[horde] Two problems : language and TOS on first login

[Etienne Goyer]

On Wed, Sep 03, 2003 at 09:39:16AM -0500, Eric Rostetter wrote:
> Quoting Etienne Goyer <etienne.goyer at linuxquebec.com>:
> 
> > Language auto-negociation may be desirable if you are expecting your
> > audience to be linguistically diverse (ie a commercial webmail service)
> > but most of the time this is not the case (ie an entreprise, a school,
> > etc).
> 
> Your school isn't linguistically diverse?  How sad...  Heck, my wife's
> company is very linguistically diverse, and it's a fairly small (1000
> employee) company.  (Me, I work for a school).

You miss the point.  A student requesting service from his institution 
expect to be addressed in the language in use at his institution. Once 
logged in, you can change your language in the Horde prefs (you would 
have to anyway, as auto-negociation is only happening for the login 
form).  This is about how you greet the user.

> > I prefer to explicitely
> > choose the language in which I want the site displayed myself, but
> > that's just me.
> 
> So set your language in your browser.  Even in most internet cafes and
> the like that I've been to this is possible.  Sure, it is an extra step,
> but it is the only way to put the user in control, rather than the admin.

You are making three assumption :

1. User understand why the login page is displayed in a language he was
not expecting.  *Very* unlikely of most user, as it require to
understand that browser and Web server negociate content.

2. User *can* change the browser prefs.  As opposed to what you think,
this is unlikely when using well-managed public computer in school lab,
Internet cafe, etc.

3. User is proficient enough to change the required setting in his
browser.  Again, this is very unlikely of most user (subscriber of this
list does not qualify as "most user"; I am talking about your mom, a
random student, etc).

Since this as about how the user is greeted, once the form is displayed
it's too late to go back.  The user just choose another language from
the drop-down menu.

Since the login form is the entrance to your Horde installation, I think
it is reasonnable to think that the site admin should have some control
about how it is displayed.
 

-- 
Etienne Goyer                    Linux Québec Technologies Inc.
http://www.LinuxQuebec.com       etienne.goyer at linuxquebec.com