Closed Bug 77007 Opened 24 years ago Closed 24 years ago

Certificate Manager should be a window, not a dialog

Categories

(Core Graveyard :: Security: UI, enhancement)

1.0 Branch
Other
Other
enhancement
Not set
normal

Tracking

(Not tracked)

VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 62903
Future

People

(Reporter: mpt, Assigned: bugz)

References

Details

Build: 2001041908, Mac OS 9.1 To reproduce: * Start Mozilla. * Open the Preferences dialog. * Choose the `Privacy' category. * Click `Manage Certificates...'. What you see: * A modal dialog with a row of tabs. * Buttons along the bottom. What you can't do: * View certificates of multiple kinds at once. * Exit the Preferences dialog and keep the Certificate Manager open while browsing. * Drag certificates to your file manager to perform a backup, or vice versa to restore them, or to the Recycle Bin or Trash to get rid of them. What you should see: * A (non-modal) window which looks similar to a folder window in Windows Explorer (but without the toolbar) or in the Mac OS Finder, in list view with `Name' and `Token' columns. * An (expandable) folder for each kind of certificate, containing the certificates in that category. * The same set of menus as are available in Navigator, though obviously with fewer available items. * No buttons along the bottom.
Blocks: 77006
Component -> PSM
Component: Security: Crypto → Client Library
Product: Browser → PSM
Target Milestone: --- → 2.0
Version: other → 2.0
I did consider a tree design for a while, but there were two main issues that made the tabs slightly more appropriate. First, when I talk to customers about their needs, they don't include scenarios where users need to view their personal cert and, say, a CA cert at the same time. They do, however, talk about tasks perfomed by a novice user on the phone with the IS Help Desk. In these cases, they like the idea of getting the user to focus on a small number of certs (usually their own) to work out the problem. Putting all the certs into one big tree creates a slightly higher chance that the user will get himself confused. Having led a PKI deployment and answered *many* user questions, I know that if there's any chance users will get confused, they will. :-) Second, there may be slightly different columns in each tab depending on the type of cert being presented. For example, the "email" column may be appropriate when displaying end-user certs, but not when displaying CA certs. I suppose we could put all the columns in there an have a "N/A" for the ones that don't make sense, but then we'd run into width problems. If you'd like to work on a XUL mockup that can take these points into account, I'd consider it for inclusion in the next major rev. I can shop it around shops that have deployed certs (in addition to the feed back from other people around mozilla). You may want to wait for the next landing (or two) of CM work in order to a better idea of where we're going.
Target Milestone: 2.0 → Future
You're right. The tree was a silly idea. I withdraw that. It's still very bad that the Certificate Manager looks like a window but behaves like a dialog, but that seems to be bug 62903.
I agree that this window should be non-modal. Should we also attempt to have only one of these windows open? That is, should attempts to open a new copy just focus() the existing one if present? Also, could you explain what you mean by "behaves like a dialog"? Do you mean that it's modal?
Re-assinging this to mcgreer.
Assignee: ddrinan → mcgreer
> That is, should attempts to open a new copy just focus() the existing one if > present? Yes. Just like the Bookmarks window, or the History window. It would make more sense, and it would avoid race conditions with editing the certificates. > Also, could you explain what you mean by "behaves like a dialog"? Do you > mean that it's modal? I mean that: * It's modal -- I can't access any other Mozilla windows, including the Preferences dialog, while I have the Certificate Manager open; * I can't access any of the menus while the Certificate Manager is open. (At the very least, the Apple menu, the `Edit' menu, and the `Help' menu should be available. And there's no real reason not to make the `File', `Bookmarks', and `Tasks' menus available too.)
Is the Cert Manager window only modal on the Mac? On Linux, it is not modal. I made it modal just to play with it, but by default it is not. Is there a general problem with Mozilla windows being modal by default on the Mac, not specific to Cert Manager?
Okay, it's also modal on windows, even though it shouldn't be, and I didn't set it that way. I'm going to assume that this is because of 62903 as mentioned before, since cert manager is a child of the prefs window.
Depends on: 62903
Fair enough. *** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 62903 ***
Status: NEW → RESOLVED
Closed: 24 years ago
No longer depends on: 62903
Resolution: --- → DUPLICATE
Verified dupe.
Status: RESOLVED → VERIFIED
Product: PSM → Core
Version: psm2.0 → 1.0 Branch
Product: Core → Core Graveyard
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