Re: GNOME Feature Proposal: Backup

[Allan Day <allanpday gmail com>]

Michael Terry wrote:
> Hi, Allan.  Thanks for your past and continuing help with design!  :)
> Answers below.
> 
> On 11 May 2011 11:33, Allan Day <allanpday gmail com> wrote:
> > This looks like an improvement on the UI that you presented the last
> > time you proposed Deja Dup. It could still be much better though. How
> > would you feel about paring it down to something more minimal? Ideally,
> > the UI should be limited to switching it and on/off, selecting the
> > backup storage location, and giving an idea of status (a little 'hey,
> > you're backups are fine!').
> 
> So specifically, you're talking about dropping:
>  * Encryption toggle
>  * Include/exclude
>  * How long to keep backups
>  * How often to back up
> 
> I'm happy to have a discussion about what to do for each.

That's great to hear. I'll follow that up with you.

> > One question: I know that you had a discussion on the usability list
> > about renaming Deja Dup. Would you be happy to remove the remaining
> > references to Deja Dup in the UI and just call it Backup?
> 
> The only remaining references are the one-time welcome screen and the
> help documentation.  I'm not fully wedded to those, though I'm
> hesitant to remove all instances.
> 
> I can think of a at least a couple reasons at least a one-time brand is useful:
>  * Some branding (even only once) is useful here to reassure user it
> will read the backup data they made elsewhere.
>  * The user can install it on non-GNOME and they need to know what app
> to search for.

Since the moduleset reorganisation, we make a distinction between GNOME
core and GNOME applications. If a module is part of the core it's
supposed to be an integrated part of the user experience (as you've said
you want to aim for - yay!), and it's supposed to use GNOME
infrastructure.

Looking at your proposal it seems that you are proposing Deja Dup for
inclusion in the GNOME core. You also seem to want it to be developed on
LP and for it to simultaneously exist as a standalone app, though. This
opens up some potentially tricky issues:

 * What do we do about the infrastructure question? Core modules are
supposed to be developed as a part of the wider project; that means that
they use GNOME's infrastructure.

 * Can you technically achieve the level of integration that we're after
if Deja Dup continues to exist as a standalone app? (This is a serious
question - I don't know the answer.)

 * Branding - a part of the core should be branded as a part of GNOME 3,
and I don't think we'd want GNOME's new backup facility to visibly exist
outside of GNOME.

Sorry for the potentially difficult questions!

Allan
-- 
Blog: https://afaikblog.wordpress.com/
IRC: aday on irc.gnome.org