unity-design team mailing list archive

[Frederik Nnaji <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, Aug 17, 2010 at 14:54, Matthew Paul Thomas <mpt@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>wrote:

>
> (I had a similar experience with a neighbor running Windows last year.
> Their ISP, trying to troubleshoot the problem, had resorted to sending
> them a whole new router -- but it turned out the neighbor had just
> accidentally clicked Internet Explorer into offline mode.)
>

yeah.. this is only the browser..

> Before I fixed it though I wanted to see how the user assessed the
> > problem and tried to fix it:
> >
> >  . Loaded Firefox using the quick link on the top pannel
> >  . Got the yahoo search page (looks like we're online)
> >  . Tried to navigate to mail.yahoo.com
> >  . Got a message warning that firefox was in offline mode.
>
> I don't understand why Firefox (or Internet Explorer) has an offline
> mode at all.
>

it used to be helpful, when users had to worry a lot more about quota on
their DSL..


> >  . Reads instructions to turn off 'offline mode'
> >  . Goes to File > Work Offline and unchecks the box.
> >  . Attempts to refresh page, getting a server not found error.
> >...
>
> It's on my radar for ConnectionManager that there should be a standard
> API for telling whether there is an Internet connection or not, and for
> invoking a troubleshooting assistant if there isn't.


So happy to hear this!
It seems so little to indicate this rather persistent state to the user..

Design exercise: What might that troubleshooting assistant look like?
>

"Am i online?" - that's one piece of information, not yet a menu or dialog..
If we get that exposed in a transparent manner (dbus), every application can
use that information as needed..
Preferrably a consistent visual metaphor that always leads the user to the
wizard you propose..