Bug: Unusable key

[Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder]

On Saturday 07 February 2004 13.09, Johan Wevers wrote:
> David Shaw wrote:
> >The problem here is that given the code in that particular area of
> >GnuPG, changing the error string is easy, but giving more information
> >is complex and touches a good number of other places in the code.
> >That is not something I want to do unless there is a really good
> >reason.
>
> As developer I understand this. However, every time this topic comes
> up, the way to solve it is the same: check manually the key in question.
> Most people here know how to do this, but the ones who ask apparently
> don't. So why not change the error message in something like: "unusable
> key: probably all encryption-capable (sub)keys are expired or revoked".
> That doesn't require any change in other places in the code, and does
> give the user some usefull hints where to look.

I guess the real problem here is (once again) the lack of a good GUI for key 
administration. kgpg and gpa are ok *if* you know what PGP is about - but for 
the masses, key management should not be in an application of its own, but 
should be tightly integrated with the groupware/addressbook/pim application 
of your choice.

In absence of such a (G)UI, I'd vote for more verbose error messages, through.

> BTW, something entirely different (hacking my outgoing mailspool again
> manually): woudln't it be a good idea to set the default reply-to to
> the mailinglist instead of to the sender?

Use a decent mailer which does the Right Thing (tm) when answering a message 
with List-Id header? (Isn't elm scriptable?)

cheers
-- vbi


-- 
Don't document the program; program the document.
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