[kepler-dev] [Bug 2015] - Provide more meaningful error messages

[bugzilla-daemon at ecoinformatics.org]

http://bugzilla.ecoinformatics.org/show_bug.cgi?id=2015





------- Additional Comments From ldowney at lternet.edu  2005-03-18 09:12 -------
Users (except very technical ones) don't usually care about the intricate 
technical details that they aren't going to understand anyway.  One general 
design prinicple is to speak the user's language -- to speak in terms they 
understand.  However, of course we want a way to help trace bugs and problems 
so that developers can fix things.

There are some various ways we could approach this problem.  Here are my 
recommendations in priority order:

1) provide user understandable error messages when problems occur but record 
in an error log the user understandable message and the stack trace or other 
important technical details so that there is a "couplet record" of problems

2) provide user understanddable error messages when problems occur, but 
provide a button (maybe "Details") on the error message dialog that when 
pressed will display the more tecnical aspects

3) provide a user understandable error message first in the error dialog, then 
below that provide the technical details helpful to the developer.

In each of these alternatives, the user is presented with an understandable 
message but the developer has the option in some manner of obtaining more 
information for trouble-shooting and debugging purposes.