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List:       kde-core-devel
Subject:    Re: Ctrl+Alt+Del in KDM
From:       Ralf Nolden <nolden () kde ! org>
Date:       2001-05-11 9:28:48
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Waldo Bastian wrote:
> 
> On Thursday 10 May 2001 10:07, Thomas Zander wrote:
> >> > as we are already on alt-ctrl-del and stuff ... what about stealing
> > > the alt-ctrl-del-dialog with the "lock", "logout", "task manager",
> > > etc. buttons from winnt?
Which brings up the kpm question once again :-) There's no task manager
mimetype though so how can one define which one is your default
taskmanager, kpm or ksysguard ? (even top on a console might be
preferred) :-)  I think this is a general question bringing up the idea
of the type= <application type> I discussed with the gnome panel
developers at GUADEC to put into the .desktop file of an application.
The idea is to put an additional line into the app's .desktop file
saying which kind of application it is and by that give the user a
choice or a configuration in cases where he wants to bring up a mail
client, a browser, paint application (which here has nothing to do with
the mime-type though the default application of an application type will
most likely  be identical with the application designated to open the
according files of it's mime-types). As this idea is covering a wider
area of concept, it won't go into 2.2 I guess but it is to be put on the
stack of open jobs to simplify stuff. 

However, even if this is a bit much windows-like with the task manager
button, out of experience in that said internet cafe it would make
things much easier. Right now if netscape crashes I have to either kill
netscape remotely to avoid going there but I'd prefer people learning
how to handle KDE while they're using it for browsing. So this gives me
a hard time telling them, press Alt+F2, enter killall netscape or open a
console. ("hey this is UNIX power, use the console to kill your hanging
app" "What's a console ? Why can't I just kill it with a button ?") 


On a crashed app consuming 99% CPU there is also a good question on how
to bring up the task manager anyway if the machine is almost locked. A
priority setting for a task manager to kill a hanging application that
would still come up on 99% CPU usage would be *very* fine and help
people use KDE to control their machine easily. Netscape in particular
is giving one a hard time and most often we only have the choice of
logging in remotely to kill it because the machine itself isn't
responding to direct user input any more. (which is why those stupid
broken web-chats should work in konqueror without crashing it so the
users can fall back on konqueror and use it as their default browser)

Pressing Ctrl+Alt+Esc though brings up the killcursor anyway. Why not
make this key configurable easily with an option to call the default
taskmanager in case the user presses it ? I think this is the
appropriate place to call a method to kill hanging apps. (yes, I know I
can assign the key combination to kpm but the killcursor has a
preference, just tested it and kpm doesn't come up - I always get the
killcursor) 
> >
> > This would make the feature to not-show the logout dialog useless, and it
> > would basically make the workflow inconsistent.
> > Personally I would think that NT has a usabiliity flaw with that dialog.
> 
> The task-manager thing is only there because on windows, when one of your
> apps crashed, you needed to ctrl-alt-del to reboot. In later versions that
> reboot wasn't necassery any more (some/most of the time) and you could kill
> the process via the task manager instead.

> 
> I don't think we should copy that.
> 
> I don't see the rationale behind having "Lock" in a ctrl-alt-del menu btw. I
> associate ctrl-alt-del with reboot, logout is semantically equivalent to that
> (you just don't reboot everything), but "Lock" is something completely
> diferent.. Just magine that you want to lock your screen and instead it
> reboots....
I think that depends very much on people's behavior and the design of
the dialog. A setting the user used more often than five times should be
set the default on that dialog dynamically the next time it's called. A
scenario is a user on a server machine that runs 24 hrs. If he works
alone on that, lock is the most often used function. If he's not alone
using it, he's going to use logout every time he's finished. If it's a
normal desktop user on a machine at home, he's likely to shut down the
machine. In cases where he wants to do something different, he's using
another option, just that simple. But as said, this should be pre-set
accordingly to the user's behavoir. To make myself a bit clearer what I
mean:

 radio buttons:

-start screensaver
-lock screen
-logout user <username>
-shutdown 
-reboot

bottom pushbuttons:
<left>Set as default</left> <right>OK  Cancel</right>

default is logout on pressing enter (preset option). With the set as
default button the user can choose which is his default action, e.g. as
described above, lock screen or shutdown. Even Start Screensaver should
go into that because on a home machine it's annoying to lock the screen
and then having to enter the password again when I re-enter the machine
after a while while there is no direct way to start the screensaver in
KDE.

Summary: make the Ctrl+Alt+Esc key configurable to call the taskmanager
or the killcursor, define the default taskmanager somewhere and use the
above description on the Ctrl+Alt+Del dialog. Hope this helps.

Ralf
-- 
Finally, even I have to admit that being myself was the best thing
that ever could have happened to me. - Le Grand Charmeur

**********************************
Ralf Nolden

The KDevelop Project
http://www.kdevelop.org

nolden@kde.org
rnolden@kdevelop.org
**********************************

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