0008017: GNUnet FCFS GNS Registrar Post-mortem - MantisBT

ID	Project	Category	View Status	Date Submitted	Last Update

0008017	Taler	other	public	2023-12-19 19:37	2024-01-18 23:43

Reporter	schanzen	Assigned To	sebasjm
Priority	normal	Severity	text	Reproducibility	N/A
Status	assigned	Resolution	open
Product Version	0.9.3
Target Version	1.0

Summary	0008017: GNUnet FCFS GNS Registrar Post-mortem
Description	I hope I remembered everything. See also discussions in mattermost. Primarily this was used: https://docs.taler.net/taler-merchant-manual.html#installation # Installation (Debian) Used package repo. Works. # Configuration - The configuration description is confusing. Especially because there are differences wrt where the files are located depending on the installation method. This should not be IMO. - It is unnecessary to explain details of the config file format. This is standard init-file format. Also, this is advanced stuff (fallback values etc). I would much rather know what to configure where! - There is a big section on taler-config. Then (way too late !) a note that the tool MUST NOT be used when using the packages. (WAT???) - The currency configuration was broken (missing currency.conf not shipped with package). (fixed) - The default database name in the config (not a doc issue) was "DATABASE". This is what it is called now for me, becaue the config was not clear that this should be modified. (fixed) - The taler demo exchange key was wrong. (fixed) - Port vs unix socket: The docs are unclear what to use. It should be clear that NOTHING NEEDS TO BE CHANGED with the package setup and that a nginx file as configured will work. 3.6.1 is NOT necessary, but is very scary. # Merchant UI - Needs a lot of love IMO - "Bank accounts": It is not clear what should be done here. Hints in the UI badly needed. I found somewhere in the Taler docs that a special IBAN should be used. That should be in the UI itself as a note. "Bank accounts" cannot be deleted but they can be misconfigured (e.g. try entering a https://-domain for a x-taler account). It is also not clear which is used at any point. There is no way to select the "default". Finally, it is also not clear WHAT THE BANK ACCOUNT IS USED FOR. You basicall (on order!) get an error telling you that a "wire transfer method" is missing. Which is confusing, because nowhere in "Bank accounts" does it say anything about wire transfers, or what those are. - "Wire transfers": A clusterfkc. I have (and partially still do not) have no idea what this even means. I also cannot tell in what state an order currently is in. Order life cycle should be explained (with diagram, ideally part of the UI). - Wire transfer errors are not visible in the UI In general, I feel that the UI is borderline useless. I would rather enter everything in a config file. (or have a better UI) # Integration - Integration of Merchant API into service was rather simple (I had some background though) - Currencies and their format are a big "?". There are native renderers for ISO standards, but that does not seem to apply here, which is unclear why. The merchant badly needs a helper API to do this, since it also practically dictates the format (through the exposed currency specification) - Currency specification: I was for most of the time unaware that the merchant provides the currency specification and that applications do not have to parse a conf for that. Not documented anywhere that this is how it is supposed to be used. Yes, I know the DD. It is overly complicated considering you are not commonly going to handle a lot of currencies, and if you do, you do not know the intricacies of how to render (agian, as the app. Ther merchant probably knows!). - The katakana KUDOS "ku" is tricky: No user will identify this with a currency symbol. Most cannot even identify this as KUDOS. No idea how to fix this. # App - (I posted various screenshots in Mattermost) - Withdrawal: The TOS page war is scary and a mess (in terms of layouting). Withdrawing does nto send be back to the overview with my money, but to some other page. - The "receipt overview": It is unclear that the "summary" is (can be?) a clickable URL. This should be a button instead that takes you to the fulfillment URL. How does this look like for summary messages without fulfillment URL? - Payment trigger on QR scan makes a very annoying sound. Cannot be disabled (I think) - The demo app should make it easier to withdraw more coins from the demo bank after the first time (the first time you get a nice link, then its basically gone forever). - The payment display is chaotic: There is a fee, a price and a sum. All of them are named incorrectly, I think, at least in the German translation. The fee and price are summed up, but they are displayed with a different sign, so the sum (seems to be) wrong. - It is totally unclear where the fee comes from, and why it must be paid, and who receives it. (I know, you do not have to explain, I am telling you what somebody who does not know thinks) # Current status - Wire transfers do not work. - Orders work fine. - A technically savvy person can setup and use a merchant + UI. Beyond that, impossible. - Once setup, it seems to work (minus wire transfers)
Tags	No tags attached.

Christian Grothoff 2023-12-25 18:37 manager ~0020808	docs.git::0dd932ed..f00ca4a3 fixes a few things: - move taler-config explanation way to the back, warn more against -V - clarify up-front that unix/tcp setup is already done in binary packages, and point towards existing sites-available templates - clarified in API spec that currency specification is merely a rendering hint that can be ignored

Christian Grothoff 2023-12-25 19:00 manager ~0020809	docs.git::f00ca4a3..47a153af provides some first documentation on merchant accounts and transfers, and fixes some minor issues where the documentation was outdated.

Christian Grothoff 2023-12-25 19:02 manager ~0020810	MarcS / sebasjm: please review schanzen's comments on the iOS app and the SPA and try to address all of them. Report back here what you did do.

MarcS 2023-12-28 10:05 developer ~0020814	> # App > - Withdrawal: The TOS page war is scary and a mess (in terms of layouting). iOS: MarkDown looks nice. ;-) > Withdrawing doesn’t send me back to the overview with my money, but to some other page. iOS: returns to Balances after b-i-withdrawals, and currently after manual withdrawals stays where you started from (Banking). Will change that also to go to Balances. > - The "receipt overview": It is unclear that the "summary" is (can be?) a clickable URL. This should be a button instead that takes you to the fulfillment URL. How does this look like for summary messages without fulfillment URL? iOS: currently only shows a summary in the (common) detail view. Once the second detail view (for payments/refunds) gets implemented it will of course be reached by a standard iOS tableview cell. > - Payment trigger on QR scan makes a very annoying sound. Cannot be disabled (I think) iOS: there are no `QR scan sounds´. Payment sounds (the guitar riff from carlo von lynX) are played after an operation finished, and can be switched off completely in settings, independent of haptic feedback. Perhaps we could add a volume control to make the sound softer. > - The demo app should make it easier to withdraw more coins from the demo bank after the first time (the first time you get a nice link, then its basically gone forever). ACK, we need not only a button to withdraw manually, but also a button to switch to the bank and withdraw bank-integrated. But we cannot just add this to Banking because we would confuse the user. We need to EXPLAIN the difference between manual and b-i-withdrawals. I will add a `Demo Bank Website´ button to the Banking view, and a textual hint that you can start a b-i-withdrawal from there. Months ago I already added a button/link to the Balances section to transition the user to the demo shop where they can spend the withdrawn coins. > - The payment display is chaotic: There is a fee, a price and a sum. All of them are named incorrectly, I think, at least in the German translation. In the iOS app (still not translated yet) all english names are correct - maybe Ivan/Torsten or Stefan could check the Android app. > The fee and price are summed up, but they are displayed with a different sign, so the sum (seems to be) wrong. The iOS app doesn’t show signs in the summary. I got rid of them months ago. I expect users to be able to compare brutto with netto and find out themselves whether the fee is added up (payments, outgoing) or deducted (withdrawals, incoming), without needing a sign. But of course we can do an A/B test once we got a decent amount of users. > - It is totally unclear where the fee comes from, and why it must be paid, and who receives it. (I know, you do not have to explain, I am telling you what somebody who does not know thinks) This is a general problem of Taler. Maybe we could add a button "What is this fee?" which would lead to an explanation (within the app, not on an external website).

Date Modified	Username	Field	Change
2023-12-19 19:37	schanzen	New Issue
2023-12-19 19:37	schanzen	Description Updated
2023-12-19 19:41	schanzen	Description Updated
2023-12-19 19:44	schanzen	Product Version	0.11 => 0.9.3
2023-12-22 13:57	Christian Grothoff	Assigned To	=> Christian Grothoff
2023-12-22 13:57	Christian Grothoff	Status	new => assigned
2023-12-22 14:36	Christian Grothoff	Target Version	=> 1.0
2023-12-25 18:37	Christian Grothoff	Note Added: 0020808
2023-12-25 19:00	Christian Grothoff	Note Added: 0020809
2023-12-25 19:02	Christian Grothoff	Note Added: 0020810
2023-12-25 19:13	Christian Grothoff	Assigned To	Christian Grothoff => MarcS
2023-12-28 10:05	MarcS	Note Added: 0020814
2023-12-28 10:07	MarcS	Assigned To	MarcS => sebasjm
2024-01-18 23:43	Christian Grothoff	Relationship added	parent of 0008116