GPA `improvements'

[Miguel Coca]

--dDRMvlgZJXvWKvBx
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii
Content-Disposition: inline
Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable

On Sat, Nov 09, 2002 at 07:19:02 -0500, Francis J. A. Pinteric wrote:
> Hi List,

Hi,

> I've been using GPA for a while and as a tool to peruse keyrings it's
> great. However as a tool to do real maintenance, it needs vast
> improvement.

Agreed.

> Towards this end I've taken it upon myself to make some incremental
> improvements to the code in that direction.

Any help would be welcome!

However, if you want to help in GPA, you should check out the CVS version
and work from there (see http://www.gnupg.org/gpa.html for instructions on
how to get it).

I'm working on what will be version 0.6, and it's a major rewrite of large
parts of the program. The GPAPA library has been completely replaced by
GPGME, which is the standard way to call GnuPG from other programs.

A few features are not yet ready in GPGME, so they are not available in
current CVS, but I don't intend to make a release until they are. See:

        http://lists.gnupg.org/pipermail/gpa-dev/2002-October/000877.html

for my latest status report.

Also, we have moved to use GTK+ 2.0 instead of 1.2.

> Question: where do I send my patches to? I've looked for information on
> this in the documentation no no avail.=20

I think that'd be me :-)

> A quick summary of what I've done and where I'm moving the code. First,
> all changes to the code has been against the 0.4.3 version which I remamed
> 0.4.3a. So far, I've only made some cosmetic changes.=20
>=20
> 1. Altered the `Details' notebook to display alternate UIDs as well as a
> few cosmetic details (TODO - add similar to display alternate keys).

Already done in CVS, not only in "Details", but also in all other places
where the UID is displayed.

> 2. Enhanced the behaviour of the Signatures notebook so as to allow user
> to select a signature and cause it's key to be inserted into the KeyID
> field of the Import keys dialog. In this way, if the user wishes to
> download that key from a keyserver he doesn't have to mnually type in the
> KeyID.=20

I would like to have something like that, but until key signatures are
implemented in GPGME, we can't be sure whether your patch will help. What
kind of user interface did you provide? I'd like to do it with a right click
menu.

> There are a few more cleanups that I want to do as well. For instance, the
> "Key Type" field should really display key type and not simply whether the
> secret key is available or not.

As well as key size? Good idea, but it might lead to information overload on
the user's part :-) That could be done with GPGME right now.

> As well, the "Key Trust" field doesn't flag expired keys as being expired,
> but only as "Don't trust." Neither trust values are reported correctly in
> the case of an ultimately trusted key (Owner trust is reported as unknown,
> and key trust is reported as trust fully).

That's fixed now too. However, bear in mind that GPA is geared towards the
new user, and we should keep the amount of information displayed down to the
essentials.

So, for example, for key validity we don't make a distinction between
"ultimate" and "full" trust, and there is no "marginal" level. Keys are
either valid, unknown, or revoked/expired (i.e. not valid, but we tell the
user why).

Owner trust keeps all the options however, because I think they are
different enough.

> As well, the editor dialog isn't really useful at all, but I have a few
> ideas about that as well. I think where I'm going with it will make it
> more useful.=20

You mean the "edit key" dialog? What ideas do you have for that?=20

I also have plans for it. I will move the "change ownertrust" out of it as
soon as I find the right place for it (question for the list: is there
someone we can go to for new toolbar icons? any ideas for a "change owner
trust icon"? I'm really lousy at drawing).

Then, that dialog would be used to manage your own keys (in much the same
way gpg --edit-key does).

> In any case, I'd like to submit what little I've done so far for some feed
> back.

Sure. You can send it to me as it is, and I'll take a look at it, or you can
try to make it work with CVS and send it then, which will probably help
reduce duplicated effort :-)

> If you don't like it, well that's too bad, I find it useful and I'm
> going to continue. :-)=20

I hope you do!

Regards,
--=20
Miguel Coca                                         e970095@zipi.fi.upm.es
PGP Key 0x27FC3CA8                         http://zipi.fi.upm.es/~e970095/

--dDRMvlgZJXvWKvBx
Content-Type: application/pgp-signature
Content-Disposition: inline

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE-----
Version: GnuPG v1.2.1 (GNU/Linux)

iD8DBQE9zQxVjE3Htif8PKgRAn3nAJ49qrB1Ild6BXzkXvcRVRoRSL6SiACghJO+
799Biesr2WcJFFWhIb20xTQ=
=rdWO
-----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

--dDRMvlgZJXvWKvBx--