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List:       kde-i18n-doc
Subject:    Re: Error messages in kimap
From:       Christian Mollekopf <chrigi_1 () fastmail ! fm>
Date:       2013-11-27 16:03:36
Message-ID: 2342557.aCylvRKWXu () t420s ! chrigi
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On Wednesday 27 November 2013 17.22:35 Yuri Chornoivan wrote:
> написане Wed, 27 Nov 2013 16:16:59 +0200, Lasse Liehu
> 
> <lasse.liehu@gmail.com>:
> > Hi,
> > 
> > kimap, a library in kdepimlibs, has had poor, technical and
> > translatable error messages for some time. A while ago I tried to
> > improve the situation a bit by changing straight IMAP command names
> > into more descriptive names. See
> > https://git.reviewboard.kde.org/r/113907/
> > 
> > It was then pointed out that that was merely a workaround and errors
> > shouldn't be handled on IMAP command level. The error messages were
> > also still too technical.
> > 
> > Currently almost all error messages are either of the form "%1 failed,
> > server replied: %2" or "%1 failed, malformed reply from the server."
> > where %1 is the job name. Only a few jobs (operations) have customized
> > error handling and thus better error messages.
> > 
> > On IRC Christian Mollekopf suggested to show a non-technical error
> > message to the user and leave the current technical ones untranslated
> > in logs like .xsession-errors.
> > 
> > So, what do you think?
> 
> Hi,
> 
> I would rather see what went wrong or not see any error message at all
> (the latter case is better ;) ).
> 
> Non-technical error messages are useless, they just provoke the
> meaningless bug reports.
> 

While I sympathize, this can also get us close to displaying error codes to 
the user ;-) Seriously though, if something went wrong we need to notify the 
user. There is nothing more annoying than a system that looks like everything 
is ok, but just doesn't do what it's supposed to do. So something along the 
lines of "Communication to server failed." is in order I think.
I know that is completely useless for debugging anything, but at least the 
user knows that something went wrong and the sysadmin should be contacted.

The more tech savvy user will then look into .xsession-errors, where you get a 
very technical, untranslated message what went wrong exactly.

What's important to me is (as a developer):
* No translated error messages (that at best obfuscates what's wrong)
* Error messages should go to a logfile and not a dialog (so I can get them the 
day after)
* As few translations as possible, as many as necessary (no unnecessary 
overhead).

That's why I voted against the improved translations of IMAP command 
descriptions.

Cheers,
Christian

> Just my 2 cents.
> 
> Best regards,
> Yuri

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