the HIG alert style (and with the rest of the wording off the top of my head), maybe something like: <b><lrg>The application $APPNAME has quit unexpectedly.</b></lrg> You can report this problem to the developers to help them fix it. Or you can restart the application straight away. [Restart Application] [Cancel][Report the Problem]
I'd go along with most of what Calum suggests - but I have suggested some slight modifications below: The $APPNAME application has terminated unexpectedly. You can report this problem to the developers to help improve the application. Alternatively, you can restart the application. [Restart Application] [Cancel][Report the Problem]
Certainly a bit snappier, but I'm not sure about "terminated", that's one of those emotionally-charged words (like "aborted", "killed" etc.) that it's usually better to avoid.
This is in libgnomeui/libgnomeui/gnome_segv.c Moving to the libgnomeui product
Two comments about this: a) gnome-crash dialog or bug buddy should recommend upgrading the software if it is too old (we can compare date from gnome-about.xml and current) [too old == >6months?] b) app binary name and pid are very important info for developers (brave people use gdb and source!), so we have two options to show this: b.1) Details button/tab b.2) if GNOME_HACKER environement variable is set, show it in the dialog text What do you think?
> a) gnome-crash dialog or bug buddy should recommend upgrading the > software if it is too old (we can compare date from gnome-about.xml > and current) [too old == >6months?] If it's possible to compare to the latest stable version, I'd like to see that happen. > b) app binary name and pid are very important info for developers > (brave people use gdb and source!), so we have two options to show > this: > b.1) Details button/tab > b.2) if GNOME_HACKER environement variable is set, show it in the > dialog text I like the b.2 method most. 1337 GNOME hackers will know to set this and everyone else can let bug buddy upload all the necesarry info into bugzilla. As far as the wording goes, I like this (similar to Calum's): <b><lrg>The application $APPNAME has quit unexpectedly.</b></lrg> You can inform the developers of what happened to help them fix it. Or you can restart the application right now. [Restart $APPNAME] [Cancel] [Inform the Developers] While I don't like the word 'inform' all that much I can't think of a decent alternative. I'm trying to avoid the words: 'report', 'problem' and 'crash'. I think these are all a bit too negative and might relay to the person that *they* made a mistake; which is of course ludicrous.
>If it's possible to compare to the latest stable version, I'd like to >see that happen. Yes, we have this on gnome-version.xml: <platform>2</platform> <minor>5</minor> <micro>2</micro> <distributor>GNOME.Org</distributor> <date>2004-01-07</date> If minor number is odd, we can asume he's using an alpha/beta version, so he's an experienced user doing testing, we don't have to tell anything about updates. But if minor is even, he's running a stable version, and if current_date - date > 6 months we can say "Notice that the software you are running is older than 6 months, plase consider updating it" I'll vote to put this on libgnomeui crash dialog.
Any user that has experience a crash should always "consider upgrading". I hardly think date detection is necessary. Assuming they are running free software they would want to upgrade then there is no issue of the cash money cost of upgrading even if there are issues of the local admin being unwilling to upgrade or perhaps there are some other factors (there always are but I'm not going to try and list them). I strongly agree with the principle of mentioning and recommending an upgrade. Most users will be using binaries not CVS or anything particularly fresh. Also, i think it should be possible for all users to see exactly what is going on by pressing some sort of "Details" button. Although it may be meaningless to most users there are certainly paranoid people like me who will quickly want to scan the debug stack to ensure my password isn't in it (as has happened previously).
Hi, here come a patch and corresponding screenshot for a try on improving this dialog based on the feedback. It does: * Text improvements. * New button for restarting the app. * Add a suggestion for updating the software if GNOME is an stable version older than 6 months * Hide pid and signal of crashed app when GNOME_HACKER env variable is not set. BTW, this is a minor ui change based on UI review so I think it's okey for 2.6, but not sure about the little feature of restarting the application.
Created attachment 23508 [details] [review] Proposed patch for impoving crash dialog
Created attachment 23509 [details] Screenshot of crash dialog with previous patch applied
Alan, the details I'm hiding are pid and signal name of the crashed application. If you want to know why it crashed, how, or with what data, just click on Send Bug and check it with bug buddy. Pid is only relevant for people that want to run gdb in the console.
Couple of comments on the screenshot: - It deviates from the HIG style again, i.e. should really have a bold/large primary message, and secondary text in regular text. - s/The Application/The application - The paragraph "The software you are running..." should align with the one above it, although personally I agree with Alan that it's unnecessary and just detracts from the main message of the alert. - I don't think "the" is necessary on the button, "Inform Developers" is shorter and sounds fine to me (as a phrase, although it still sounds slightly odd to me as an action in a GUI...) - I'd prefer "Restart Application" to "Restart <app-name>"... some apps have very long names (e.g.gnome-accessibility-keyboard-properties) and would make the alert obscenely wide :)
Agreed on all accounts. Lets go with Calum's suggestions
I've updated the patch following Calum's comments. Also I've removed the upgrading sugesstion (maybe moving to bug-buddy wait-while-debugging screen). Is it okey now?
Created attachment 23561 [details] [review] Updated patch
Created attachment 23562 [details] Updated screenshot
Looks good to me
Commited
*** Bug 133912 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***