Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 08:29:03AM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Well okay, granted ... but the locale would almost always be explicitly set, and wouldn't change when eg the lat/long are modified. I disagree on that particular point. If someone installs a Debian, and the install programs asks for lat/long, and then the system starts speaking the right language to the user, he will never have set the locale explicitly. Two solutions: - Have the install program infer the (default) locale from the lat/long, but the lat / long changing program doesn't touch locale. - Don't mix coordinates and language at all. The install program asks for the default system locale as it does now. -- Lionel
Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
On Mon, Jun 02, 2003 at 05:16:21PM +0200, Lionel Elie Mamane wrote: On Sun, Jun 01, 2003 at 08:29:03AM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Well okay, granted ... but the locale would almost always be explicitly set, and wouldn't change when eg the lat/long are modified. I disagree on that particular point. If someone installs a Debian, and the install programs asks for lat/long, and then the system starts speaking the right language to the user, he will never have set the locale explicitly. Two solutions: - Have the install program infer the (default) locale from the lat/long, but the lat / long changing program doesn't touch locale. - Don't mix coordinates and language at all. The install program asks for the default system locale as it does now. I think that's the best solution. There are parts of the world with more than one official language, and in some of those parts (such as Quebec, or Belgium), guessing incorrectly may be a good way to severely piss off a user. -- Wouter Verhelst Debian GNU/Linux -- http://www.debian.org Nederlandstalige Linux-documentatie -- http://nl.linux.org An expert can usually spot the difference between a fake charge and a full one, but there are plenty of dead experts. -- National Geographic Channel, in a documentary about large African beasts. pgpnMzQrtqfOF.pgp Description: PGP signature
Re: Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
On ma, 2003-06-02 at 19:38, Wouter Verhelst wrote: I think that's the best solution. There are parts of the world with more than one official language, and in some of those parts (such as Quebec, or Belgium), guessing incorrectly may be a good way to severely piss off a user. Additonally, in every part of the world there tend to be visitors. If, say, I were sent to Japan, I wouldn't want a computer I install there to suddenly start speaking Japanese at me, since I don't understand the language it all. There are also locations that have no native language at all: the Antarctica, and ships, oil rigs, and desert islands, for example. (If I ever get marooned on a desert island and fail to install Debian because it can't figure out what locale to set, I shall declare myself king and be royally angry.) -- Enemies of Carlotta 1.0 mailing list manager: http://liw.iki.fi/liw/eoc/
Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
Well okay, granted ... but the locale would almost always be explicitly set, and wouldn't change when eg the lat/long are modified.
Re: Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
On Sat, May 31, 2003 at 02:16:50AM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: Uh, I'm not sure this is a good example. Hasn't shared/news/server existed for years? Both the newsreaders I maintain use it and have done so since at least May 2000 and December 2001 respectively. That template name was already well-established then. Well, we had trouble finding any sort of established question. It wasn't documented anywhere for us to find, as far as I know. Maybe buried in a mailing list post or two somewhere. I agree that better use of the shared namespace would be an improvement: I'd suggest /etc/mailname management as an example of something that's ad-hoc at the moment. debconf-doc seems like the correct package in which to put a registry. Works for me. Of course, the debconf maintainer should weigh in on the idea of adding to his package. - David Nusinow
Re: Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
On Sat, 31 May 2003 02:16:50 +0100, Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED] said: On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 03:56:13PM -0700, David Nusinow wrote: A few people were discussing the need for sharing of debconf templates on #debian-devel on freenode the other day/night. The example that came up at the time was for newsreaders, and how 10 different newsreaders shouldn't all ask the same quesions (what is your news server, etc.). Uh, I'm not sure this is a good example. Hasn't shared/news/server existed for years? Both the newsreaders I maintain use it and have done so since at least May 2000 and December 2001 respectively. That template name was already well-established then. The actual example on IRC was for /etc/news/organization. I have not found a shared template for that; I have a hard time finding any auhtoritative sources that could tell me that the template does not exist -- or if it does.. I agree that better use of the shared namespace would be an improvement: I'd suggest /etc/mailname management as an example of something that's ad-hoc at the moment. debconf-doc seems like the correct package in which to put a registry. manoj -- Youth of today! Join me in a mass rally for traditional mental attitudes! Manoj Srivastava [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://www.debian.org/%7Esrivasta/ 1024R/C7261095 print CB D9 F4 12 68 07 E4 05 CC 2D 27 12 1D F5 E8 6E 1024D/BF24424C print 4966 F272 D093 B493 410B 924B 21BA DABB BF24 424C
Re: Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 09:33:12PM -0700, David Nusinow wrote: On Sat, May 31, 2003 at 02:16:50AM +0100, Colin Watson wrote: Uh, I'm not sure this is a good example. Hasn't shared/news/server existed for years? Both the newsreaders I maintain use it and have done so since at least May 2000 and December 2001 respectively. That template name was already well-established then. Well, we had trouble finding any sort of established question. It wasn't documented anywhere for us to find, as far as I know. Maybe buried in a mailing list post or two somewhere. It's in the debconf tutorial. Cheers, -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
Package: general Severity: wishlist I'm not sure where to assign this, but ... there are too many packages in Debian that ask for your location or variants thereof, all in an uncoordinated fashion. To whit: time zone latitude/longitude (wmmoonclock, wmsun, various mapping programs) nearest ICAO station (wmweather) paper size a4 vs letter (papersize library, and a couple stragglers) language (locale, and a couple stragglers) country (something must request this I'll bet) altitude (again I bet something uses this) Right now, this stuff is easy to get inconsistent, and each one requires effort to figure out. Some of them are even tricky to change, or even to remember. It would be nice if these would *ALL* assume default values given just one, on both a global system-wide basis and over-ridable on a per-user and per-session basis. In other words, when I move my laptop I should be able to put in the new lat/long and, assuming everything else is set up to default, all these other things should be filled in with their most probably values. Eg the nearest ICAO station, the most popular language in the location I'm in, the size of paper they use there, etc. Similarly, if I fill in just a country and it is a small country, and I haven't filled in lat/long or anything else, everything should snap to reasonable values. If that's not enough to figure out eg the time zone, at least the timezone menu should start with a list of timezones in that country. If I fill in a lat/long outside that country, it should give me a warning. If I fill in a city it should take the lat/long in the center of that city. If some user fills in a different country city, blam everything should just work for that user. I think this could be accomplished with appropriate debconf stuff and a location-related-query executable that looks at global info, per-user files in their home directory, and environment variables. Or maybe a library, for easier retrofitting into little programs. With some modular architecture so one can add new location-related values which can be derived from lat/long/alt, and which therefore if filled in can also be used to constrain this and therefore other derivable values.
Re: Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 03:35:05PM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: Right now, this stuff is easy to get inconsistent, and each one requires effort to figure out. Some of them are even tricky to change, or even to remember. It would be nice if these would *ALL* assume default values given just one, on both a global system-wide basis and over-ridable on a per-user and per-session basis. In other words, when I move my laptop I should be able to put in the new lat/long and, assuming everything else is set up to default, all these other things should be filled in with their most probably values. Eg the nearest ICAO station, the most popular language in the location I'm in, the size of paper they use there, etc. Similarly, if I fill in just a country and it is a small country, and I haven't filled in lat/long or anything else, everything should snap to reasonable values. If that's not enough to figure out eg the time zone, at least the timezone menu should start with a list of timezones in that country. If I fill in a lat/long outside that country, it should give me a warning. If I fill in a city it should take the lat/long in the center of that city. If some user fills in a different country city, blam everything should just work for that user. I think this could be accomplished with appropriate debconf stuff and a location-related-query executable that looks at global info, per-user files in their home directory, and environment variables. Or maybe a library, for easier retrofitting into little programs. With some modular architecture so one can add new location-related values which can be derived from lat/long/alt, and which therefore if filled in can also be used to constrain this and therefore other derivable values. A few people were discussing the need for sharing of debconf templates on #debian-devel on freenode the other day/night. The example that came up at the time was for newsreaders, and how 10 different newsreaders shouldn't all ask the same quesions (what is your news server, etc.). There needs to be some standard questions in the shared namespace for all these programs to use and draw upon. What we cursorily came up with is that the various maintainers that need the template, in this case newsreader maintainers, would reach a consensus on -devel about a template, which would then be put in to the shared namespace. This would have to be documented somewhere central, for later reference. We all agreed that it should be on the web, but there was debate about whether or not a list should be included in one of the debconf packages, or perhaps some other package. I'd like to hear some comments on this whole idea. It'd help integrate Debian more tightly, and would provide even more incentive to totally standardize on debconf for certain tasks. It would be appropriate for this bug as well, allowing integration of location based data. - David Nusinow
Re: Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 03:56:13PM -0700, David Nusinow wrote: A few people were discussing the need for sharing of debconf templates on #debian-devel on freenode the other day/night. The example that came up at the time was for newsreaders, and how 10 different newsreaders shouldn't all ask the same quesions (what is your news server, etc.). Uh, I'm not sure this is a good example. Hasn't shared/news/server existed for years? Both the newsreaders I maintain use it and have done so since at least May 2000 and December 2001 respectively. That template name was already well-established then. There needs to be some standard questions in the shared namespace for all these programs to use and draw upon. What we cursorily came up with is that the various maintainers that need the template, in this case newsreader maintainers, would reach a consensus on -devel about a template, which would then be put in to the shared namespace. This would have to be documented somewhere central, for later reference. We all agreed that it should be on the web, but there was debate about whether or not a list should be included in one of the debconf packages, or perhaps some other package. I agree that better use of the shared namespace would be an improvement: I'd suggest /etc/mailname management as an example of something that's ad-hoc at the moment. debconf-doc seems like the correct package in which to put a registry. -- Colin Watson [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Bug#195481: fragmented location info: hassle for users especially mobile ones
On Fri, May 30, 2003 at 03:35:05PM -0600, Barak Pearlmutter wrote: In other words, when I move my laptop I should be able to put in the new lat/long and, assuming everything else is set up to default, all these other things should be filled in with their most probably values. Eg the nearest ICAO station, the most popular language in the location I'm in, the size of paper they use there, etc. Defaults should be reasonable, and not kick the user. While it is reasonable to assume the user will want weather forecasts for hir current location, a laptop that starts speaking Mongolian to me when I do a trip to Oulan-Bator certainly doesn't look user-friendly to me. -- Lionel pgpN04MLX9pw7.pgp Description: PGP signature
