CANCEL as default on options change

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James Lee

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Message 86771 - Posted: 30 Jun 2018, 7:40:59 UTC
Last modified: 30 Jun 2018, 7:42:55 UTC

Who made the change for the default to be "cancel" on the options page instead of "save"? When you are running many (15, here) machines and have to go into TeamViewer many times a day to adjust options, it is a REAL pain to have to go down to the save button, instead of just hitting return. Can you fix this problem? Soon?
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 86773 - Posted: 30 Jun 2018, 9:05:23 UTC - in response to Message 86771.  

It was actually a conscious, deliberate, change: the previous design caused problems for arguably more people than the new one.

You can set your computing preferences for BOINC in two different ways: either via the web sites of the projects you're attached to, or via the preferences dialog in BOINC Manager. When you first install BOINC, it will be using the values from a web site.

If you simply look at the current values using the Manager dialog - even without changing anything at all - and then exit via 'OK' (it wasn't even 'save'), you switch to controlling BOINC locally, and stop paying any attention to subsequent website changes. It isn't obvious that this change has happened (although the words are there on the screen), and people less experienced than you pop up on message boards wondering why their website preferences aren't working. The problem is compounded by well-meaning message board helpers who answer questions about preferences by reference to the Manager only (because that's their preferred method) without mentioning the by-product of needing to switch permanently to local control.

As it happens, I also change the preferences on three machines up to six times a day each (three pairs of 'change and change back'), but I got used to the new layout during testing and I don't find it a problem. My 'use case' is to balance two projects, one of which requires fast turnround and hence short caches, the other of which suffers lengthy outages and works better with long caches. If the cache length could be set per project.....

I'd be interested to hear why you feel the need to change your machine settings so often: if we could start a dialogue, we might be able to propose a change which addresses the needs of both new and experienced users.
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 86776 - Posted: 30 Jun 2018, 11:19:20 UTC

OK, having let that marinade for a couple of hours, how about this suggestion?

If the user is currently using website preferences, the 'cancel' button is the default.

If the user is already using local preferences, the 'save' button is the default.

If a website user actively clicks their non-default save button, a confirmation message box asks them if they really want to switch mode, as suggested in the original #601. Existing local preference users wouldn't see the confirmation.
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Gary Roberts

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Message 86798 - Posted: 1 Jul 2018, 0:12:39 UTC - in response to Message 86773.  

... The problem is compounded by well-meaning message board helpers who answer questions about preferences by reference to the Manager only (because that's their preferred method) without mentioning the by-product of needing to switch permanently to local control.

Guilty as charged, m'lud :-). In my defense, it's such a long time since I've even thought about website prefs that I'd pretty much forgotten that clicking 'OK' made the change to local prefs for someone not already on local prefs. However, the warning box at the top with the red&yellow triangle and black exclamation mark is quite visible, although I think the message that came with V7.2.42 is clearer than that on V7.6.33. My Linux distro doesn't package BOINC so I have to build it myself. Most of my hosts use 7.2.42 with about a dozen using 7.6.33. I have built 7.9.2 but not deployed it as I'll now build 7.10.x at some point before doing so. I don't know what the warning looks like for anything after 7.6.33.

I'm not saying it's too bad if the user doesn't read and comprehend the warning. I do understand how easy it is to overlook static (any fairly cryptic) warnings so the issue is real and I think you have come up with the perfect solution. A confirmation message box warning of the impending change from website to local prefs sounds perfect, particularly if the consequences (website prefs will be ignored in future if you proceed) are spelt out very clearly.
Cheers,
Gary.
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James Lee

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Message 86801 - Posted: 1 Jul 2018, 6:50:35 UTC - in response to Message 86773.  
Last modified: 1 Jul 2018, 6:55:18 UTC

Richard,
Thanks for your quick reply. Actually, it is a heat/AC problem, and as the weather/temp changes throughout the day/night, I have to keep changing percentage of CPUs used. Yes, I could set everything to run at 25 percent and never have a problem, but these are high performance machines that I built just to run BOINC (my hobby - since I started in computing March 12, 1973 on an IBM mainframe AND I ran QC in the mid '80s for ICC, the company that brought out the merger software for mainframe-to micro or micro-to mainframe - depending on point of view) so, not much gets by me. It is just a pain, when having to control everything through TeamVeiwer, and a slow network, so EVERY keystroke or move of the mouse is cumbersome.

So, my main problem I have - running 15 machines in 8' by 15' is heat.. Heat is a MAJOR problem, with AC that cannot keep up (especially these last two weeks of temps close to 100) and I try to squeeze as much out of each machine so as to give more to the projects I run (BTW, Sounds like you run Asteroids as well.. lol). The limited space is not just a heat problem, but a necessity of not having keyboards, mice, or monitors on every machine - unless I took out my TV, bed, door, etc.. (and my puppy?)

If all else fails, I can just go back to an earlier BOINC release without these annoying "improvements". :)

Thanks again,

James
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 86813 - Posted: 1 Jul 2018, 18:19:01 UTC

God, how I hate that bastard offspring of a programming language they call C++, but I think I'm nearly there.

I prefer more verbose confirmations:


But BOINC developers prefer short, terse, ones:


Apart from the deliberate mistake (now fixed - only saw it when I previewed here), what do you think?
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James Lee

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Message 86820 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 0:41:35 UTC
Last modified: 2 Jul 2018, 0:44:50 UTC

I like it! :)
Thanks

Just catch the "you" and turn it into "your" so you are grammatically correct... lol
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Gary Roberts

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Message 86825 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 9:36:58 UTC - in response to Message 86813.  

... I prefer more verbose confirmations:

It could hardly be described as verbose and at least it makes it clear that it is 'from now on'. In fact, I'd be tempted to put that in bold.
I'd also be tempted to expand the next bit to "... your web-based preferences, even if you subsequently make changes there."

People reading the terse message might think, "That's OK because if I make a change on the website it will
be 'newer' so it's bound to override these local ones."

So I think the more details of the consequences of proceeding, the better. People just don't understand terse cryptic messages.
Cheers,
Gary.
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 86826 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 11:27:50 UTC - in response to Message 86825.  

Thanks Gary. I hate C++ even more after this morning's session - why can't you access a variable between modules, only functions? - but I've eliminated an annoying delay and - TaDa - I think it works.


Now all I have to do is hope I've reverted all the botched attempts that failed and make a clean copy of the ones which didn't. I may be some time...

PS Message boxes are very boring things in GUIs - no fun emphasis allowed - and wxGetApp().SafeMessageBox() seems to be even more boring than most.
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Profile Jord
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Message 86827 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 11:49:59 UTC - in response to Message 86826.  

Two points of trouble.

1. People don't read the blurbs, no matter what their length. Although longer blurbs will definitely be just clicked on, as they don't hold the user's attention span. We have plenty of people who still complain about their GPU 'all of a sudden' not being found after a BOINC installation, because they've installed the upgrade as a service. See how long the blurb is on that?

2. Translations. Translations can be even larger and thus more reason for the user to ignore what it says.

"This will set BOINC to use the settings on this page as your defaults from now on. BOINC will ignore your web-based preferences, even if you subsequently make changes there. Do you want to proceed? "
Translated in Dutch that will be
"Hiermee wordt BOINC voortaan ingesteld om de instellingen op deze pagina te gebruiken als standaardinstellingen. BOINC negeert uw webgebaseerde voorkeuren, zelfs als je daar vervolgens wijzigingen in aanbrengt. Wil je doorgaan?"

Might be me, but I don't feel the English in the first sentence flows as it should do.
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 86828 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 11:58:16 UTC - in response to Message 86827.  
Last modified: 2 Jul 2018, 12:10:34 UTC

Happy to accept improvements, but can we get our thinking caps on quickly, please?

I'm ready for a final test before commit and PR, and I'd like to push it up before the Americans start tinkering with the codebase again...

Edit - test successful, I must have found them all. I'll go out and enjoy the sunshine for an hour or two. Fortunately, changing the wording is the simplest possible update, and nothing can possibly go wrong, go wrong, go...
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Profile Jord
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Message 86830 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 12:36:42 UTC - in response to Message 86828.  

Happy to accept improvements, but can we get our thinking caps on quickly, please?
"Clicking Yes, BOINC will default to using the local preferences. It will ignore your web-based preferences, even if you make changes there. Do you want to proceed?"
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 86836 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 14:19:01 UTC

OK. Unfortunately my walk in the sun was replaced by an emergency call-out, but I'm back now. Of the two suggestions, I'm inclined to pick PDW's, but you've got about 10 minutes to convince me otherwise while I brew coffee and get back in the saddle.
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 86838 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 14:53:45 UTC

We're going to need to wait to v7.14 anyway, but I'd like to get it into the system. Last call...

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Profile Jord
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Message 86839 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 15:11:20 UTC - in response to Message 86838.  
Last modified: 2 Jul 2018, 15:16:28 UTC

It's not settings. It's preferences. It's local preferences, not local settings. You speak of web-based preferences, so why use settings for the local ones?

Edit: the present blurb at the top of the window says:
"Using local preferences. Click "Use web prefs" to use web-based preferences from {project-url}"
or
"Using web-based preferences from {project-url}. Set values and click Save to use local preferences instead."

So keep the same text all over.
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Richard Haselgrove
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Message 86840 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 15:15:59 UTC

Argh. Feel free to comment on #2585

Sorry about that.
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Gary Roberts

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Message 86841 - Posted: 2 Jul 2018, 22:17:13 UTC

Four points:

1. Thank you Richard for doing the grunt work.

2. Thank you also for including the "even if you subsequently make changes there."

3. I utterly reject the notion, "People don't read the blurbs ... longer blurbs will definitely be just clicked on ..." as any sort of valid excuse for not creating a blurb with sufficient detail to get a clear message across, at least to those who are prepared to read.

4. I preferred Jord's version of the message - with one 'single word' addition, and not just because he used 'preferences' rather than `settings'. I would have used, "By clicking Yes, ..." - simply because (at least to me) the "By" highlights the warning that follows and it just might encourage those who see just the first couple of words to keep going a bit further to see what the implied 'consequences' are all about.

Sorry about the lateness of this response - the drawbacks of living in the antipodes :-).
Cheers,
Gary.
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Message boards : Questions and problems : CANCEL as default on options change

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