View Issue Details
| ID | Project | Category | View Status | Date Submitted | Last Update |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0001353 | MMW v4 | Synchronization | public | 2004-05-12 16:33 | 2007-08-27 19:23 |
| Reporter | rusty | Assigned To | |||
| Priority | urgent | Severity | feature | Reproducibility | always |
| Status | closed | Resolution | fixed | ||
| Fixed in Version | 3.0 | ||||
| Summary | 0001353: Portable device: Terminology needs cleanup (see last comment) | ||||
| Description | The end user requirements that must be met are fairly simple: -Ability to configure multiple general devices And to do this without compromising: -Ability to choose which of multiple (including General) devices to synch or configure via the main panel -Clear communications for configuration/synchronization about which _device_ is being used/configured -Automatic configuration of devices Implementaion details: The problem domain is similar to that of a network adapter. The user may install 1 or 2 physical network adapters plus multiple virtual network adapters. The user expects that when the adapter is installed, appropriate drivers are automatically located and that the system works at some minimal level of functionality. Furthermore, the user also expects that more in-depth configuration of the Adapter drivers will yield (improved) connectivity. What they do not expect is that they must look up a list of drivers, e.g. 'Generic NDIS driver' and map it to the card(s). So where does this leave us? 1) 'Available Device Plugins' should be changed to 'Devices' -The panel should list any devices that have been automatically been detected because plugins exist and any General devices that the user has manually configured e.g. 'General Device (Rusty's Frontier Labs Z32)' -To manually configure devices, there should be 'Add Device'/'Remove Device' buttons -The configure device should work pretty much as it does today -If the user plugs in a device and it isn't detected, then it should be obvious to the user that they can a) Add it as a General Device b) search the Device Plugins page and download an appropriate plugin after which pluggin in the device will result in it being detected and added 2) The synchronize button in the main panel should be modified slightly so that it contains a list of configure devices with a manually settable checkbox next to the currently active device. The checked device indicates which device configuration is modified when the user chooses configure and which device is synchronized when the user clicks 'synch'. Note: if only one device is plugged in, then the checkbox appears next to the plugged-in device. 2) Change 'Available Device Plugins' to 'Devices' | ||||
| Tags | No tags attached. | ||||
| Fixed in build | 1066 | ||||
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Comments from Jiri - Originally I agreed with "'Available Device Plugins' should be changed to 'Devices'", but now I'm not that sure. Problem is that device plug-in is supposed to be used for some set of devices, e.g. 'iRiver H series'. However, when user insert the device, it has more specific name, e.g. 'iRiver H300 series'. After the suggested change we would user term 'Device' for both of them which could be quite confusing. So I would say that the current terminology isn't bad. - Re. support for adding/deleting devices - as we already discussed over IM it's something I wouldn't like to do for several reasons. I think that the most important point is that the current functionality works great for our OEM partners, other things can be solved anytime later. Reply from Rusty: -Re. the fact that the 'Device' would change from 'iRiver H Series' to 'iRiver H Series (Rusty's H-320)', in the suggested implementation this would not occur since _drivers/plugins would never be listed_. i.e. just as available network drivers are not listed in Windows--they are automatically chosen, so a driver would be automatically associated to a Portable device--however, the _device_ would be listed rather than the driver. For example: -User want to synch MM with new iRiver device -User connects iRiver H120 device --> MM automatically adds a device for the H120 (using the iRiver plugin) OR for a generic device: -User wants to synch MM with brand 'X' device -User clicks 'Add Device' --> General Device entry appears as General Device (<Device Name>) -Regarding the OEM issue, I tried to make this proposal so that it would not compromise the user/OEM experience--i.e. it would be as automated as the current implementation. Jiri's response: There are some technical problems related to this. In the current state the plug-ins are responsible for recognizing which device is connected because of the USB ID. However, in the proposed case probably drive serial numbers would have to be used to recognize individual devices. This wouldn't work for non-mass storage devices, could cause problems for devices without SN assigned while formatting and mainly after re-formatting drive (e.g. an internal command of H320) the SN would change which would confuse MM a lot. So given complexity of the issue, related problems and it's usefulness for only small group of people (because unique plug-in will solve it for almost all usage cases) I wouldn't do anything about it now. |
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Based on the fact that most device configuration will occur via the Device Configuration Wizard, we can fix this very simply as follows: 'Available Device Plug-ins' --> 'Available Devices / Plug-ins' 'File' --> 'Plug-in File' |
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Fixed in build 1066. |
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Verified 1066. |
