[Gpg4win-devel] Idea for making logging easier

[Christoph Klassen]

Hello everyone,


log files can be very important for developers to find errors. But when 
I think of average people using Gpg4win I think it is too complicated 
for them to enable logging. That's why I reflected about this topic.

My idea is a log manager which could be opened from Kleopatra. It could 
look like in attachment [1] (log_manager.png). There you could enable 
the logging for a component of Gpg4win. Maybe there could be other 
buttons to, for example, go to the directory where the log files are 
saved (which would be only one folder for all log files for the sake of 
simplicity).

When users press a button to enable the logging a new window appears 
where they can set how long the component should log events. Also, they 
can set options that are specific to this component like debug flags for 
the dirmngr.

The advantage of this would be that:
*there is only one place where users can handle log "things"
*users won't be scared because of a terminal because they don't need it 
(the manager could restart components like dirmngr automatically)
*I guess that users would not disable logging after they solved a 
problem. This is a security risk (because of sensitive information) and 
consumes space on the hard drive. When they set how long the logging 
should take place this won't be happening.
*when the GUI shows options users don't have to use the documentation to 
find out which options are available (maybe only to see what each 
options does but tooltips could even handle that)

One question that I had was: What about the advanced users who want to 
change anything individually like the directory where to save the log 
files? --> I think that should not be a problem. If users use the log 
manager this manager will overwrite settings so that all log files will 
be saved in one directory (which is also the one that will be opened 
when users click on "Open log directory"). When advanced users change 
the log directory in a config that directory will be used. Since 
advanced users probably won't use the log manager this settings wouldn't 
be overwritten.

What do you think of this idea?


With regards,
Christoph


-- 
Christoph Klassen  |  https://www.intevation.de/
Intevation GmbH, Neuer Graben 17, 49074 Osnabrück | AG Osnabrück, HR B 18998
Geschäftsführer: Frank Koormann, Bernhard Reiter
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: log_manager.png
Type: image/png
Size: 19860 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.wald.intevation.org/pipermail/gpg4win-devel/attachments/20220630/4249a436/attachment-0002.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: logging_options.png
Type: image/png
Size: 15870 bytes
Desc: not available
URL: <http://lists.wald.intevation.org/pipermail/gpg4win-devel/attachments/20220630/4249a436/attachment-0003.png>
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: OpenPGP_signature
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 665 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://lists.wald.intevation.org/pipermail/gpg4win-devel/attachments/20220630/4249a436/attachment-0001.sig>