Re: [Tails-dev] tailstime - Proposed SDS

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Author: intrigeri
Date:  
To: The Tails public development discussion list
Subject: Re: [Tails-dev] tailstime - Proposed SDS
Hi Kevin & all,

Kevin C. Krinke wrote (04 Oct 2013 17:25:01 GMT) :
> The following is a quick summary of the expected first release of the
> clock applet which I've so far named "tailstime".


Thanks for this summary, it does help to make sure we're on the
same page!

> * "tailstime" - is that a good name for the applet?


We already have several time-related programs in Tails (that are not
all that well named, by the way), so tailstime looks a bit too generic
a name to me. How about "Tails Clock" (full name, displayed to users)
and tails-clock (internal name)?

Oh, and the bikeshed must be red, obviously :)

>  * Default to UTC [1]
>  [1] Depending upon just the configured country is not good enough as
> there can
>       be more than one timezone depending on city


In a future iteration, derivating the timezone from the country (even
if it's arbitrary in many cases) would still seem slightly better, at
least for the countries that have a single timezone. But for the first
iteration, let's not bother too much: I do agree defaulting to UTC is
the right choice for now.

> * Save configuration to ~/.config/tails/timezone


ACK

> * Time and Date displayed as: "${DATE}, ${TIME}"


ACK, as long as that's l18n'd (discussed below anyway).

>  * Currently configured timezone is not displayed [2]
>  [2] I'm thinking we should actually include the timezone just so that
> it's obvious to
>       the end-users what timezone is actually being displayed. Either
> way it doesn't
>       bother me and is probably a line of code at most in order to
> implement.


I'm unsure. Let's not display it to start with, and try to ask UX
folks what they think?

>  * Clicking on the applet provides a simple dropdown list of all
> available timezones
>    for the user to select from with the current timezone indicated /
> pre-selected [3]
>  [3] This isn't actually HIG-compliant but on that note, applets are
> deprecated and
>       actual gnome-shell extensions are idea. Being that Tails does not
> use GNOME
>       Shell at all, I don't think HIG-iness is really relevant. Putting
> the TZ configuration
>       into the dropdown is easier development-wise but if HIG-compliance
> is desired
>       I'll implement a secondary Preferences dialog that is accessible
> via the applet's
>       menu (via left-click as the right-click is for moving/removing and
> I don't want
>       to delve into inserting the prefs there for the first version)


Even if we don't ship the Shell, Tails is based on GNOME, so IMHO
HIG-compliance is a clear UX win in most cases. I don't expect it to
be much more work to add a prefs dialog anyway, right? If I missed an
obvious benefit of the proposed dropdown list, please feel free to
correct me :)

> * No configuration of how the time and date are displayed


ACK

>  * Time and Date format is i18n'd based on the country, derived
>    from ??? [4]


I expect you'll easily find a Python library that gives you the
current date/time as a l10n'd string, taking into account the current
locale settings.

> [4] Where should the country info be found? /etc/default/locale?


In the environment: just run locale(1) and see. But hopefully, as
suggested above, you won't even need to do that yourself.

Enjoy!

Cheers,
--
intrigeri
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