touch-packages team mailing list archive

[Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

Even if "there are lots of users who do not want networks connecting
automatically" was true, that wouldn't matter, as long as they were
still a small minority compared with the case I described of people
wanting to connect to a wi-fi network at a cafe, airport, university, or
other venue that they haven't visited before. That is the "reason NOT to
confine networks you have never connected to the 'More networks' folder
or an 'Unknown networks' folder". And that's why "having NEVER-USED,
NEVER-WILL-USE networks taking up space in the drop-down is not a smart
design choice" is assuming the question: it's conflating networks that
you haven't used before with networks that you never will use, when they
are not the same thing.

If "the user is forced to wade through unknown networks to single out
the network/s they have previously connected to in the past", that is a
bug. Please report it as a bug, with precise details
<https://wiki.ubuntu.com/DebuggingNetworkManager>, rather than making a
design suggestion that might fix the bug but that has major side-
effects. It is often the case that designers and engineers, especially
those with experience in a particular component, can come up with better
solutions to a bug than the reporter can.

"This is most certainly not a bug, it is a feature request"

It is neither; it is a request for a change to the design of an existing
feature. It's okay to request a design change, and a bug tracker is a
reasonable place to do it; Launchpad's "Opinion" status is a failed
experiment (bug 772954). But a request for a design change is much less
likely to be valid than a bug report, because often it lacks rationale
or (as in this case) lacks perspective about the full range of use
cases. Any time you put "should" in a bug summary, or even in the first
paragraph, back away from the keyboard for a while and think: What is
the problem I'm trying to solve? What would be the tradeoff of the
solution I'm suggesting? Does the specification discuss this tradeoff?
Can I think of five other solutions?

** Changed in: indicator-network (Ubuntu)
       Status: Opinion => Invalid

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Ubuntu.
https://bugs.launchpad.net/bugs/1425991

Title:
  Networks I have never connected to should be confined to an "Unknown
  Networks" folder

Status in indicator-network package in Ubuntu:
  Invalid

Bug description:
  When a user clicks the network manager indicator, a dropdown appears
  and lists wifi networks. This menu should NOT display networks that
  the user has never connected to. Networks the user has never connected
  to should only display in a folder called "Unknown Networks." At a
  mininum, the user should be given the ability to prevent networks from
  cluttering up the indicator menu.

  It is an unproductive design choice to force users to have to wade
  through networks they have never connected to (networks they will
  never connect to) in their menu. Even if a user makes use of the Auto-
  Connect setting for wireless networks, only displaying known networks
  in the indicator dropdown allows a visual reference of available
  networks the user can connect to. If the user is in the vicinity of a
  free network or at a friend's house and has the password to a network
  he/she has never connected to before, this network would be unknown
  (because it has never been connected to before). So the user would
  browse the "Unknown Networks" folder to identify the SSID. Once
  connected to, from then on the network would directly display in the
  Network-Indicator dropdown list. It makes sense and is more efficient
  to have the menu only display the networks the user makes active use
  of and no more.

  When I click on the Network Manager Indicator and select "Edit
  Connections" and then look under the "Wifi" heading, only a couple
  networks appear. So why do 5 or more networks (networks I have never
  connected to, networks I never will connect to) perpetually show in
  the Network Indicator menu? They should not be displayed like they
  are. They should be confined to a folder called "Unknown Networks".

  In the interest of providing a visual example of what I am talking about, here is a picture of some networks I would like to hide/remove from my Network Indicator menu.
  http://a.pomf.se/fdqlnn.png

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