Red Hat Bugzilla – Bug 73043
Non-DHCP configuration UI needs improvement
Last modified: 2007-04-18 12:46:11 EDT
Description of Problem: The user interface for DHCP/nonDHCP network configuration needs work. The setup screen for configuring the network defaults to DHCP setup. Below the fields for DHCP paramters, many disabled fields show the manual parameters such as gateway and nameserver addresses. To switch off DHCP, the user must currently click a button to show a popup dialog, then configure manual parameters, then RETURN to the main screen, and continue adding manual parameters. Instead, the interface should be simpler. A suggested interface: +-- Network Configuration Type -------------+ | (*) Automatic DHCP ( ) Manual Fixed-IP | +-------------------------------------------+ +-- DHCP Parameters ------------------------+ | | If the DHCP option is chosen, then all DHCP fields should appear below these two choices. If the Manual Fixed-IP choice is chosen, then the irrelevant DHCP fields should be hidden and replaced with the manual fields. Flipping back and forth should remember and restore any values in the fields. +-- Network Configuration Type -------------+ | ( ) Automatic DHCP (*) Manual Fixed-IP | +-------------------------------------------+ +-- Fixed IP Parameters --------------------+ | | If an additional popup dialog is required, then it should fit ALL the relevant fields, not just a portion of them. Don't offer a manual ternary (third) DNS host, since most people won't have three addresses from their ISP, or will know how to add one later.
Hearye hearye, I agree. This page is very confusing. As currently implemented, it isn't immediately apparent on the screen for network configuration that I needed to click the 'Edit' button to define host information manually on a popup dialog, then come /back/ to the net config page to add additional information below for gateway and DNS. The selection for DHCP versus manual hostname detection in the middle of the page seems redundant after I had to 'Edit' the information above to manually enter host information already (if I'm going to manually set the IP address, why even ask me if I want to fetch the hostname by DHCP? Yes, it greys itself out automatically but before clicking 'Edit' I was first attracted to the middle of the screen because 'manual vs DHCP' was the first question on my mind to answer). I can understand that this page is designed to be really easy for most people who are just going to use DHCP, but it is needlessly complex for anyone straying from that path. I applaud the attempt to improve things... you just need to try again. :)
Handling one interface is simple, because then everything applies equally well. When you have more than one interface and they're shared between being dhcp and manual is when things get tricky. I'm not against ideas (for FC2 at this point), but nothing better has come to my mind yet.
I think that this is a little bit better now.