I have run into the following problem a few times. Call it a consequence of being particularly clumsy.
I open a qube template and do some configuration. I shut it down so I can use it in app qubes. Somehow by this point I forgot the state of my Qubes Application Menu which has left the TEMPLATES menu remain selected. I end up opening one of these templates as if it were an app qube. This is a security problem of course.
Proposed solutions:
Default the menu state to remaining in the APPS submenu
Add some warnings that pop to the eye if the user is in the TEMPLATES state. Perhaps the whole menu gets a color update.
The first solution is probably the easiest, but the second one might just be a good idea in general. Remind users that they need to proceed with caution.
Editing to provide some screenshots for the illustrate proposition 2:
It’s a crude edit, but as you can see it’s a difference between unmistakable vs barely distinguishble. It’s not ideal to make it barely distinguishable if it presents security risks, IMO
You should write an issue about this, there is an UX tag to keep tracking of all UX problems. The forum is community effort, there is no code fix happening here.
Well, maybe it’s a good thing to discuss some of the solutions here before submitting an issue, considering that the issue tracker is not the appropriate place for this?
Your first proposal seems clear but the second one doesn’t look convincing. I’m not sure to understand the problem here, could you take some screenshots?
I tried taking a screenshot with the menu open, but it does not show up on the screenshot. So I cannot show a quick photoshop edit, unless I can find an image elsewhere. The screenshot with the menu looks quite outdated in Screenshots | Qubes OS .
I have procured a very low quality screenshot looking at some of the video tours.
I did not look through the 16 hours of footage to find an image for both AppVM’s and TemplateVM’s, but the idea is for when the TemplateVM’s menu is selected some sort of obvious warning or color signals to the user that cannot be easily mistaken. Otherwise both menus are the exact same color and without looking at the names closely, users such as myself can mistake the template of a vm for its corresponding app vm.
My Appmenu is tweaked and has special (label) Icons, colors and icon effects.
There is a workaround to your issue. You could select the default page to Favorite. Then if you select the App Page, it will show you the APP tab rather than the TEMPLATE tab.
This is doable. The existing logic only selects the APP tab on initialization. Not on subsequent opening. We have to wait and see what Core Devs would decide. Some users might prefer the choice to be remebered rather than switching back to APPS tab.
Thanks for teaching me a few things. At least I know I can apply a fix now instead of waiting for a decision to be made. I still think there should probably be an easier way to signal caution when looking at the TemplateVM’s in the menu. I will try applying the favorite.
And good looking out for the delayed tool, I was simply using my print screen button on my keyboard which does not give you the full screenshot menu. I also like how you have customized some AppVM’s, I will have to look into that for myself. I have a lot of AppVM’s that look monotonous in the menu
So, your first solution could be: to add an option to the appmenu that permits you to select a new boolean option “Always open menu on the starting page”?
I saw your screenshots and I’m not convinced by the color thing. It’s confusing because some people may not see the color difference and what you made gives me the feeling that every templates are focused. On a different but maybe related topic, it reminds me that after some bad naming choices, I made some mistakes trying to use a disposable (but in fact opening the disposable template). Is it possible that the name of the template and the name of the appvm you try to use are too close?
There are a lot of other solutions, like appending a “[Template]” tag after the name of the application, like the following screenshot but I can’t tell which one is appropriate.
There is already an option to open the appmenu on a “page”, like this:
qubes-app-menu -p 1
Maybe, with an option to select the tab and a way to use it with the following command, it could allow a user to customize the menu behavior without any settings?
