Bug: Unusable key

[Adrian 'Dagurashibanipal' von Bidder]

Since you cc:ed the list, I assume you didn't encrypt on purpose :^)

On Saturday 07 February 2004 20.37, Per Tunedal Casual wrote:
> Answer belov:
> At 20:00 2004-02-07, you wrote:
>
>  >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.
> 
> I agree. My problem was tofold:
> 1) The error message was not helpful: Please make it a bit more
> explaining!
 2) The GUI:s wasn't easy to use for exploring the key. I tried
> "Key properties" in WinPT and didn't find anything of interest. (Later I
> found out that if I had tried "Edit key" I would have got information about
> my subkeys. Not a very logical way - I will send a copy of this message to
> that team!)
> 
> And further: When I tried the commandline GPG I only remembered the command
> 
 "list-keys" and it didn't help. I didn't find anything useful when trying
> the command "help" either. (Later I remembered I could have used the -v
> switch before "list-keys".)
>
>  >
>  >
>  >cheers
>  >-- vbi
>
> 
> Per Tunedal
> 
>
>
> _______________________________________________
> Gnupg-users mailing list
> Gnupg-users at gnupg.org
> http://lists.gnupg.org/mailman/listinfo/gnupg-users

-- 
featured product: vim - http://vim.org
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 331 bytes
Desc: signature
Url : /pipermail/attachments/20040208/8e53ca90/attachment.bin