Subject: CRITICISM/SUGGESTIONS: Re The "Newpassword" Command...

From: "Glenn P.," <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 05:05:01 -0500 (EST)

Nestled among the "Setup" items (from the Main Menu) is the "Newpassword"
command. Invoking it gives you the most ATROCIOUS screen I have ever seen
in Unix Pine: a BLANK SCREEN with NOTHING ON IT AT ALL except the cryptic
notation, "Changing password for <username> on <sitename>" plus a request
for your "Old password"!

In a program such as Pine, with its constant offerings of options and
context-sensitive help, this is, to say the very least, disconcerting.
It gives the user the uneasy feeling that he has just been abaondoned.
In fact, the user HAS just been abandoned!

There is...        o  NO context-sensitive help;
                   o  In fact, NO help at ALL;
                   o  NO information as to what this command does --
                         at least, none readily findeable in the
                         course of casual experimentation!
                   o  NO way to abort it in the usual manner --
                         a CONTROL-C is not honored;
                   o  NO indication on how to abort it (a blank
                         carriage return on the first prompt will
                         do this, but we Mere Lowly Users are never
                         told this); and
                   o  Absolutely NO warning WHATEVER that what you
                         are about to do is to change your LOGIN
                         password, and NOT merely to add some sort
                         of password protection to Pine itself.

I would be very hard put to conceive of a more User-UNfriendly situation; this
is not only frustrating and perverse, it can be DANGEROUS! I can't *begin* to
imagine what the hell you guys were smoking the day you came up with this one!

To me, this is damned inexcusable. It is a TOTAL DISGRACE to a program that
is RENOWNED the WORLD OVER for being *completely* User-Friendly.

Not only is this a letdown to your users, it would appear to be a lapse in
YOUR OWN DESIGN GOALS! Remember these...?:

"...Our goal was to provide a mailer that naive users could use *without
    fear of making mistakes.* [Emphasis added.] We wanted to cater to users
    who were less interested in learning the mechanics of using electronic
    mail than in doing their jobs; users who perhaps had some computer
    anxiety. We felt the way to do this was to have a system that *didn't
    do surprising things and provided immediate feedback on each
    operation..."* [Emphasis added.]
                                                     --Pine Project History.

                            --= AND =--

      "...- *Pine must be very tolerant of user errors.* [Emphasis added.]
          Any time a user is about to perform an irreversible act (send a
          message, expunge messages from a folder), Pine should ask for
          confirmation.

         "- *Users should be able to learn by exploration without fear of
          doing anything wrong.* [Emphasis added.] This is an important
          feature so the user can get started quickly without reading any
          manuals and so fewer manuals are required..."
                                                --Pine Technical Notes,
                                                  Version 3.95, July 1996.

Frankly, it just doesn't seem that the "Newpassword" command complies with
these lofty standards at all!

SUGGESTIONS:
===========
Personally, I would prefer that the "Newpassword" command be REMOVED. It
doesn't belong in Pine anyway, since it's really a Unix management command
and not Pine-related at all. But if you INSIST on keeping it, here are a
couple of ways in which it might be made more user-friendly:

FIRST, there should AT THE VERY LEAST be "^G Get Help" and "^C Cancel"
functions. "Get Help" should print text somewhat similar to what I suggest
below; whereas Control-C should abort immediately to the Main Menu, without
-- and I will repeat that, WITHOUT -- implementing ANY change in password.

Even better still would be a short explanatory message displayed at the
top of the screen. You might have something like the following:

         "This function is offered as a convenience to those users
          who use Pine as their start-up screen. It is not really
          a function of Pine; rather, it offers a convenient way
          of changing the system password used at LOGIN, when you
          start a new Unix session."

Such a message could be improved even further by adding (of course you'd
have to implement it first):

         "You can quit this function at any time by typing Control-C."

In my opinion these SHOULD have been put in place when the command was
first impleneted... but hey, better late than never, right?     :/

--                     _____                                          _____
 ------------------   {~._.~}   *    Astro Boy sets the pace,    *   {~._.~}
     "Glenn P.,"      _( Y )_  /|   On your flight into space;   |\  _( Y )_
 <[email-masked]>  (:_~*~_:) \| What can I do, to be like you? |/ (:_~*~_:)
 ------------------   (_)-(_)   *  And become a real Astro Boy?  *   (_)-(_)

---

From: "Robin S. Socha" <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:58:43 +0100 (CET)

[I didn't snip most of the text...]

/---->flame on

  >It gives the user the uneasy feeling that he has just been abaondoned.
		^^^^	
		you
  >In fact, the user HAS just been abandoned!

In fact, you haven't read the help.

  >                         of password protection to Pine itself.

So? If you're on a u*ix system, the first thing you need to do is to set up
your own password. What's the point, then?

  >I would be very hard put to conceive of a more User-UNfriendly situation;
  >this is not only frustrating and perverse, it can be DANGEROUS! I can't
  >*begin* to imagine what the hell you guys were smoking the day you came
  >up with this one!

Yes, I've been pondering a very similar problem lately. I've found a
solution, though:
It's called "kill file" and contains things like: @GTI.Net

  >is RENOWNED the WORLD OVER for being *completely* User-Friendly.

Man, you really got us all there.

[snipped GIANT soapbox] Gist: If you're dumb enough to screw up your
password, you'd better use Winword to write your mails.

  >doesn't belong in Pine anyway, since it's really a Unix management
  >command and not Pine-related at all.
  
Yeah, especially for those users on systems that only have email-login
shells...  
  
  >But if you INSIST on keeping it, here are a couple of ways in which it
  >might be made more user-friendly:
                      ^^^^
                      loser-friendly, you mean?
                      
  >-- and I will repeat that, WITHOUT -- implementing ANY change in password.
                 ^^^^^^
                 Oh, good! I really didn't get it in the first place...

[snipped some more stuff...]
                 
  >--                     _____                                          _____
  > ------------------   {~._.~}   *    Astro Boy sets the pace,    *
  >     {~._.~} "Glenn P.," _( Y )_ /| On your flight into space; |\ _( Y
  > )_ <[email-masked]> (:_~*~_:) \| What can I do, to be like you? |/
  > (:_~*~_:) (_)-(_) * And become a real Astro Boy? * (_)-(_)

Oops...

Get a life...
flame off---->/
Robin

++---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++---+---+---+---+---++---+---+---+---+---++
   Robin S. Socha	 Flamewar Science Dept.	        Tel: +49(0228)22217-8
   Bonner Talweg 56	 Bonn University		Fax: +49(0228)22217-9
   53113 Bonn		 email: [email-masked]
++---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++---+---+---+---+---++---+---+---+---+---++
       On the package it said: "Requires MS Windows 3.11 or better"  
	       			      ...  so I got myself Linux. 
++---+---+---+---+---+---+---+---++---+---+---+---+---++---+---+---+---+---++

---

From: Mike Brudenell <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Feb 1997 15:43:34 +0000 (GMT)

Hmmmm.... What a strongly worded suggestion!  ;-}

Pine's "Setup NewPassword" command invokes whatever command your System
Administrator has set it up to use.  Pine can't offer context-sensitive
help about something it knows nothing about; the best it can do is to show
you the command's prompts, which it does.

The output you describe is actually the standard UNIX command to change
your password, usually invoked as "passwd" or "yppasswd", if memory
serves.

You could try suggesting to your System Administrator to "wrap up" the
change password functionality inside a friendlier script and have Pine
invoke that.

If seeing the NewPassword option present in Setup really offends you so
much, you can suppress it by setting the:

	disable-password-cmd

configuration option in either your personal or the systemwide Pine
configuration file.  (Note that this option is really intended for the
System Administrator to use in the systemwide file, rather than users in
their personal files.  Ergo there is no easy user interface to set this
variable in Pine's Setup Configuration screen; you will need to edit the
.pinerc file with a text editor.)

By the way, if you want to send a suggestion to the Pine Team the easiest
and best way is to use Pine's "B" (Bug) command at its Main Menu screen.
Look for the "Suggestions" option in the menu screen that follows; this
will start composing a message to the proper suggestions e-mail address:

	Pine Developers <[email-masked]>

rather than Pine-Info, which is a general discussion forum.

Cheers,

-- 
Mike Brudenell                                         <[email-masked]>
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