[racket-dev] more planet2 feedback

Hi Jay,

Some more usability feedback:


1.  When updating checksums of my existing packages, I can't tell what
gets updated, as the page for:

    https://plt-etc.byu.edu:9004/manage

can look the same before and after "Update checksums", so I don't know
if I actually did anything, or if the server timed out during the
request.  I know that there's a red start next to new package, but if
it was already new to begin with, before "Update checksums", then
there's no visible delta as far as the Manage page is concerned.

Also, if it's possible to mark the "Update checksums" URL so that it's
sent as a POST rather than a GET, that would be great.


2.  The login page makes the automatic assumption that if you're
logging in as someone who doesn't exist, that it must be a
subscription request.  I think this is the wrong default, as it is
unforgiving of typos.  e.g. I put in 'dyoo' instead of
'dyoo at hashcollision.org' for my email, and now the system is sending
spurious email out there.

Perhaps add one additional stage to the interaction, where it says
something like "I don't know this user: send a subscription request?"
or so?



3.  We talked privately about the error message that shows up when
uploading a package with a malformed name.  e.g. I tried uploading
ragg with the name "ragg: a Racket AST Generator Generator", and got a
stack trace error message from the web server of the form:

---
Exception
The application raised an exception with the message:

planet2: Illegal character in name; only alphanumerics, plus '-' and
'_' allowed: "ragg: a Racket AST Generator Generator"
Stack trace:

edit-details at:
  line 424, column 2, in file
/home/plt-etc/local/galaxy/meta/planet2-index/official/main.rkt
---

I argue that the error message is too "low-level" when presented by
the web application because it's the result of a stack trace, rather
than the result of constraints on the form elements on the submission
page.  Though the error message does correctly mention that it's the
'name' that is at fault, still the mechanism for reporting the error
is fairly indistinguishable from any other internal error in a
web-servlet.