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Bug 617082 - RFE Useability - Learning How to Start the Miners was a Little Unintuitive
RFE Useability - Learning How to Start the Miners was a Little Unintuitive
Status: RESOLVED FIXED
Product: tracker
Classification: Core
Component: Miners
0.8.x
Other Linux
: Normal enhancement
: ---
Assigned To: tracker-general
Jamie McCracken
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
 
Reported: 2010-04-28 13:54 UTC by Deji Akingunola
Modified: 2010-05-11 10:25 UTC
See Also:
GNOME target: ---
GNOME version: ---



Description Deji Akingunola 2010-04-28 13:54:55 UTC
Originally reported at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=586679 .

Description of problem:
Currently, the way in which to start the miners is not intuitive or
well-documented.  I realise it is only early days with this being release 0.8.3
so I do not know if this feedback is needed yet but it would be good if:


1.  The tracker-status man page has a lot of information about pausing and
resuming miners but no info about starting them which, I must admit, initially
confused me.  A cross-reference between the tracker-status and tracker-control
pages would be good or just a quick note telling users to start the miners with
tracker-control -s.

2. System Preferences->Searching and Indexing need a graphical controll for
switching miners on and off (or better still, they could jsut run as a
background daemon)

3. Just running tracker-control by itself (with no switches) from BASH after
installing gives the current process id.  Perhaps it should instead prompt the
user by providing a list of switches (as the -h switch does) and only give
current process id (the current default behaviour) when another switch is used.

4. Might be good to include a help file in tracker-search-tool as well since
indexing is not switched on by default and newbie users who might not know
about indexing would wonder why files are not displayed when they do searches.

Version-Release number of selected component (if applicable):
tracker-search-tool 0.8.3-1

How reproducible:
Every time.

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Not obvious that indexing miners must be started with tracker-control -s
Can take some research to discover this.

Actual results:
If the user looks at tracker-status man page first with discussion of pausing
and resuming miners but no mention of ways in which to actually start them and
no cross-reference to tracker-control man page, this is potentially confusing.

Expected results:
Should have cross-reference to tracker-control man page to teach users how to
start indexing.  Graphical front-end and configuration tools should also
indicate to inexperienced users how to start indexing.
Comment 1 Martyn Russell 2010-05-11 10:25:22 UTC
(In reply to comment #0)
> Originally reported at https://bugzilla.redhat.com/show_bug.cgi?id=586679 .
> 
> Description of problem:
> Currently, the way in which to start the miners is not intuitive or
> well-documented.  I realise it is only early days with this being release 0.8.3
> so I do not know if this feedback is needed yet but it would be good if:
> 
> 
> 1.  The tracker-status man page has a lot of information about pausing and
> resuming miners but no info about starting them which, I must admit, initially
> confused me.  A cross-reference between the tracker-status and tracker-control
> pages would be good or just a quick note telling users to start the miners with
> tracker-control -s.

Done.

> 2. System Preferences->Searching and Indexing need a graphical controll for
> switching miners on and off (or better still, they could jsut run as a
> background daemon)

There is one, tracker-status-icon. Or do you mean something else?
 
> 3. Just running tracker-control by itself (with no switches) from BASH after
> installing gives the current process id.  Perhaps it should instead prompt the
> user by providing a list of switches (as the -h switch does) and only give
> current process id (the current default behaviour) when another switch is used.

No, I don't think that's useful. If you want to understand how to use a command, it is pretty universal you need to use --help.

Also providing something useful as the default with no arguments is much better than the help IMO.
 
> 4. Might be good to include a help file in tracker-search-tool as well since
> indexing is not switched on by default and newbie users who might not know
> about indexing would wonder why files are not displayed when they do searches.

This sounds like a different bug entirely. Can you report a new bug for this. Multiple issues in one report is never a good idea.

> Steps to Reproduce:
> 1. Not obvious that indexing miners must be started with tracker-control -s
> Can take some research to discover this.
> 
> Actual results:
> If the user looks at tracker-status man page first with discussion of pausing
> and resuming miners but no mention of ways in which to actually start them and
> no cross-reference to tracker-control man page, this is potentially confusing.
> 
> Expected results:
> Should have cross-reference to tracker-control man page to teach users how to
> start indexing.  Graphical front-end and configuration tools should also
> indicate to inexperienced users how to start indexing.

I also mention tracker-status in tracker-control.