We discussed about the logout process on #debian-gnome this morning, and there was agreement that the current process is confusing whenever several people are logged on.

(Note that the Debian PolicyKit defaults are: yes for org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.stop, and auth_admin_keep for org.freedesktop.consolekit.system.stop-multiple-users)

Whenever someone else is logged on, the session is terminated but the PolicyKit dialog shows up and requests to enter the root password before shutting down. Pressing Cancel will bring back to the GDM login prompt.

Now this is confusing for several reasons:
 * The dialog appears after all applications have been closed.
 * This is a standard PK dialog, and it doesn’t make obvious that “Cancel” actually means “Log out”.
 * There is no indication in the shutdown dialog that the “Shutdown” action will actually require authentication.

Therefore, here is an improvement proposal for the shutdown dialog, that would make things much more obvious.
 * Before showing up the shutdown dialog, g-session asks CK whether it has the appropriate permissions to shut down.
 * If the permissions are here (no one else is logged on), nothing changes from the current dialog.
 * If the permissions are missing and authentication is required, the shutdown and restart buttons are grayed out. Furthermore, a label and a button are added below the existing buttons:
     Shutting down the computer will require authentication. [[ Unlock ]]

I don’t know whether this requires any extension to the existing ConsoleKit API, but in all cases it should be close to what e.g. gnome-system-tools does.