[brussels-dev] [sysadmin-discuss] Access problems resolved WAS Re: Brussels GUI prototype and requesting feedback

[Raoul Carag]

Hi Peter,

Thanks much for your comments - the first among many, many more hopefully ;)

The replies to your question will be a team reply, especially the ones 
that involve the processes that underlie each action happening on the 
GUI. I with documentation, and so my knowledge would not be as in-depth 
as the others about what goes on under the hood regarding this project.
> 
> I actually quite like it!
> 
> On the first screen, what does the graph look like? I was about
> to ask for a screen showing the relationships between the various
> components, and I'm hoping that the little Graph tab I've just
> noticed at the bottom will be what I'm after.
> 

The Brussels GUI is supposed taking off of the NWAM GUI. So my 
understanding is the "main" Brussels window is an NWAM panel from which 
the Brussels GUI branches off for the configuration of the link 
properties. Hence the Graph tab is not included in the prototype. The 
others in the team would be able to elaborate on this better.


> On the second screen, what happens if you edit something
> that's connected to another link (such as part of an
> aggregation)? Do you get an indication that you're
> manipulating part of a larger object?
> 
> On the 3rd screen, I'm confused. Wouldn't it be better
> to have the current state displayed separately? And then
> have the other lines in the table without the State column?
> What's the difference between capabilities and advertised?
> (I think what I'm asking is whether this display is meant to
> indicate that 100M and 10M have been disabled?)
> 
> I'm not too keen on the Properties settings screens.
> For example, on the first one autonegotiation should
> be a checkbox not a radio button. But I think I would
> prefer the properties as a table with the value column
> being editable (either a checkbox, or an editable
> drop-down list). At least then you get to see all the
> values straight away - it's very frustrating to have
> to click down a list just to see the values (and worse,
> you have to remember what the other values were).
> 

For the Properties Setting tab, we actually started with drop down 
lists, but then switched to radio buttons, thinking that having all the 
options for each property on display would be more helpful for the 
administrator to make the selection. Your comments in this regard are 
valuable because they are coming from real scenarios - so we'll take 
them into account.

The GUI designer and the rest of the team can chime in on this, too.

Sorry that my replies are limited. But hopefully this gets the 
discussion going towards improving the GUI for all of you admins.

Regards,
Raoul

> Thanks,
>