AutomatedProblemReportsNotification

Summary

This spec describes giving visual feedback when AutomatedProblemReports are triggered and non-sensitive data about crashes is being automatically sent.

Rationale

As per AutomatedProblemReports, "Depending on the environment, we can potentially provide different crash handler frontends. As a first small implementation for Gnome, a daemon in the desktop will watch /var/crash/ with inotify; if it detects a crash report it can read, it creates a notification which points to the file and asks to file a bug."

AutomatedProblemReports does not go into specific detail on the crash handler front-ends. This spec attempts to.

Use cases

  • Rhythmbox spontaneously crashes, and crashes are not being automatically reported; a "crash icon" appears in the Notification Area, and a balloon pop-up points at the icon to draw the user's attention.
  • Alice is automatically reporting problems; we do not need to go into "panic mode" and throw a dialog in her face every time a crash occurs.
  • Bob experiences a Firefox crash, and clicks the "crash icon" in his Notification Area to review the security sensitive parts of the report and send them after he's sure they do not contain passwords.

Scope

The scope of this spec includes all things reported by AutomatedProblemReports.

Design

A tool similar to update-notifier should exist to give visual feedback of AutomatedProblemReports through the notification area. This tool should display different icons depending on the current situation, for example:

  • No icon when nothing is waiting.

  • Information icon when new crashes have been sent but extra information (stack dumps) needs review.

  • A crash icon for when a crash was detected

    • Should look rather harmless, perhaps a spiky ball
    • If automatic reports aren't being sent, we may want to pulse this every few seconds as opposed to entering "panic mode" and slapping the user with a dialog box

  • Add a communication indicator when a report is being sent (automatically or user-triggered)

    • Should overlay crash icon

Implementation

We will need icons to display.

We will need this code either written from scratch or added to whatever user interface is created for AutomatedProblemReports.

Code

Code will be needed in the areas described in Implementation.

We will need AutomaticProblemReports working first.

Data preservation and migration

No issues exist.

Unresolved issues

Kernel Oopses and failed package installation needs to be addressed.

BoF agenda and discussion

Comments

CategorySpec

AutomatedProblemReportsNotification (last edited 2008-08-06 16:39:16 by localhost)