102288 - Wordings for password manager are specific to the application

Status: VERIFIED FIXED

(SeaMonkey :: Passwords & Permissions, defect)

Description

[Radha on family leave (not reading bugmail)]

Certain documentation for password manager contains text specific to the
mozilla/netscape browser UI. These should be separated out, so that an embedded
application can use similar features with their corresponding UI information.
Here are some text segments that needs to be separated out.

 \mozilla\extensions\wallet\src\wallet.properties(66):Caveat =

"Saving Passwords and Other Sensitive Information##Password Manager and Form
Manager will save passwords, user names, and other sensitive information and
enter them for you automatically when they are required.#This sensitive
information is stored on your computer in a file that's difficult, but not
impossible, to read.#If other people have access to your computer, you may want
to password protect the stored sensitive information by choosing a Master
Password.#If you choose to password protect your stored information, you will be
asked to provide your Master Password from time to time.  This approach provides
better security but is slightly less convenient.#To password protect stored
information, 
<XXXX BEGIN CHANGE>choose Preferences from the Edit menu, open the Privacy and
Security category, choose Web Passwords, and check 'Use encryption when storing
sensitive data. < XXXX End Change> ' "

\mozilla\l10n\langpacks\en-DE\chrome\en-DE\communicator\locale\wallet\wallet.properties(66):Caveat
=

"Saving Sensitive Information##Your personal information (passwords, etc) will
be saved by the browser so you won't need to reenter this information in the
future.##By default, your personal information is stored in a file that is
difficult but not impossible for an unauthorized person to read. If you wish to
provide better security, you can make the file be password protected.  This may
be desirable, for example, if other people have access to your
computer.##However, such improved security requires you to choose a password
that you will be asked to provide from time to time.  Thus it is slightly less
convenient.##If you want to use improved security for your stored personal
information, 
<XXX BEGIN CHANGE> choose Preferences from the Edit menu, open the Advanced
category, and select Forms and Passwords."<XXX END CHANGE>


\communicator\locale\wallet\wallet.properties(66):Caveat =

"Saving Sensitive Information##Your personal information (passwords, etc) will
be saved by the browser so you won't need to reenter this information in the
future.##By default, your personal information is stored in a file that is
difficult but not impossible for an unauthorized person to read. If you wish to
provide better security, you can make the file be password protected.  This may
be desirable, for example, if other people have access to your
computer.##However, such improved security requires you to choose a password
that you will be asked to provide from time to time.  Thus it is slightly less
convenient.##If you want to use improved security for your stored personal
information, 
<XXX BEGIN CHANGE>
choose Preferences from the Edit menu, open the Advanced category,
and select Forms and Passwords." <XXX END CHANGE>

Comment 1

[Stephen P. Morse]

cc'in german and valeski since we just had an e-mail discussion on this very 
topic.

My two cents in that discussion was that I never wanted this dialog in the 
first place (there are already too many sequential dialogs when using 
form-manager and this one just adds to the confrontation).  But this dialog was 
mandated by legal as a cya thing.  So any changes to this dialog would 
need to be run through legal.

Valeski said he was going to be speaking to legal about this, so I'll reassign 
this bug to him for the time being.

Comment 2

[Judson Valeski]

back to morse. steve, do you mind pulling the strings in question (not the
dialog) and posting a patch? we can then just point legal (who did you talk to
before?) to the mods.

I suspect we won't be able to check this into the branch because this would
constitute a UI change in what's already UI frozen, so we should move forward on
the trunk.

Comment 3

[Stephen P. Morse]

Attachment: Remove last sentence from dialog

Comment 4

[Stephen P. Morse]

Kent Walker was the legal person involved with this.

Comment 5

[Stephen P. Morse]

Jud, the ball is in your court on this to get legal approval.

Comment 6

[Dave Barrowman]

Just so I am clear on this before going to legal, what we are doing here is
removing the Netscape/Mozilla specific parts of the text in these dialogs, which
is typically the last sentence, explaining where the menu item for the feature
lives.  

- Is this correct?
- Will the application (Netscape, Mozilla, or the embedder) add the missing info
back, or are we going with generic dialogs across all apps?

Comment 7

[Judson Valeski]

The info will not be added at the application level. This bug is to
wholeheartedly remove the instructional text (which is application specific).
That text needs to be in help files and other documentation (user manual for
example) rather than in dialogs. 

Comment 8

[Dave Barrowman]

And the patch posted by Steve is just one example of what we will do to all of
these dialogs, right?

Radha lists 3 of them in this bug - are there others?

Comment 9

[Judson Valeski]

Correct. Here's another http://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=102289

Comment 10

[Radha on family leave (not reading bugmail)]

Jud, I'm not sure that your suggestion to completely remove the UI specific
information is appropriate in a broader sense. How about other places that have
references to UI. Wouldn't simply removing the UI information, break the
behavior that mozilla/netscape users are accustomed to till now? In the changes
attached to this bug, there is no mention of anything like, "For more
information on how to change XXXX, please refer to the Help menu <or something
like that>".

What does UE people think of this change?

My patch attached to bug 102289 suggests a solution that  would not break
existing Netscape/Mozilla UI and provides the required flexibility for "other"
users of this code.

Sudheer, Ken Runyon, can you please comment, if the patch attached here and in
102289 meet your needs?

Comment 11

[Judson Valeski]

If there are other string bundles out there doing this, they need to be fixed as
well. I thought German would have chimed in by now, but I guess not. German and
I discussed this out of band in email, and he agreed that putting this kind of
tutorial info in dialogs doesn't make sense; so that's UE's perspective.

I'm not sure how to search for all of these instances, but IMO they should all
be removed. This kind of info in a dialog box just doesn't make sense. It
belongs in a manual.

Here's another perspective. When the menu items change, then we have a bug that
no-one is prepared to find/fix. The menu item sequence will be different, yet
we'll still have text referring to the old path; confusing users.

Comment 12

[Radha on family leave (not reading bugmail)]

Jud, I agree with some of the things you mentioned. I was concerned about UE
compatibility issues. If German thinks that it is OK to  completely remove
references to UI, then I think we can go ahead remove them. I will soon attach a
patch to bug 102889, which simply removes the UI references. I hope the owners
of these bugs are fine with kind of change.

Comment 13

[Stephen P. Morse]

As I implied above, this is not a UE issue.  None of us ever wanted this dialog 
in the first place, UE included, and it was put in only because legal insisted 
on it as a CYA thing.  German mentioned in a private e-mail that the dialog is 
too awkward for any user to ever read and my response was that we never intended 
for a user to really read it any more than one expects him to read the license 
agreement that he sees whenever he installs new software.

So it's not UE that we need to be concerned about but rather it is legal.  To be 
more specific, this dialog was never intended to be a tutorial for the user -- 
we already have separate tutorials and help screens for that.

Comment 14

[Judson Valeski]

legal has signed off on these mods.

Comment 15

[Stephen P. Morse]

jud, will you please do a review on the patch attached here.

cc'ing alecf for sr

Comment 16

[Alec Flett]

seems reasonable to me then. sr=alecf

Comment 17

[Stephen P. Morse]

r=valski

fix checked in.

Comment 18

[Terri Preston]

verified fix checked into lxr.mozilla.org

Comment 19

[Stephen P. Morse]

For the record, there have been several bug reports about the CYA dialog for 
saving sensitive information.  Here is a cross-reference list of them:

043503: Bad UI in "Saving Sensitive Information" dialog
102288: Wordings for password manager are specific to the application
117552: opening Site with PW opens annoyance window
117989: Save password shows alert that is vague
119114: logging into hotmail: 6 dialogs