Re: [Tails-dev] Removing the clock applet from the desktop

On 03/10/13 12:11, intrigeri wrote:
> I think the region setting is a fine source of a "best bet" when it
> comes to the default displayed timezone. Do we agree on this?

Yes. According to the two scenarios that you are listing at the end of
your email, that setting can be used as a best bet only when no timezone
is stored in persistence. I agree with that; but otherwise they might
conflict.

> But also, I think the region setting is useful *in itself*, not just
> for timezone selection: it's used to select a default keyboard layout
> in the greeter, and it also determines various l10n and language
> behaviors. So I don't think we could get rid of this region setting.

By the way, in the current Greeter there are three settings: "language",
"locale", and "keyboard". If I choose "Français" as a "language", and
"Canada" as a "locale", then the "keyboard" is not configured
automatically as "Canada", and I still have to choose it by hand.

But the "locale" is surely used to differentiate between pt_PT and pt_BR
for example, and probably only for doing that.

>> Here is my logic for that: if there is a timezone stored in persistence,
>> then that should overwrite the country option in the Greeter
>
> Regardless of whether it's reasonable or not to deduce the region from
> the configured timezone (that's debatable, I guess), there is
> a problem with this: we only get to learn the persistent timezone
> setting *after* having enabled persistence in the greeter, so anyone
> who wants to benefit from the behavior you're suggesting would have to
> either select their preferred keyboard layout every time anyway, or
> type their passphrase with a US layout. Not too convincing a UX,
> is it?

Sorry my sentence was not clear and doesn't make sense now that I
realized that this widget was setting the locale I prefer, and not the
country where I am.

>> (or otherwise the timezone in persistence will never be applied).
>
> I don't get why this would be the case (and that's an indicator that
> I may have misunderstood your point entirely).
>
> To be clearer, what I'm thinking of is:
>
> As a Tails user
> When I boot Tails
> And I select my preferred locale in the greeter
> And I enable persistence
> And I have no timezone configuration in my persistent volume
> Then the displayed timezone is derivated from the country I have selected

Some countries have several timezones, and people travel so that can
only be a best bet and we still need a way to configure it from the applet.

> and:
>
> As a Tails user
> When I boot Tails
> And I select my preferred locale in the greeter
> And I enable persistence
> And I have a timezone configured in my persistent volume
> Then the displayed timezone is set to the one configured in persistence

Those two scenarios will work and I am fine with them.

I guess I got confused by the fact that this widget displaying country
names in the Greeter doesn't set the place where I am but only the
variant of the language want to use, the "locale".

I think that if this confused me, it will confuse many more people. But
that is not a big deal as long as you can fix the timezone directly from
the applet. Your proposed scenarios will work fine for the moment, and
the revamp of the Greeter will be the place where to actually fix this
for good.

>> And a good rationale to allow people configuring the timezone from your
>> applet is that a user can fuck that up and correct it. If it is
>> configured from the Greeter then there is no way back. Plus it is not
>> strictly required to have this in the Greeter, so I'd rather have it
>> configured from the place where it matters really ("that clock on the
>> desktop is wrong, let's change that!") than having yet another option in
>> the Greeter when it can be somewhere else.
>
> In the current state of things (persistence configured in one place,
> locale settings in another place and not persistent), I agree that's
> probably the best we can do.
>
> I also hope that at some point, the idea of unifying all that stuff in
> one place (e.g. allow the user to configure persistence in the
> greeter, and allow the user to configure greeter settings from the
> same control panel inside the session once logged in) will be
> researched in more depth and implemented, and then we'll probably want
> to move the timezone configuration into this unified interface, but
> let's keep that for later. UX experts, please catch this ball! :)

Exactly.