Re: [installer] One more template change?
Holger Wansing wrote:
> Furthermore, I have to advance this whole review a bit, since I noticed that
> I did not included all relevant terms. I'm sorry for this!
Another of the disadvantages of working from the message strings
rather than the template file.
>
> The complete dialog looks like this:
>
> ----snip----------------------------------------------------------------------
[...]
> ----snap-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Applying the already suggested changings, and adding some more changings
> to the other strings, that would lead to something like:
>
>
> ----snip-------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Change debconf priority
One of the old rules we tried to apply in debconf dialogue reviews
was that debconf should never refer to itself, since users have no
reason to care how the dialogues are being implemented. Here it does
at least help to convey the fact that this isn't setting the priority
of the *installer*. (Mind you, it isn't setting the priority of
debconf, either - it's setting the priority-cutoff for package
configuration dialogues.)
>
> Packages that use debconf for configuration prioritize the questions they
> might ask you. Only questions with a certain priority are
> actually shown to you; all less important questions are skipped.
Is "packages that use debconf for configuration" a fossil from the
days when some packages didn't? The Debian configuration management
interface specification is solidly enshrined in policy, so any
hypothetical alternative to debconf would have to be indistinguishable
from a user's point of view anyway (and might as well be referred to
as an implementation of debconf).
I'd suggest:
Change debconf priority
Debconf is the system used for handling any questions that packages might
ask during configuration. These questions are given priorities, and
debconf can be told to skip the ones below a given level of importance.
What I'd really like to do is get rid of the "debconf priority"
terminology entirely, but unfortunately that's used all over the place,
and if it they aren't introduced to it here, users are unlikley to be
able to guess what it means.
>
> Please select the questions you want to be shown by priority level:
> - 'critical': only show questions that are essential for a successful installation;
> - 'high': additionally to 'critical', show questions for which the default often
> needs to be changed;
By "additionally to 'critical'" here you mean "as an additive change to
the effect you'd get from selecting 'critical'"; I can't find a
phrasing that conveys this smoothly without breaking the back of the
series. The closer we can get to "a) only X; b) also Y; c) also Z"
the easier it is to follow.
> - 'medium': also show questions for which the default sometimes needs to be changed;
> - 'low': show all questions, even if the default only rarely needs to be changed.
^
By the way, we want just one space before the bullet.
> For example, this question is of 'medium' priority, so if you had chosen to see
> only questions of 'high' or 'critical' priority, it wouldn't be shown.
>
> Only show questions with priority level:
> critical
> high
> medium
> low
>
> ----snap---------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
> The most relevant change here is the last line before the choices.
> I would rephrase that from "Ignore questions ..." into the "Show questions ..."
> system we have in the other part, for consistency and easy understanding.
Unfortunately you end up with something that isn't true. Picking
"low" *doesn't* mean that debconf will only show questions with
priority level "low"! It means that debconf will show questions with
priority level "low" *or* anything higher - meaning *all* questions.
So it needs to keep the definition in terms of "less than".
(But thankyou for the further evidence that this whole thing is
horribly confusing!)
> And I thought about expanding the description part of the levels a bit, to
> hightlight how the concept works. Means to use this for 'high':
> (that's important to get rid of the "<priority> and higher" or "less than
> <priority>" parts)
>
> - "high": additionally to 'critical', show questions for which the default often
> needs to be changed;
(I've answered this above, but if anyone can find a middle way I'd
like to see it.)
--
JBR with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package
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