GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 329761
Druid is awkward
Last modified: 2008-05-02 11:02:22 UTC
Surely there's an old open bug about this somewhere, but I can't find it, so I'll start again. I'm amazed that it's still this bad. 1. On first starting the program, the user sees a sentence about a "Druid". At the very least, please call it configuration, or a "Wizard" if you must. That's at least something that somebody might have heard of. 2. The 3rd stage asks for an ekiga.net username and password "to register". But 2.1 It's not clear whether this is for first registration or for login with an existing user name. 2.2 It's not clear what ekiga.net is. Who runs it? Do I need to pay for it? Will I need to pay for it in future? Why is an application recommending a single service? Why do I feel like I'm being cheated? 3. Step 6 asks me to choose an "audio manager", though I (a regular user) have no idea what that is. It only offers me one choice (Alsa), so it shouldn't be asking me at all. 4. Likewise with "Audio Devices". It offers me "Default" and "Intel ICH6", though "Default" is not default. How could I possibly know which one to choose. If there's a default then why not just use it? 4.1. When selecting "Default" it says "impossible to select selected audio device for playing". So why offer it to me?
1. We will change that 2.1. / 2.2. Please suggest some phrasing/explanation that suits you and is clear to you. 3. Indeed, we can probably skip that test if there are not several choices. 4. Because Default is not always configured, we can not know about that. Similarly, we can not guess that it won't work for some reason before proposing it. We won't fix that part.
2.1: I can't suggest some phrasing until you explain what ekiga.net is, and what relationship it has/will-have with the Ekiga program. When I go to ekiga.net I just see a login page. 2.2 Likewise, I don't know the answer to my question, so I can't suggest how to make it clearer. 4. Can't you just test whether it works and then offer the choices that remain?
2.1. From the druid : "Your username and password are used to register to the ekiga.net SIP service. It will provide you a SIP address that you can give to your friends and family so that they can call you." And just below "Get an Ekiga.net" account. What don't you understand? 4. We are already opening/closing it to see if it works or not. So your problem is different.
2.1: If I don't have an ekiga.net account yet, do I need to click on the link below first? More importantly, there's no information about what happens if I skip this step.
"If you don't have or want an Ekiga.NET SIP account, you can safely skip this step." Something like that?
That doesn't a) Tell me what the effect of having, or not having, an ekiga account is. "Safely" is very vague. b) Doesn't tell me whether I need to register a new account, or whether this is registering a new account for me. Just be explicit.
to a) - The term "Ekiga.NET SIP service" is used. The relation to "account" is clear IMHO. And if that's not enough (= "what the hell is SIP and a SIP service??") then I just have to say: If you write FAQ's, dictionaries and lexica into a GUI, a GUI just gets unusable. (--> "Enter the directory to store your files" - "What is a directory?"). - the term "safely" is not _vague_, but of course not the best choice. It just was a quick written down sentence. Maybe omit it at all. to b) - beside some word plays that may need improvements, you see what happens when you click the button J.
> "what the hell is SIP and a SIP service??") > then I just have to say: If you write FAQ's, dictionaries and lexica into a > GUI, a GUI just gets unusable. You can not expect people to know what SIP is or what a SIP service does. > you see what happens when you click the button This is not good enough. There's no reason not to be more explicit. If you tell me whether this is registering a new account or if I need to register an account first, then I can redo the dialog for you if necessary.
For the second issue: Your initial question was: "If I don't have an ekiga.net account yet, do I need to click on the link below first?" If you don't have an Ekiga.NET account, what do you expect from "Get [...] account" The Ekiga.NET SIP account is not needed to run Ekiga. Ekiga.NET SIP service is a free SIP provider you *can* use. If you don't want, skip the step. If you already have an Ekiga.NET account, enter it (or skip the step and enter it manually in the accounts-menu). If you don't have one, but want one, click "get [...] account". That's how it's meant. I admit not everybody knows what SIP is. Describe SIP in 5 words. Without using terms that need further description (like "VoIP" or so). It's always a problem about what you can assume and what not. BTW, as i'm not a native speaker, I can't feel small nuances related to the words choosen. That's also a problem for descriptive texts maybe. J.
Damien says this one is for me :-) Jan, please tell me which 5 words to use to describe SIP ;-)
> Damien says this one is for me :-) Sorry, just wanted to discuss that. > Jan, please tell me which 5 words to use to describe SIP ;-) Exactly that's the point. You can't.
Isn't "SIP" itself just an irrelevant technical detail. Please try to think about what registering with the service actually allows somebody to do? For instance, - Can I make an internet telephone call without this service? - Can somebody call me if I don't use this service? - Does this make something easier? Please try to think about tasks and goals rather than the steps.
- Yes, when you have another SIP provider at hand. - Yes, assuming he uses SIP. - Yes, if you don't already have another SIP provider. (regardless of H.323 possibilities here) IMHO, "SIP" is not only an irrelevant technical detail. And writing "You can't talk to <some program here>." is not enough without giving the reason why (SIP/non-SIP). What's confusing a new user might be, that Ekiga is not "yet another program to voice- and videochat with my friends, similar to, e.g. NetMeeting", it's an IP phone, just as you can buy one in the hardware shop. I get your point. Of course. But making a button with "Click here to chat with the rest of the world" is simply a (marketing-)lie. You can of course provide better texts. That would also make it more clear what you mean in detail. I don't have a problem with your suggestion in general, I just fear that this will provide misunderstandable information for new users (like "Yeah, i can chat with my gf, she uses Skype").
>> Can I make an internet telephone call without this service? > Yes, when you have another SIP provider at hand. So, I _must_ register with either ekiga.net or some similar service in order to make telephone calls? If yes, then that's an important details. "Making telephone calls" is important functionality. > (regardless of H.323 possibilities here) Why would we disregard H.323? It's fine to say "Without a SIP service you will not be able to make telephone calls to people who use the SIP protocol, though H.323 calls will still be possible.", if that's true (I don't know). It's still too technical, but at least it's telling the user something. I'd really like the ekiga.net web site to say a) What it is. b) What other clients also support SIP and/or can communicate through ekiga.net. > it's an IP phone, just as you can buy one in the hardware shop. And they don't have a wizard.
"So, I _must_ register with either ekiga.net or some similar service in order to make telephone calls? If yes, then that's an important details. "Making telephone calls" is important functionality." Yes, and also (in general) to do PC-To-PC calls. Think to Hotmail, they provide you an email, you need an email to be able to send and receive emails, like murray@hotmail.com. You can give that email address to your friends. That is similar to SIP, you need a sip address to be able to give and receive calls, for example, murray@ekiga.net. All your friends who are using SIP softphones or hardphones can contact you by dialing sip:murray@ekiga.net. Ekiga.net is not providing email accounts, but SIP Accounts, and SIP addresses. Of course, there will be a manual, updated. "I'd really like the ekiga.net web site to say a) What it is. b) What other clients also support SIP and/or can communicate through ekiga.net." It's a beta Murray. Which means that the website is not existant. And our webmaster is slow. It is an Open Source project, not a commercial one, so things sometimes take more time than expected. I apologize for that. "And they don't have a wizard." And thus are much more complicated to configure..... I can send you screenshots if you want :) So well, now that you know what it is and what it does, we are waiting for a patch to the strings that suits you. Somebody who is new to Voice over IP is better to give nice and easy to understand descriptions than us.
Murray? Any insight? Thanks,
>> So, I _must_ register with either ekiga.net or some similar service in order to make telephone calls? > Yes, and also (in general) to do PC-To-PC calls So, the previous way of doing PC-To-PC calls (before SIP support in Ekiga/GnomeMeeting) is no longer available? Didn't we have some kind of addresses then too? > It's a beta Murray. Which means that the website is not existant. Will it be ready for the GNOME 2.14 release? It's already late to be adding new features. I still don't know whether the ekiga.net username and password requested in the druid are for account login or to obtain an account with that new user name. When I know this information then I will gladly try to improve the UI.
"So, the previous way of doing PC-To-PC calls (before SIP support in Ekiga/GnomeMeeting) is no longer available? Didn't we have some kind of addresses then too?" It will still work, but it is deprecated. That method was based on ILS, and most ILS servers have disappeared. Of course, you can still use IP calling, but again that is not the recommended way. Anyway, if you want to use SIP, then you need to register to a SIP provider. That SIP provider can be freeworlddialup.com, or Ekiga.net. Of course, we recommend using Ekiga.net. "Will it be ready for the GNOME 2.14 release? It's already late to be adding new features." I do not consider upgrading the website as a new feature. Erm. And I hope it will be ready for 2.14. I can not guarantee it however. "I still don't know whether the ekiga.net username and password requested in the druid are for account login or to obtain an account with that new user name." They are for account login. "When I know this information then I will gladly try to improve the UI." Quickly then the string freeze is tomorrow. The sentence "Your login and password are used to register to the Ekiga.net free SIP service" seemed clear to me. And you are the first one to ask a question about it on a few thousands users. However, if you can clarify things, I'm really ready to update the UI with better strings. 3) and 4) won't likely be fixed before 2.00 however, because we are already late and there are many other things to do before the release.
> They are for account login. Thanks. "register" is ambiguous. It can mean account creation or account login. I'd prefer "The login and password are used to login to your existing account at the Ekiga.net free SIP service. If you do not yet have an Ekiga.net SIP address you may first create an account at <link>ekiga.net</link>. This will provide a SIP address that allows people to call you. You may skip this step if you use an alternative SIP service, or if you would prefer to specify the login details later. [] Skip this step. " > It will still work, but it is deprecated. That's good to know. Then we can think about making things much simpler by just always encouraging people to use SIP, without even mentioning that's it's SIP too often. Let's try that in future as a next step.
I fixed the text in HEAD. Thanks for the suggestion!
If it's fixed, it should be closed then...
Only the text is fixed, not the rest of the bug report. (for example, do not allow changing the manager, when there is only one).
Gnome has an "About me" information panel in Desktop->Preferences->About me The druid should fill in the given information, for example Name and SIP address there or pick it from there when already provided (of course gnome-about-me needs to be updated for this).
At least for the name I need to read into that. The possible VoIP URL feature of that config is a GNOME core thing, I believe.
Let me try to list what's left to do in that bug report -- things get unclear after a while : - when a single manager is available for audio or video, we shouldn't ask and go to the next page automatically (point 3 in comment #1) - it seems some plugin gave us a device which couldn't really be used (point 4.1 in comment #1) - we should try to get personal information from gonme-about-me, if it provides what we need (comment #23). Am I right ? PS1: Now I don't get why it got assigned to me :-/ PS2: The druid will become an assistant when we switch to gtk+ 2.10, so I guess we'll take that occasion to rework that piece of code.
*** Bug 353818 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
*** Bug 350156 has been marked as a duplicate of this bug. ***
The two duped bug reports contain specific issues. To make sure they get carried over, they are: * Populate the 'User Name' from the GECOS passwd data. * Ask for 'first name' and 'surname' in separate text-boxes.
Maybe split this in different bugs ?
Well, when we rewrite the druid as a GtkAssistant, it will be good to have the list of problems somewhere, so it's not that stupid to have them together.
I don't know why it's NEEDINFO...
Please review your comments with SVN trunk.
The druid is no more (it has been replaced by the assistent) and there was no update for a month on this report. Thus it will be closed.