Recent Chandler issues have produced situations where a user has needed
to "interact directly" with his/her repository:
- The repository is damaged and can't be opened
- The repository isn't damaged, but the last Chandler run died and left
it with broken UI structures, such that Chandler gets confused on
startup and crashes. (I think the problem Sheila just showed me falls
into this case, which is why I'm sending this now.)
- A corrupt repository needs to be sent to us.
- Additionally, it's sometimes useful to tell Chandler to --create a new
repository, but the user doesn't normally start Chandler from the
command line -- figuring out how to do this is an extra hurdle for the
user to solve in a situation where we've let him/her down.
I propose we add a mechanism to put up a dialog on startup if the user
is holding down a metakey (to be named later; we can figure one out that
works on all platforms and doesn't interfere with basic application
launching); this dialog would offer this radio-group of choices;
- Continue startup normally (the default, in case the metakey's
inadvertently down)
- Keep my data, but reset the UI information in my repository
- Discard my repository completely and start over
and optionally (a separate checkbox with two editfields)
- Send my repository to OSAF; here's my email address so OSAF can ask me
followup questions: [ ] and the number of the bug I filed about
this: [ ].
I proposed something like this a long time ago, and it generally got
boo'd down, I think because "we should just fix the bugs that leave the
repository in a bad state". I agree that we need to fix bugs like this,
but for a while yet we'll need a mechanism to help users affected by
these problems, other than "Just go find your profile directory and
delete it. Oh, you don't know what that is? Just start Chandler with the
--create option. Oh, you've never used a command line?"...)
...Bryan
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