Comment 5 for bug 632361

On Mon, Nov 1, 2010 at 11:17 AM, Matthew Paul Thomas <email address hidden> wrote:
> Where would those strings appear?

These strings will appear in the Software Center client (not the
opened browser window).

>
> The first string is unsuitable as a window title, because it uses
> sentence case and punctuation; correct for a window title would be
> something like "Purchase Unsuccessful". And it would be unsuitable as
> alert primary text, because it's not a complete sentence; it needs
> "Sorry, there was a" at the start of it. (To be fair, "Save changes to
> XYZ?" is not a complete sentence either, but it's a well-worn
> contraction of one.)

Great - that's why we were asking for your help :)

>
> The main problem with the second string is that it says "something went
> wrong" but not what. If there's no way of telling *what* went wrong,
> that sentence can't do anything and should be removed. A secondary

The exact failure reasons are returned to the client and will be
logged, but we (I) assumed that it would not be helpful to present
those to the purchaser. ie. 'Unable to verify your identity as the
identity API is not available.', or 'Unable to create Launchpad
subscription as the Launchpad API is unavailable' etc., hence going
for something generic in the client which can also be localized.

If you think it would be better to provide exact errors to the
purchaser, I can provide you with all the current failure reasons if
you can help us make them more user-friendly. If we do decide to go
this way, we might also be better off updating the agent to return
error codes and include the strings in the client.

> problem is that the string doesn't tell me what I should do now. Should
> I try again, or should I give up? If I should try again, when should I
> try? In a few minutes? Tomorrow?

Given that the real reason could be any of the various services being
unavailable (LP api, payments api, identity-provider, payment backend
etc.), could we say "please try again later", ideally with a link to a
page outlining support options (ie. faq + other options). (BTW:
forwarding you a conversation about software center support options).

So, please tweak the following, or help us create a better option:

Dialog title: Purchase Unsuccessful
Dialog text: Sorry, there was an error during your purchase and your
payment has been cancelled. Please try again later. If the problem
persists please [link]contact Software Center support[/link]. (yuk,
lots of room for improvement there).