GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 352924
Random Theme breaks if no themes selected.
Last modified: 2006-11-09 16:12:45 UTC
Please describe the problem: a) Install some new themes b) Remove some of the default themes (like circles) [This is on Ubuntu 6.06] c) Select "random from selected" d) However, "random from selected" does not enforce the user to select some themes. e) As a result, on next boot, system does not find default system theme - and because of which it crashes. The fix is to do a theme copy from root prompt in safe mode. f) A validation can be added so that while selecting "random from selected", user has to select at least one theme. Steps to reproduce: 1. 2. 3. Actual results: a) While doing this, my xwindows stopped booting - since it could not select the theme. Further, it brought up a barebones gnome login window where for some reason, the username and password entry boxes were disabled. Had to boot in character mode, figure out theme error, create a fake copy of the theme which was deleted and then go thru the boot process. Expected results: a) User should not be allowed to select "random from selected" when nothing is selected. He has to select some themes. Does this happen every time? Yes Other information:
This does sound bad. I'd accept a patch to fix the problem so that the GDM daemon behaves better when random theme is selected but no random themes exist.
I don't think this is a blocker issue. It is annoying, but I don't think this bug is so serious it should block a release. Marking as critical.
Ah i think i know where the problem lies. The setup writes to custom.conf in /etc/gdm rather than defaults.conf GraphicalThemeRand is set every time the Theme list combo box is toggled. When there are no themes selected GraphicalThemes is set to empty string, causing fallback to defaults.conf. With GraphicalThemeRand=true, non existent stock themes and GraphicalThemes from defaults.conf crash is certain. What i think will be the solution is as follows: When user selects Random Theme and on themes are selected warning pops up informing the user that at least one theme must be selected for the random option to work. Unless at least one theme is selected GraphicalThemeRand will always be set to false. Patch comming soon. Luk
Created attachment 75989 [details] [review] built against the latest (today's) cvs HEAD Hi! I beleive this should fix all the issues mantioned here :) 1. User gets notified everytime there are no theme selected in the Random from selected mode. This will happen if last selected theme is de-selected, and also when Random form selected is chosen throught the combobox (and there are no active themes present) 2. Random from selected mode will be disabled untill there is one or more selected theme. 3. List of current themes for the random theme mode taken from the config file is verified every time the setup program starts and every time the theme is removed. (Existing config values will be comapred with the themes present in the themeDir. All themes that do not exist in the themeDir will be removed from the stored value). 4. When in Random from selected mode, you cannot remove the currently active theme from the single theme mode. Regards Luk
I applied this patch to CVS head. I think this fix is definately an improvement. However, one thing I don't like about this patch is that gdmsetup doesn't clearly communicate to you that "Random" mode isn't saved if you have no themes selected, so it looks like the "random" mode is selected until you re-run gdmsetup and see that it really saved "single theme mode". Perhaps it would be more clean if when you exit gdmsetup, if a pop-up were displayed (much like the pop-up if you enter users in the Users tab but don't hit the apply button). The pop-up could say something like "since no themes selected in random theme mode, switching back to single theme mode." Just so the user is clear about the fact that the setting is being changed on them. Does this sound like a good idea? There might be other/better ways to communicate this? Also note related bug #320802. Might be nice to fix this bug if you are working in this part of the code, since it is related.
Yup i think the pop up after the users has quit the gdm setup is a good place to inform them about the change of the config value. However user do get notified everytime they deselect all the themes that this option will not be enabled unless they select at least one of them, but maybe that is not clear enough. I will add the exit info dialog though.
Added a Message dialog box (OK button only) informing the user about the change after the close button is pressed. This is displayed first before the users tab apply settings thingy. Patch is ready just waiting for the latest CVS head that contains previous changes.
CVS head should now have your patch in it, so you should be able to update the patch. Also, your patch uses this error message: _("No themes selected!"), "You need one or more themes selected for the Random from selected option to be valid."); It would be better if "Random from selected" were in double quotes (") to make it clear that we are talking about the selection choice in the combo box. I don't think this message is clear enough. While it explains the nature of the error, it should probably mention that gdmsetup will fall-back to "Selected Only" mode unless the user selects at least one theme. Also, it is a little confusing that the "Delete" button becomes insensitive for the theme that is selected in "Selected Only" mode. The user may not understand why. It might be better if the button stayed sensitive, but if the user clicks it a pop-up appears that explains that the user cannot delete the theme unless they first unselect it in "Single only" mode. This way the user knows how to delete the theme if they want to.
Created attachment 76221 [details] [review] built against the latest (today's) cvs HEAD Hi! I think i have added/fixed the things you suggested. Please test it and let me know what you think. Also what are we going to do about bug #320802? Imho it works just fine (and its "how to use it" is documented in the docs). We could add double click selection mode (like gnomes desktop background selector), but is it really necessary?
Looks awesome. I think this is much more user friendly. I committed this patch into CVS head. You should ask Calum.Benson@sun.com, or someone else from the GNOME usability team, for an official usability opinion about bug #320802. I do agree that bug #320802 is not the most high priority issue in GDM. Perhaps we should just wait for someone from the usability team to respond to your comment in that bug. If you want to keep working on GDM, I'm sure you can find some more important bugs in bugzilla to fix. If you want some help from me pointing you towards a bug then let me know. Bug #164786 and #334186 are two that would be nice to get fixed. Also #171188.
:) I will focus on bug #334186 from now on.