[Design] [Cosmo] Login-related workflows update

[Mimi Yin]

Hi Ted,

Thanks for the explanation, see more in-line

On Nov 17, 2006, at 11:00 AM, Ted Leung wrote:

>> In proposal 4: the user comes to osaf.us and there are links they  
>> can click on to go to separate log in pages, 1 for admin and 1 for  
>> browsing the home directory.
>
> This makes the initial login experience much more complicated.

I think this is a case where complexity is in the eye of the beholder :)

>> This way, admins and people using Cosmo for filesharing don't have  
>> to tangle with the end-user Casual Collaborator UI to get where  
>> they want to go.
>
> It seems like achieving this separation is the primary goal  
> here.    But I'm not sure that this is desirable.
>
> For admins: in most web applications that I've used where I had  
> administrator privileges, you accessed that via a link which only  
> appeared if you had admin privileges.   You logged into the  
> application like any other user and then you clicked that admin  
> link to get to the administrator function.
>
> For filesharers:  If I was going to file share using Cosmo, most of  
> the time I would just  be mounting a Cosmo collection directly via  
> the WebDAV functionality of my desktop OS.   If I needed the home  
> collection browser, I would be fine logging into Cosmo and clicking  
> a link (even if it were some what hard to get to).

ic. So let me repeat what you're saying to make sure I understand it.
+ Cosmo file sharers won't be using the homedir browser very much, so  
it's okay if their experience isn't the most streamlined in the world
+ Similarly admin's also won't mind needing to go through the end- 
user UI to get to the admin UI

> Also there's another use case for the home collection browser -- it  
> is a valuable tool for us to help debug problems that end users are  
> having, so I think that Casual Collaborators will also have a need  
> (not that often I hope) to access the home collection browser.

I imagine that if we have a user who is helping us debug, we would be  
in contact with them? and could point them to a url?