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[Launchpad Bug Tracker <1522360@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

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Unlike the phone (unity8) interface, in the desktop (unity7) when a Google account is created in "System Settings" -> "Online Accounts", all applications which can use it get automatically enabled.
Some of these applications, such as Shotwell, have their own UI and use the account only when the user is actively using them, while others (such as Empathy and Evolution) provide background services which start synchronizing the user calendar or contacts as soon as the account is created, but without showing any UI on screen.

Now, the problem is that the first time that these processes start using
the newly created account, they need to be authorized by the user: this
is not something that we can control, as it's a requirement from the
remote server (Google's, in this example). This means that until we show
a UI containing the Google's authorization page, these application won't
work. The solution we implemented (and that we are currently using) is
that when these applications try to authenticate, we refuse their
request and instead emit an OSD notification, saying

        Applications can no longer access your Google Online Account
           Choose <b>Online Accounts</b> from the user
           menu to reinstate access to this account.

If the user is clever enough, he'll open "System Settings" -> "Online
Accounts" and after clicking on the Google account they'll be prompted
to authorize the applications that previously requested access to it.
Until the user has done that, these applications won't be able to
interact with the account.

Some users (actually, Canonical developers) have been left confused by
this message, thinking that it was the symptom of an error that had to
be fixed.

I would like to propose a couple of simple suggestions to fix this bug:
1) Reword the notification message a bit, maybe by saying "Some applications cannot access..." (note that I removed "no longer")
2) Some releases ago, the system settings indicator on the top right corner of the screen would become red in this situation, and also the "Online Accounts" menu item inside that menu would appear in red: that helped a lot our users in finding their way. However, this no longer happens.

** Affects: unity-control-center (Ubuntu)
     Importance: Medium
     Assignee: Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
         Status: In Progress

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Online Accounts authorization on desktop (unity7) is confusing
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1522360
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