GDM Greeter

[Christopher L Tubbs II]

Matthias Clasen wrote:
> On Mon, 2008-04-28 at 16:27 -0400, Christopher L Tubbs II wrote:
> 
>>>> 2) I can't seem to configure my "face" image. Putting a ".face" graphic 
>>>> in my home directory doesn't work, nor does configuring image with 
>>>> System->Preferences->Personal->About Me.
>>> What permissions do you have on your home directory ? 
>> The default, created by system-config-users: drwx------
>> And, .face has: -rw-r--r--
>>
>> This might not be correct for use with gdm, but at the very least, 
>> configuring with "About Me" utility should just work by default by 
>> setting the right permissions or prompting if permissions are not correct?
> 
> Possibly. Although the 'bad surprise' factor is pretty big if some
> random capplet starts messing with your home direcory. It might be
> better to store the faces somewhere else.

I think storing faces elsewhere is a good idea...

Perhaps the simplest idea, though, is to have gnome-about-me ask the
user if they'd like to modify home directory permissions to show face on
desktop, so at least, there's no surprises.

>> 1. For one, it would be nice to disable faces. Sometimes it's okay, and 
>> sometimes it's just annoying.
>>
>> 2. It would also be nice to be able to choose how usernames are selected 
>> to appear in the list (even Windows can do this with TweakUI), whether 
>> by UID range (i.e. > 500 or whatever), or specified list. (A good 
>> configuration utility might have two columns, one column of available 
>> names and one column of selected names, with arrows between to add 
>> remove available names to/from selected names for listing).
> 
> The idea with the user list is to populate it dynamically with only the
> users which have logged in before. As a compromise for existing systems,
> we have made it show all local users, which is what brings your test
> users into the list. Maybe we need a way to mark users as
> don't-show-in-user-list.

The idea is good. In fact, showing all local users (UID>500) is a good
idea for a default list, but it definitely needs a way for an
administrator to configure the exception of UID's from the list. Perhaps
an /etc/greeter-users file with a slight modification to
system-config-users to have a checkbox to "show user in login screen"
(maybe a firstboot modification for users at install time also).
Alternatively, a system group named "greeter-users". Only members of
this group will show up in the list.

>> 3. The animation speed between clicking on username, and typing in 
>> password should be configurable (down to zero, so there is no delay). 
>> The login screen is for logging in, not for show, and the animation may 
>> be okay for some people, but most of us just want to login, and that 
>> means typing password immediately without waiting for animation.
> 
> Here's a trick:
> 
> cat "gtk-enable-animations=0" > /var/lib/gdm/.gtkrc-2.0
> 
> turns off the animation.

I assume you meant:
echo "gtk-enable-animations=0" >> /var/lib/gdm/.gtkrc-2.0

Thanks, that's good to know! (This might need to be documented somewhere
in release notes?) Of course, I'd still prefer a utility to configure
it, but for now, I'll do this. (It works btw).

>> 4. There should be an option to display or not display date/time, 
>> accessibility options, session options, and to configure the list of 
>> available sessions.
> 
> I don't think there is a big chance that we're going to add a ton of
> hide-or-show-this-or-that-ui-element knobs. One central idea with the
> simple greeter was to make it adapt instead of adding such knobs. 

Yeah, I figured as much. As an administrator, though, it's nice to have
such "knobs" available. Clicking a checkbox is a lot simpler than
replacing the greeter with a custom one, for most admins. I have a
feeling I'm not the only one who wouldn't mind such a simple feature in
future versions.

[snip]
> On the flip side, the new gdm should hopefully make it easier to write
> alternative greeters, so that we don't have to shoehorn every possible
> login scenario into a single greeter. One example to keep an eye on is 
> http://macslow.thepimp.net/?p=163

I agree that the greeter should be minimal and should not attempt to
address every possible scenario, but a few minimal tweaks are useful,
and are noticeably absent (particularly excepting usernames from the list).

>> 5. How about configuring the background or theme? with preview?
> 
> Yes, configuring the background will be possible, it just didn't happen
> in time for F9. I implemented this last weekend, actually.

Cool. As somebody else mentioned, the greeter didn't quite fit the F9
theme. Having this will be an improvement.

Rainman


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