[Chandler-dev] Proposal for a startup-options dialog

[John Anderson]

I'm like this proposal -- and don't remember booing in the past, but if 
I did, I probably should have cheered it.

John

Bryan Stearns wrote:
> Recent Chandler issues have produced situations where a user has 
> needed to "interact directly" with his/her repository:
> - The repository is damaged and can't be opened
> - The repository isn't damaged, but the last Chandler run died and 
> left it with broken UI structures, such that Chandler gets confused on 
> startup and crashes. (I think the problem Sheila just showed me falls 
> into this case, which is why I'm sending this now.)
> - A corrupt repository needs to be sent to us.
> - Additionally, it's sometimes useful to tell Chandler to --create a 
> new repository, but the user doesn't normally start Chandler from the 
> command line -- figuring out how to do this is an extra hurdle for the 
> user to solve in a situation where we've let him/her down.
>
> I propose we add a mechanism to put up a dialog on startup if the user 
> is holding down a metakey (to be named later; we can figure one out 
> that works on all platforms and doesn't interfere with basic 
> application launching); this dialog would offer this radio-group of 
> choices;
> - Continue startup normally (the default, in case the metakey's 
> inadvertently down)
> - Keep my data, but reset the UI information in my repository
> - Discard my repository completely and start over
>
> and optionally (a separate checkbox with two editfields)
> - Send my repository to OSAF; here's my email address so OSAF can ask 
> me followup questions: [       ] and the number of the bug I filed 
> about this: [       ].
>
> I proposed something like this a long time ago, and it generally got 
> boo'd down, I think because "we should just fix the bugs that leave 
> the repository in a bad state". I agree that we need to fix bugs like 
> this, but for a while yet we'll need a mechanism to help users 
> affected by these problems, other than "Just go find your profile 
> directory and delete it. Oh, you don't know what that is? Just start 
> Chandler with the --create option. Oh, you've never used a command 
> line?"...)
>
> ...Bryan
>
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