UI terminology for calculated validities

Nicolai Josuttis nico at josuttis.de
Sat Apr 26 10:17:21 CEST 2014


Being off for some days and after reading all these emails
(very happy that there is progress!),
some thoughts:

First of all, MFPA raised:
> "Valid" in this context means that my copy of GnuPG will accept it
> as an encryption key.
For some reason, this for the first time gave "valid" a useful
intuitive meaning for me, saying something like
 "good enough for GPG to send encrypted emails"
So I wonder whether some confusion can be avoided by
saying:
 The key is valid for encryption
instead of just saying
 The key is valid
But still we'd have to distinguish between
 marginally valid for encryption
 fully/complete valid for encryption
 ultimate valid for encryption

Among all the alternatives suggested,
"authenticated" seemed to count most compelling.
This term is close to trust but different, so it goes
into my original direction (and is probably even better).
So, we could use "authenticated" or "authenticity"
in (G)UI's, while using the technical term
"valid" in details such as tooltips.

So, let's phrase some sentences with it for UI's:

Column: "Key authentication" (instead of "Key Validity")
 would have the following values:
  ultimate, full, marginal
 hmmm, what shall we use for "not valid" ('n')?

Regarding option --trust-level always:
Either:
> Accepted keys to send encrypted: - All keys authenticated according
> to the web of trust - All except disabled/expired/revoked keys
or:
> For a given e-mail address, encrypt messages to: * all keys
> authenticated for that e-mail address * all usable keys that claim
> to belong to that e-mail address
("valid" instead of "usable" or skipping "usable at all).

> Option "automatically send encrypted"
a) "never (except according to recipient rules)"
b) "if we have authenticated keys for all email addresses"
    with tooltip
    "auto send encrypted if all keys for all email addresses
     are technically valid"

Does it sound useful/intuitive?
I will probably provide a new test version of enigmail
with the option "auto send encrypted",
where I can use this new wording for test purposes.

-- Nico

-- 
Nicolai M. Josuttis
www.josuttis.de





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