Re: Proposal for inclusion in desktop: gnome-screensaver

[Shaun McCance <shaunm gnome org>]

On Wed, 2005-10-26 at 13:03 -0400, William Jon McCann wrote:
> Hi Shaun,
> 
> Good comments.  I'll reply inline.
> 
> Shaun McCance wrote:
> > * Same wiki page:
> > 
> >     Use the gdm login screen for switching accounts, and tidy it up.
> > 
> > I've long held that XP got the interaction right.  There's just one
> > login screen.  Unlocking your screen is just logging back in again.
> > Switching users is just logging in.
[snip]
> I agree in part.  Unfortunately, it gets a bit complicated both 
> technically and politically.
[snip]

Yeah, I figured there would be lots of technical hurdles
to get past for this.  I just want to throw in my support
for this as a long-term goal.  For now, gnome-screensaver
is definitely a big improvement.

> > * As long as we have the model we have now, the user-switching
> > dialog needs love.  Right now, it displays a list of all the
> > users.  The list is tall enough to accommodate about 1.2 users.
> > I regularly use a machine that has hundreds of users.  That's
> > not a fun list to scroll through.
> 
> Most of the time if you have a face image showing on the other page then 
> you will be able to see more users at a time.
> 
> I am also in a system with hundreds of users so I understand.  You can 
> use gtktreeview type-ahead find to speed up your searches.  On my system 
> I can find my user name in two keypresses and one mouse click.  This is 
> much faster than typing my entire username.

Well, I don't know what factors play into all of this.  All
I know is that, on my system, I can see one user listed in
the list view.  It just needs to be taller.

> > * And on that note, there needs to be a way to disable the
> > face browser entirely.  In a lot of settings, sysadmins don't
> > want to show a list of all users to people who might not even
> > have accounts on the machines.
> 
> The user switching is off by default.  It must be enabled by setting the 
> GConf key /apps/gnome-screensaver/user_switch_enabled to TRUE.

Well, but that disables user switching entirely, right?
We need a way to have user switching, but still never show
a user listing.  Just a username/password thing to log in
as a new user.

> > * You've hidden quite a lot of options.  All well and good.
> > But we can't just hide things that people use, unless we've
> > really provided a better system.  Case in point, I actually
> > use the setting for when to lock the screen after it's blanked.
> > Removing that setting annoys me, unless you make it Just Work
> > so I don't need the setting anymore.
> 
> I've heard this complaint before.  I think there is another possibility 
> besides adding such an option.
> 
> http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=309142

I'm not proposing any options be added.  I'm proposing that
gnome-screensaver just always waits a few seconds before
locking the screen.  My proposal is pretty much the same
as comment #2 in that bug report.

--
Shaun