Explanatory tooltips for Qubes UI elements

[andrewdavidwong]

Consider support for explanatory tooltips whenever hovering the cursor over a Qubes UI element. For example (based on #1855 (comment)), when hovering over the "Pause" button in Qubes Manager, the tooltip currently just says:

Pause selected VM

Instead, it could say something like:

Pause selected VM

Stops all CPU activity in the selected VM until the VM is unpaused. This action does not change how much memory is allocated to the VM.

[andrewdavidwong]

To clarify, this should be fully compatible with decomposition of the existing Qubes Manager (#2132). Presumably, there will still be Qubes-specific GUI buttons of some kind somewhere. Even if there is no longer a "Pause" button, there will probably be other UI elements that would benefit from an explanatory tooltip.

[andrewdavidwong]

To clarify, this should be fully compatible with decomposition of the existing Qubes Manager (#2132). Presumably, there will still be Qubes-specific GUI buttons of some kind somewhere. Even if there is no longer a "Pause" button, there will probably be other UI elements that would benefit from an explanatory tooltip.

[andrewdavidwong]

On 2016-08-13 09:35, amadaus@[...].net wrote:

I do not recall being prompted to create a USB VM during installation of 3.2
rc2. However, I've now successfully created one and it works fine. But I'm
jittery that my system's integrity has been comprised by a compromised USB Flash
stick.
I guess the only solution is to ditch my current VM's [including backups] and
reinstall qubes?
It would be really good if the developers could modify their code to prevent
users from accidentally falling into this unfortunate trap.

IMO, this would be a prime candidate for an explanatory tooltip in the installer. When the user hovers over the option to create a USB qube during installation, explain (among other things) that creating the USB qube will be problematic if the user's only available keyboard is a USB keyboard, while not creating a USB qube will leave dom0 exposed to malicious USB devices.

[andrewdavidwong]

On 2016-08-13 09:35, amadaus@[...].net wrote:

I do not recall being prompted to create a USB VM during installation of 3.2
rc2. However, I've now successfully created one and it works fine. But I'm
jittery that my system's integrity has been comprised by a compromised USB Flash
stick.
I guess the only solution is to ditch my current VM's [including backups] and
reinstall qubes?
It would be really good if the developers could modify their code to prevent
users from accidentally falling into this unfortunate trap.

IMO, this would be a prime candidate for an explanatory tooltip in the installer. When the user hovers over the option to create a USB qube during installation, explain (among other things) that creating the USB qube will be problematic if the user's only available keyboard is a USB keyboard, while not creating a USB qube will leave dom0 exposed to malicious USB devices.

[andrewdavidwong]

Perhaps another good candidate for an explanatory tooltip:

On 2016-08-12 15:31, johnyjukya@[...].org wrote:

(Also, Temporary OS updates are indeed handy in the AppVM's for testing or
one-off app runs, but leaving this checkbox on is just like turning
networking full-on for the AppVM. The user should at least be aware of
this fact. I wasn't.)

At the very least, the GUI should educate the user about this fact, and
maybe pop up a warning/confirmation page if the user tries to enable update
access for an AppVM.

[andrewdavidwong]

Perhaps another good candidate for an explanatory tooltip:

On 2016-08-12 15:31, johnyjukya@[...].org wrote:

(Also, Temporary OS updates are indeed handy in the AppVM's for testing or
one-off app runs, but leaving this checkbox on is just like turning
networking full-on for the AppVM. The user should at least be aware of
this fact. I wasn't.)

At the very least, the GUI should educate the user about this fact, and
maybe pop up a warning/confirmation page if the user tries to enable update
access for an AppVM.

[andrewdavidwong]

On 2017-03-04 06:35, sm8ax1 wrote:

The first-boot options dialog could have explained the options a little
better, or they should be explained in the documentation. For example,
the option to proxy all applications and upgrades through Tor, I
selected it because it sounded like what I wanted, but I didn't really
understand how it would affect the networking VM hierarchy or whether I
could still create unproxied VMs. I left the USB VM (sys-usb) option
unselected because I wasn't sure how reliable it would be, I don't have
an IOMMU anyway, and I don't connect a lot of random USB devices to my
computer, but I would like to try the feature in the future. All along I
was thinking "Can I change my mind later? Am I stuck with these
decisions for the rest of my life?"

[andrewdavidwong]

On 2017-03-04 06:35, sm8ax1 wrote:

The first-boot options dialog could have explained the options a little
better, or they should be explained in the documentation. For example,
the option to proxy all applications and upgrades through Tor, I
selected it because it sounded like what I wanted, but I didn't really
understand how it would affect the networking VM hierarchy or whether I
could still create unproxied VMs. I left the USB VM (sys-usb) option
unselected because I wasn't sure how reliable it would be, I don't have
an IOMMU anyway, and I don't connect a lot of random USB devices to my
computer, but I would like to try the feature in the future. All along I
was thinking "Can I change my mind later? Am I stuck with these
decisions for the rest of my life?"

[kalkin]

Do we still need tooltips in the Domain Tray? Currently the sub-menus are self explanatory, aren't they?

[kalkin]

Do we still need tooltips in the Domain Tray? Currently the sub-menus are self explanatory, aren't they?