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

From: Stefan Monnier <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 07 Mar 2011 18:10:38 -0500

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.

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

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.

Yes.

> But what about the case where the server is down and yet you know the
> password is good?  Do we throw it away?

Yes.  I *never* know that the password is good (maybe I'm
a pathologically poor typist, but I can't be the only one who's been
surprised a few times to see his password rejected even tho he thought
it was typed properly).

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'.

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

> nnimap.el could use `auth-source-forget+' and then retry that query.
> But as above, I think you're saying we need to save/cache AFTER
> authentication success.

Yes, fixing the previous one might fix this one, I just know this also
needs to work right.

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.

Two things:
1- then make it look nice, like "Saved password for foo@bar into <file>".
   The current text really looks like debug output.
2- I just replied "n" before, so I did *not* want it saved (tho I do
   want it saved for the session), so it is not a rare event at all.

        Stefan