[dev] thoughts on the prefs problem

[Anil Madhavapeddy]

Quoting Chuck Hagenbuch <chuck@horde.org>:

> Quoting Jon Parise <jon@csh.rit.edu>:
> 
> > I think the better solution might be to allow the values entered on
> > the login screen to simply override the user's preferences.
> 
> I agree. How about an "Override Preferences" checkbox on the login screen?
> 

Hmm, that would work as well, but be pretty confusing.  If I were
a new user, and typed in my IMAP server wrong, it would simply appear
to 'not work' for me for all future sessions.

Clicking the override preferences would work, but that would not 
be an obvious solution to my problem, since there's no real connection
betwen preferences and my choice of server.

Pre-filling is hard on the login screen, until the user attempts at
least one login (at which point the existing preferences could be
filled in).

The point though, is that a lot of the time, if the IMAP server is
changeable, I dont want to store that information in the database at
all, and it would be a lot of redundant information.

This could apply to the user-level options as well; set them to a 
pre-set level, but allow the users to change them temporarily for the
session if they really want to.  This could really apply to expanding
the navigator, or for refresh times, which put quite a load on an 
IMAP server if used carelessly, so it's plausible for a server admin
to set them to no by default, but still allow users the chance to 
activate them when they really need them for a session.

-- 
Anil Madhavapeddy, <anil@recoil.org>