Qubes Manager Cleanness

[Franz]

For various reasons there are now a total of 35 VMs in my Qubes Manager which make some confusion.

It is true there are two flags in the view tab that are supposed to put some order:

Show/Hide inactive VMs
Show/Hide internal VMs

But I found them no much useful.

In fact I keep Show/Hide inactive VMs always flagged, otherwise it would be impossible to start and launch a command in a VM without reverting to the main menu which is even more complex to put in order. But even unflagging it, which information can one get? Only that all active VM are green which now happens all the time thanks to the great work of developers.

Show/Hide internal VMs apparently changes nothing.

What about adding a button "Show only preferred VMs"  with an option to set which VMs are preferred perhaps in VM settings "basic" tab?

For the user it would be very easy to set which VMs are preferred.

In other words, I found that the main menu which is functional for normal OSs is too cumbersome for Qubes with all these VMs and applications that keep repeating for each VM and that should be manually configured. On the other hand Qubes Manager is really snappy. You only have to remember the name of the application  you want to "run command in VM"

But of course once preferred VMs are set, a button in the main menu may show only them in the main menu as well.

Linux Mint  has a similar feature for preferred applications, but in Qubes before reaching the application level there is the VM level, so, when there is time for the easy to use section...

Best

Fran

[Andrew David Wong]

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Good points. I've added a link to your comment here:

https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/1870#issuecomment-
222517690

- --
Andrew David Wong (Axon)
Community Manager, Qubes OS
https://www.qubes-os.org
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[Chris Laprise]

On 05/30/2016 10:47 AM, Franz wrote:
> For various reasons there are now a total of 35 VMs in my Qubes
> Manager which make some confusion.
>
> It is true there are two flags in the view tab that are supposed to
> put some order:
>
> Show/Hide inactive VMs
> Show/Hide internal VMs
>
> But I found them no much useful.
>
> In fact I keep Show/Hide inactive VMs always flagged, otherwise it
> would be impossible to start and launch a command in a VM without
> reverting to the main menu which is even more complex to put in order.
> But even unflagging it, which information can one get? Only that all
> active VM are green which now happens all the time thanks to the great
> work of developers.
>
> Show/Hide internal VMs apparently changes nothing.
>
> What about adding a button "Show only preferred VMs" with an option
> to set which VMs are preferred perhaps in VM settings "basic" tab?
>
> For the user it would be very easy to set which VMs are preferred.
>
> In other words, I found that the main menu which is functional for
> normal OSs is too cumbersome for Qubes with all these VMs and
> applications that keep repeating for each VM and that should be
> manually configured. On the other hand Qubes Manager is really snappy.
> You only have to remember the name of the application you want to
> "run command in VM"

Hi Fran,

Have you tried using Favorites in the KDE launcher? I find that helps.

>
> But of course once preferred VMs are set, a button in the main menu
> may show only them in the main menu as well.

You are giving me ideas... Many possible ways to handle vm menu
overload. I like your preferred flag idea. There could also be a global
switch to toggle display of service vms.

Or, do it like Apple where holding down the Option key shows normally
hidden choices in the menu. This would make for quick access to the
hidden vms without an extra point-and-click.

There could be an app submenu for each vm context menu in Manager itself
having all the possible app choices, and with short-description (i.e.
"Disk usage analyzer") in tooltips.

[Drew White]

There are many things wrong with the qubes-manager, some small things, some rather big.

There are things for the KDE menu system that can be resolved very simply by changing only a few lines of code in the qvm-* applications.

I'd like to see the Manager get an overhaul. but NOT something that looks like https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/1870#issuecomment-223055937

Chris, I agree, there could be some things added like that. They would be advantageous.

[Drew White]

On Wednesday, 15 June 2016 15:17:58 UTC+10, Drew White wrote:

but NOT something that looks like https://github.com/QubesOS/qubes-issues/issues/1870#issuecomment-223055937

We need an interface that is usable.