[Design] Re: [Proposal] Accounts dialog rework and workflows for Preview

[Mimi Yin]

See in-line

On Jan 10, 2007, at 3:40 PM, Brian Kirsch wrote:

> Hi Mimi,
> Overall this looks like a good solution however, I do see a couple  
> of issues.
>
> First moving the testing of accounts to when the user hits the OK  
> button is problematic as we
> discussed yesterday since multiple accounts may have been added.  
> This would mean if I created
> two IMAP accounts and one SMTP Account all three would need to be  
> tested when the user hits OK.
> This is complicated from both a developer standpoint (I would need  
> to store and resolve the errors for
> each of the accounts) and the users standpoint (multiple account  
> errors to resolve vs.  fixing one account).
> In my opinion, we would be better served by limiting the testing to  
> one account at a time.

Oh, I think the addition of the DONE button upon successfully  
entering and testing the account takes care of this issue. Okay only  
tests for the currently selected account. Click DONE after everything  
checks out is what closes the dialog.


> Also, even if the test failed the user should be able to hit OK and  
> keep the current settings. Perhaps, the server was down or the user  
> lost the internet connection. Theses are temporary situations that  
> the user knows will be
> resolved. We should not inhibit the ability to save the settings.

Ack. Good point. This almost pushed over to the dark side and made me  
want to just cut the Auto-configure feature altogether. But after a  
little bit more nudging in photoshop, I think I have a layout that  
will work with separate 'Auto-configure', 'Test', and 'Okay' buttons.  
See mock-ups and description at: http://wiki.osafoundation.org/bin/ 
view/Journal/AccountSetupWorkflow

> The other issue I see is with outgoing accounts. Right now with  
> this model we are removing the ability to assign
> a specific outgoing account to an incoming account since the drop  
> down is going away. This is fine but what
> happens if some one creates more than one outgoing account. In this  
> design there really is only one outgoing
> account which would apply to all incoming accounts. So if you agree  
> we should allow only the modification of the
> default outgoing account in the Account Preferences UI.

Discussed this with bkirsch. What does it mean in Preview to assign  
an SMTP account to an Incoming mail account?

+ It would allow us to automatically configure the 'Send as' field on  
Reply emails.
Could we simulate the above experience by having users associate an  
email address with each SMTP account?

>
> Regarding error / progress messages in the bottom half of the  
> dialog they would mimic the current testing dialog
> i.e. progress bar, verbiage. In the case of IMAP folder creation  
> the verbiage would be "Configuring Chandler IMAP Folders'.
> The error message would be "Unable to set up Chandler IMAP Folders:  
> $REASON". The $REASON would be the
> error response from the IMAP server.

bkirsch and I discussed that implementing a pop-up for progress and  
error messages would be easier for Preview.

>
> -Brian