[Bug 35316] "these windows do not support save current setup" message questionable

Martin Pool mbp at sourcefrog.net
Fri Mar 17 12:25:23 UTC 2006


Public bug report changed:
https://launchpad.net/malone/bugs/35316

Description changed to:
    To reproduce:

    1. Log in to a gnome session.
    2. Run e.g. rxvt
    3. Choose System/Log out
    4. Observe that gnome shows a window saying 'Warning: These windows do not support "save current setup" and will have to be restarted manually next time you log in'

    The message is factually correct and will (I presume) happen if you
    run any X applications old or primitive enough not to understand
    session manager messages.

    The value of displaying this message to typical users to me seems
    very questionable:

    - Most users will not be able to take any meaningful action on the
    dialog other than click OK.  They're generally not in a position to
    fix the application.  Telling them about it every single time they
    logout just just seems like an attempt to bully them into not using
    those apps.

    - Lack of automatic restart is the expected behaviour for old non-
    gnome applications.

    - If closing other applications takes some time the user may have
    stopped paying attention to the display by the time the window comes
    up.  e.g. they may have closed a laptop's lid.  This dialog prevents
    the machine from shutting down, which is highly unlikely to be
    desired by the user.  If it is not removed entirely, it should at
    least have a 30 or 60 second timeout before closing automatically.

    - The message refers to X11 implementation details that will not be
    meaningful to most users.

    - If the user realizes that they actually don't want to quit let
    they can't cancel the logout at this point, so the dialog is really
    just mocking them.  In fact it's non modal so they can click in
    other windows to close them, but this is not obvious.

    There is an argument that some users may have unsaved data in old
    applications and may forget to save it before quitting their
    session.  Many users will not be in that category - if they use such
    applications they will be accustomed to automatically saving before
    quitting.  In any case there is already a logout confirmation
    dialog.  if the goal of the dialog is to protect against this case
    then the emphasis of the message should be on unsaved data, not on
    the fact that they won't be restarted.

    I'd like instead a dialog something like this:

       Some running applications do not support GNOME session management
    and cannot be automatically saved.  Do you want to logout anyhow?

      You will be automatically logged out in 60...59... seconds.

      [ ] Don't show this mesage again.

      [Cancel] [Logout]

    The text is still a bit jargonish.  Ideally "logout" would be
    replaced with "reboot", "shutdown" as appropriate.




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