Launchpad itself

"Get Help Online" page isn't useful

Bug #94224 reported by Ian Jackson
4
Affects Status Importance Assigned to Milestone
Launchpad itself
Fix Released
Medium
Christian Reis
launchpad-integration (Ubuntu)
Fix Released
Low
Mozilla Bugs
Ubuntu ubuntu-7.04

Bug Description

The "Help" menu for most Ubuntu software includes a "Get Help Online..." item, but this opens a rather useless "help and support options" page which promised that "soon" this page will contain support options. This assertion does not seem to have proven true.

The prominence of the "Get Help Online" menu option suggests that something useful will happen when it's requested. This option should be disabled via some central switch somewhere until that is true.

(This bug report originally also mentioned Launchpad being served over HTTPS unnecessarily, which is bug 46591; and Firefox showing unnecessary confirmation alerts, which is now bug 94322.)

See original description
Tags: lp-answers
Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9)
Changed in firefox:
assignee: nobody → mozilla-bugs
Revision history for this message
Mark Shuttleworth (sabdfl) wrote :

This is a LP problem, not a firefox one, AFAICS

Changed in firefox:
status: Unconfirmed → Rejected
Revision history for this message
Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9) wrote :

Sabdfl, when you first launch firefox (fresh profile works as well) you get many dialog boxes showing where this like 'you've requested an encrypted page' or 'you are leaving a secure site'. With the introduction of a smart address bar, you see locks on secure sites etc. and these dialog boxes are a bit frustrating and annoying. Try it out, and think about it from a GUI structure point of view.

Revision history for this message
Freddy Martinez (freddymartinez9) wrote :

Mark, for this reason, I will reopen the Firefox portion.

Changed in firefox:
status: Rejected → Unconfirmed
Revision history for this message
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt) wrote :

This is three separate bugs.

First, "Get Help Online" item has existed in Ubuntu since 5.10, but has never been implemented in Launchpad. I think it should not be in Ubuntu, but in the meantime, an easy fix would be to redirect +gethelp to Launchpad's Answers page for the relevant package.

Second, all of Launchpad is served over HTTPS and much of it needn't be. This is bug 46591.

Third, a new Firefox profile shows several useless and counterproductive confirmation alerts when you first visit an HTTPS site. Please report this as a separate bug; upstream it is <https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=341472>, but (to my non-maintainer eyes) it seems like it would be quite easy to patch the Ubuntu package for a better first-time experience.

Changed in launchpad:
importance: Undecided → Medium
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Matthew Paul Thomas (mpt)
description: updated
Revision history for this message
Ian Jackson (ijackson) wrote : Re: [Bug 94224] Re: "Get Help Online" page has poor user experience

Mark Shuttleworth writes ("[Bug 94224] Re: "Get Help Online" page has poor user experience"):
> This is a LP problem, not a firefox one, AFAICS

The firefox bug is that it presents a pointless warning on first visit
of an encrypted page.

Ian.

Sebastien Bacher (seb128)
Changed in launchpad-integration:
importance: Undecided → Low
status: Unconfirmed → Confirmed
Revision history for this message
Sebastien Bacher (seb128) wrote :

 launchpad-integration (0.1.9) feisty; urgency=low
 .
   * lib/launchpad-integration.c, lib/lpint-bonobo.c:
     - don't list the "Get Help Online" item, the current launchpad content
       is not useful (Ubuntu: #94224)

Changed in launchpad-integration:
status: Confirmed → Fix Released
Revision history for this message
Francis J. Lacoste (flacoste) wrote :

Kiko, following your changes to that page, can we consider this bug fix released?

Changed in launchpad-answers:
assignee: nobody → kiko
status: Confirmed → Needs Info
Revision history for this message
Christian Reis (kiko) wrote :

It looks much better now. If the reporter thinks it can be improved please let me know.

Changed in launchpad-answers:
status: Needs Info → Fix Released
To post a comment you must log in.
This report contains Public information  
Everyone can see this information.
Subscribing...

Other bug subscribers

Remote bug watches

Bug watches keep track of this bug in other bug trackers.