[Design] [Cosmo] Reconciling various sharing URLs

[Mimi Yin]

There's been some confusion around how Hub users should access /  
generate ticket-URLs for sharing.

Currently there are 2 URLs end-users are exposed to. The first is  
well-known: the ticket-URL, which allows users to view collections in  
Chandler Hub and subscribe to collections with Chandler Desktop  
without an account.

The second is less-known. It's the URL with /mc/ in the middle of it.  
It's intended for Chandler Hub users with accounts and provides them  
with a way to bookmark collections and/or subscribe to collections  
with Chandler Desktop that requires authentication. In other words,  
it's more secure *and* Chandler Hub can tell *who* is editing items  
when subscribers edit collections from Chandler Hub. By contrast,  
when Chandler Desktop subscribers who don't have Chandler Hub  
accounts subscribe to shares with ticket-URLs, the server can't  
identify them when they make edits.

The distinction makes a lot of sense...once you understand how it all  
works. But I think it can be confusing to navigate the different URLs  
and the different ways to subscribe and share without that context.

Why are there all these different ways to subscribe to the same  
collection?

The 'ticket' versus 'mc' URL expose something to the user that the  
web and desktop clients should probably handle *for* the user.

What if instead of presenting users with 2 different kinds of URLs,  
we're simply 'smarter' about the way we handle the ticket-URL.

If you access a collection you've already added to your Chandler Hub  
account and you're logged in, we should directly re-route you to the  
'from your account' view of the collection.

This is already logged as: http://bugzilla.osafoundation.org/ 
show_bug.cgi?id=10776

We're currently 'sort of doing this' on the Desktop. If you've filled  
out a Chandler Hub account, even if you subscribe to a collection  
with a ticket-URL, the server is able to identify you (if not your  
specific Hub account) when you make edits because the client sends  
your account information along with your edits. This doesn't always  
work though because the client simply sends account information from  
the first email account in the accounts dialog and you may not have  
any email accounts. We could do a better job of matching up shared  
collections with their corresponding sharing accounts.

(The ultimate solution for the Desktop is to automatically sync up  
Chandler Desktop and Chandler Hub as soon as users enter their Hub  
account info into Chandler Desktop. Forcing Chandler users to  
subscribe 2x, once in Chandler Hub and a second time in Chandler  
Desktop is really a hack from a workflow perspective. But I will  
reserve that for a different proposal/thread.)

The gist of it is: Can we shift the burden of understanding the  
difference between the ticket and /mc/ URLs from the user to the web  
and desktop clients? If we can pull that off, then we can have a  
single interface for providing URLs. In other words, the URL the Hub  
account holder uses to subscribe with Chandler Desktop should be the  
same URL they pass to friends and colleagues to subscribe.

Mimi
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