Tools/NetApplet/Development
From Mandriva
This page will list proposals which aim to improve net_applet
Contents |
UI improvement
Better interface name alignment with link quality and encryption level
At present the interface name and the link quality icons are not on the same line. For a better presentation, it could be interesting to fix this minor issue. This could be done IMHO by reducing the link quality icon size. The same applies for the icon showing the network is protected.
| Before | After |
|---|---|
 |
 |
| mis-aligned label | aligned label |
Show interface type with an icon
At present in net_applet you can only select the interface with their linux name ( ethX, pppX ). However most people don't know what these names mean and to which device they are referring. In drakconnect the interface product name is shown, but in net_applet it will take too much space. A solution is to show an icon describing the interface type ( ethernet card, wifi, USB/Firewire, modem, ... ). So when the user wants to activate his wireless interface, he will not have to guess which one of eth0, eth1 and eth2 designates his wireless interface.
Mockup showing interface type thanks to icons:
Display more informations in tooltips
At present Net_Applet will just display "network is active on interface eth0" when hovering the mouse over the icon. It could be useful to have:
- the IP adress
- the gateway
- the protocol
Something like :
network is active on interface eth0 : IP : 192.168.1.141 ( dhcp ) GW : 192.168.1.1
Possible new features
Notifications
on interface change
Net_applet is able to automatically switch between several interfaces. However at present there's no notification. Net_applet should notify the user when it switches from one interface to another and quickly tell which interface is going to be used ( interface name and type ).
net_apply notifying interface switch:
other kinds
Probably other things worth being notified :
- "Your static IP conflicts with another one, please change it"
- "No more connection to the internet" (yes net_applet icon is changing, but there should be a notification)
- "Cable plugged/unplugged"
- Now we have avahi in cooker : "New service discovered on the network : ftp/web/smb/... server"
Ability to configure a wireless connection as user
With net_applet a normal user should be able to configure a wireless connection without having to provide the root password. This is especially useful for roaming users. However there's several issues :
- The sysadmin should be able to say which users can do this or not. This could be done maybe by allowing this for all users in a precise group
- For some settings it should not be possible for the user to override them. This is especially important for enterprise connections where you don't want your user to modify the WPA key. But it should be able to add to it a wifi connection at home.
There's some ideas about using DBUS to provide this kind of functionality for unprivileged users. See PolicyKit
Links to similar tools
Maybe it is a good idea to list other efforts that try to accomplish the same or a similar goal here...
- NetworkManager Appears to be an effort to make a generic tool that will work on different linux desktop environments (not just Gnome and KDE knetworkmanager-svn).
