77007 - Certificate Manager should be a window, not a dialog

Status: VERIFIED DUPLICATE of bug 62903

(Core Graveyard :: Security: UI, enhancement)

Description

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Build: 2001041908, Mac OS 9.1

To reproduce:
*   Start Mozilla.
*   Open the Preferences dialog.
*   Choose the `Privacy' category.
*   Click `Manage Certificates...'.

What you see:
*   A modal dialog with a row of tabs.
*   Buttons along the bottom.

What you can't do:
*   View certificates of multiple kinds at once.
*   Exit the Preferences dialog and keep the Certificate Manager open while
    browsing.
*   Drag certificates to your file manager to perform a backup, or vice versa
    to restore them, or to the Recycle Bin or Trash to get rid of them.

What you should see:
*   A (non-modal) window which looks similar to a folder window in Windows
    Explorer (but without the toolbar) or in the Mac OS Finder, in list view
    with `Name' and `Token' columns.
*   An (expandable) folder for each kind of certificate, containing the
    certificates in that category.
*   The same set of menus as are available in Navigator, though obviously with
    fewer available items.
*   No buttons along the bottom.

Comment 1

[Bob Lord]

Component -> PSM

Comment 2

[Bob Lord]

I did consider a tree design for a while, but there were two main issues that
made the tabs slightly more appropriate.

First, when I talk to customers about their needs, they don't include scenarios
where users need to view their personal cert and, say, a CA cert at the same
time.  They do, however, talk about tasks perfomed by a novice user on the phone
with the IS Help Desk.  In these cases, they like the idea of getting the user
to focus on a small number of certs (usually their own) to work out the problem.
 Putting all the certs into one big tree creates a slightly higher chance that
the user will get himself confused.  Having led a PKI deployment and answered
*many* user questions, I know that if there's any chance users will get
confused, they will. :-) 

Second, there may be slightly different columns in each tab depending on the
type of cert being presented.  For example, the "email" column may be
appropriate when displaying end-user certs, but not when displaying CA certs.  I
suppose we could put all the columns in there an have a "N/A" for the ones that
don't make sense, but then we'd run into width problems.

If you'd like to work on a XUL mockup that can take these points into account,
I'd consider it for inclusion in the next major rev.  I can shop it around shops
that have deployed certs (in addition to the feed back from other people around
mozilla).  You may want to wait for the next landing (or two) of CM work in
order to a better idea of where we're going.

Comment 3

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

You're right. The tree was a silly idea. I withdraw that.

It's still very bad that the Certificate Manager looks like a window but 
behaves like a dialog, but that seems to be bug 62903.

Comment 4

[Terry Hayes]

I agree that this window should be non-modal.  Should we also attempt to have
only one of these windows open?  That is, should attempts to open a new copy
just focus() the existing one if present?

Also, could you explain what you mean by "behaves like a dialog"?  Do you mean
that it's modal?

Comment 5

[David P. Drinan]

Re-assinging this to mcgreer.

Comment 6

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

> That is, should attempts to open a new copy just focus() the existing one if
> present?

Yes. Just like the Bookmarks window, or the History window. It would make more 
sense, and it would avoid race conditions with editing the certificates.

> Also, could you explain what you mean by "behaves like a dialog"?  Do you
> mean that it's modal?

I mean that:
*   It's modal -- I can't access any other Mozilla windows, including the
    Preferences dialog, while I have the Certificate Manager open;
*   I can't access any of the menus while the Certificate Manager is open. (At
    the very least, the Apple menu, the `Edit' menu, and the `Help' menu should
    be available. And there's no real reason not to make the `File',
    `Bookmarks', and `Tasks' menus available too.)

Comment 7

[Ian McGreer]

Is the Cert Manager window only modal on the Mac?  On Linux, it is not modal.  I
made it modal just to play with it, but by default it is not.  Is there a
general problem with Mozilla windows being modal by default on the Mac, not
specific to Cert Manager?

Comment 8

[Ian McGreer]

Okay, it's also modal on windows, even though it shouldn't be, and I didn't set
it that way.  I'm going to assume that this is because of 62903 as mentioned
before, since cert manager is a child of the prefs window.

Comment 9

[Matthew T (active 1999-2002)]

Fair enough.

*** This bug has been marked as a duplicate of 62903 ***

Comment 10

[John Unruh]

Verified dupe.