485763 - Account creation/setup wizard should have sync type choices

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Cloud Services :: General, enhancement, P1)

Description

[Fritz]

User-Agent:       Mozilla/5.0 (Windows; U; Windows NT 5.1; en-US; rv:1.9.2a1pre) Gecko/20090328 Minefield/3.2a1pre, Ant.com Toolbar 1.2
Build Identifier: 

When you add a new computer to Weave the account creation/setup wizard performs an initial sync.  While this is sensible default behavior it makes it difficult for users who are adding another computer solely for the purpose of downloading their data from the cloud rather than merging the two together upon first sync.  I propose an option in the account creation/setup wizard which will allow a user to choose their type of sync just like in the "Sync now" dialog or at least an option not to perform an initial sync (which you have to abort quickly to not perform a merge you don't want).

Reproducible: Always

Comment 1

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

I suppose the only useful sync-at-creation options are 2-way and pull-from-server. But then the user might get confused and do pull-from-server when there's nothing there...

Perhaps we should just make weave not sync immediately when creating an account. There's no big harm if it doesn't sync right away assuming it's a fresh account and there's nothing else to sync to anyway. And this gives the flexibility for an advanced user to choose what to do.

Comment 2

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I suppose the only useful sync-at-creation options are 2-way and
> pull-from-server. But then the user might get confused and do pull-from-server
> when there's nothing there...

Yeah I agree that push-to-server doesn't really make sense in the wizard.

pull-from-server when there is nothing there is a problem right now as well, e.g. see this thread:

https://labs.mozilla.com/forum/comments.php?DiscussionID=5287

> Perhaps we should just make weave not sync immediately when creating an
> account. There's no big harm if it doesn't sync right away assuming it's a
> fresh account and there's nothing else to sync to anyway. And this gives the
> flexibility for an advanced user to choose what to do.

I disagree with this part.  After the wizard ends the computer should be set-up and ready to go, and that requires an initial sync.

An alternative could be to check whether the server has any data, and not give the option to pull form the server if there's no data to pull.

Comment 3

[Ed Lee :Mardak]

(In reply to comment #2)
> After the wizard ends the computer should be set-up
> and ready to go, and that requires an initial sync.
What needs to be set-up after just creating a brand new weave account through the wizard? There's no data to sync from the server, and a regular scheduled sync should good to push data out gradually.

Comment 4

[Dan Mills [:thunder]]

(In reply to comment #3)
> (In reply to comment #2)
> > After the wizard ends the computer should be set-up
> > and ready to go, and that requires an initial sync.
> What needs to be set-up after just creating a brand new weave account through
> the wizard? There's no data to sync from the server, and a regular scheduled
> sync should good to push data out gradually.

I actually misread what you wrote.  You're right that after creating a new account it's not a big deal *currently*.  However, this will not be true in the future.  Consider:

1. Install Weave
2. Run wizard, create new account
3. Visit webui/3rd-party service and view/use Weave data there

We will support such a sequence of actions, and if the wizard isn't syncing data, then step 3 won't work.

The other reason to sync in the wizard is that the first sync can take a long time, depending on your internet connection and such.  It's better to show clear status.

So, how about:

* if creating a new account, simply sync (as it does now)
* if setting up a 2nd computer, offer the alternative to pull data instead of merging.

Comment 5

[Fritz]

(In reply to comment #1)
> I suppose the only useful sync-at-creation options are 2-way and
> pull-from-server. But then the user might get confused and do pull-from-server
> when there's nothing there...

Well, if I recall, we have the option of "Set up Weave on another computer" so these options only need to be available for users who choose that, not for users setting up a new account.

I agree that a sync should be done right away in most cases but I'd support an opt out to that for users who don't want to.  I also think there are some cases where I add a new computer and want it to overwrite everything in the cloud although I doubt it would be common.  I have no solution for how to best do this... but I do know that it is bad when a user has to set up a new account and then kill the Firefox process to stop the sync from changing his data in ways he doesn't want and then restart and do the syn manually.  It will be a hard job to make sure it something which preserves current default behavior without confusing users but allowing users to make their own choices.  My guess would be a drop down menu would be best and in a way that illustrates "you don't need to change this unless you really know what you want".

Comment 6

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

Dan, opinions on whether this is required for 1.0 or not?  I think it's edgecasey, and we have bigger fish to fry, but want your perspective too.

Comment 7

[Mike Connor [:mconnor]]

This was fixed in Weave 1.0