[Freeipa-devel] [PATCH] 436 Remove word 'field' from GECOS param label

[Petr Vobornik]

On 07/19/2013 11:19 PM, Dmitri Pal wrote:
> On 07/19/2013 09:26 AM, Jan Pazdziora wrote:
>> On Fri, Jul 19, 2013 at 03:17:49PM +0200, Petr Vobornik wrote:
>>> Disclaimer: I have no strong feelings in this matter, it just looks
>>> weird to me, so I'm OK with not doing it if it's general consensus.
>>> Originally we wanted to do this change in
>>> https://fedorahosted.org/freeipa/ticket/3569 but it was not done
>>> because of string freeze.
>>>
>>> I guess you can add field suffix to every field from /etc/password
>>> when you use it in a sentence but that doesn't necessary mean that
>> You can. But gid exists as a concept beyond /etc/passwd. So does home
>> directory. The GECOS field value does not, really.
>>
>>> it's its name. man 5 passwd doesn't use word 'field' next to GECOS
>>> in fields description/list either. IMO our use case is the same.
>> It says:
>>
>> 	GECOS	This field (sometimes called the "comment field")
>> 		[...]
>> 		The gcos field in the password file was
>> 		[...]
>>
>>> Historically correct label would probably be 'GECOS identity' but
>>> that's not usable today as it's purpose is more general.

> Do we have tips in the UI?
 > May be we should add them in future to provide extra information about
 > meaning of the field or button.

We do, but UX is not the best. 'doc' defined in .py files is displayed 
as a textbox tooltip. This feature is not apparent and for most of the 
fields the tooltip is the same as label.

There is an idea to display a question mark icon next to textboxes to 
draw an attention to a presence of the doc text and provide it in a tooltip.

I like the way how it's done in Alchemy UI: 
http://www.ui-alchemy.org/form You can notice there an additional 
information (string length limitation, example...) when field is focused.

I went through open tickets and found few which touches the topic:
- https://fedorahosted.org/freeipa/ticket/2912 [RFE] [Web UI] Use doc as 
field's tooltip instead of label
     * Seems to be already implemented.
- https://fedorahosted.org/freeipa/ticket/2413 [RFE]: add in UI examples 
of what is the requested field
- https://fedorahosted.org/freeipa/ticket/3661 [RFE] IPA Web UI: When 
adding new reverse zone in DNS there could be an example of expected 
address format
     * Looks like duplicate of #2413

IMO we should close #2413 and maybe #2912 or change #2912 to cover the 
above mentioned proposals (in case of agreement).

> For now I think GECOS would probably be good enough.
> Adding "field" makes it more precise but looks weird.
>


-- 
Petr Vobornik