Re: bug#8050: Gnus does not connect to my IMAP server any more

[Ted Zlatanov]

On Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:10:38 -0500 Stefan Monnier <monnier@IRO.UMontreal.CA> 
wrote: 

SM> - Also when I'm then asked for a password, the prompt says "Password for
SM> user foo, host bar" which is more verbose but not more clear than
SM> "Password for foo@bar" used in earlier Gnus.

>> That's the default prompt.  Every package can supply their own which
>> makes sense in context.  So nnimap.el could supply the password prompt
>> "IMAP password for user %u, host %h:%p" for instance.  Does that seem OK
>> to you?  If so I can add it to nnimap.el.

SM> I mostly care about nnimap for now because it's the only case I bumped
SM> into, but I can't imagine why it would be better to use "user foo, host
SM> bar" for the default, since all uses I can think of will want to
SM> override it with the "foo@bar" syntax instead.

This is the current default prompt list:

             (prompt (or (aget auth-source-creation-prompts r)
                         (case r
                           ('secret "%p password for user %u, host %h: ")
                           ('user "%p user name: ")
                           ('host "%p host name for user %u: ")
                           ('port "%p port for user %u and host %h: "))
                         (format "Enter %s (%%u@%%h:%%p): " r)))

Can you please propose specific replacements?

SM> - I'm asked whether to save the password regardless of whether the
SM> password and user names are correct or not.  That's really bad.

>> auth-source.el doesn't know at that time whether the authentication will
>> be successful.  I think you're saying we need an `auth-source-save'
>> function to be called after the fact instead of a ":create t" parameter.

SM> Yes.

I'll put something in.  This makes sense but is extra work for the
auth-source API users, unfortunately.

SM> - When I was asked whether to save my password, the cursor was not shown in
SM> the prompt, which looked weird.  Maybe it was a temporary redisplay
SM> problem (I hit `n' mechanically pretty quickly, so maybe Emacs didn't
SM> have time to display the cursor).

>> I'm not sure about that one, I'm just using `read-passwd'.

SM> No, you misread: I'm talking about the prompt to save the password
SM> (i.e. the one with y/n/N/e/?), not the prompt to read the password.

It uses:

        (while (not done)
          (message "%s" prompt)
          (setq k (read-char))
          ...)
  
SM> - If the connection fails (e.g. bad password or bad user name), I don't
SM> get asked again, instead Gnus continues in offline mode.

OK, I'll add logic to the nnimap wrapper.

SM> - After refusing to save the password in authinfo.gpg, I get a message
SM> along the lines of "auth-source-search: CREATED 1 results ...".
SM> I don't care whether "results" is replaced by "result" when there's
SM> only 1, but this looks like a debug message which should disappear.
>> I think it makes sense to show confirmation that we just added to your
>> passwords.  It's a rare event and deserves notice.

SM> Two things:
SM> 1- then make it look nice, like "Saved password for foo@bar into <file>".
SM>    The current text really looks like debug output.

All the output from auth-source starts with the function name.  The line
you mention can be put in the background in favor of the output you
specified.  But, again, auth-source does NOT just save passwords, and
there's no guarantee that a host or a port were specified.  So the
message will look different.

SM> 2- I just replied "n" before, so I did *not* want it saved (tho I do
SM>    want it saved for the session), so it is not a rare event at all.

OK, I'll show it only when the data is saved.

Ted