Bitcoin-Qt signmessage GUI #582

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Does this functionality also allow for verifying a signed message? (I checked quickly and was unable to find it)

No, it doesn't. This gets users able to work with webservices. The next logical steps once this is merged would be 1) verify, and/or 2) sign & email from the Send page

I'm not entirely convinced that signing/verifying messages should be this prominent in the bitcoin UI. I'm fine with adding it in the menu, but is it central enough to the workflow to warrant adding a tab for it? I tried to keep it as simple as possible with the tabs.

What does the rest think?

I would agree with laanwj here, a tab should (IMHO) be reserved for something which an average person would do on a regular basis, which message signing just isnt.

So what happens when you open the signing panel? just have none of the tabs selected?

New window?

I kindof like Bitcoin-Qt's single-window design.

I agree that this is a dilemma. It would be nice to fit it in the single-window design, but without exposing it as a first-class operation.

Making the option selectable from the menu bar, then showing it in the main pane while deselecting all of the tabs seems fine with me.

This gives it a bit of a 'hidden feature' feel. But as there is no verify functionality yet, it still feels pretty experimental anyway.

Ok, I made it only on the File menu, but still appears in the single-window style (deselecting the other tabs).

I would argue that putting it in the main window but without selecting any tabs is worse than having it in either a new window or a tab. The 'hidden feature' feel never sits well with me when I see it in an application - it just makes me feel like no effort went into UI design and it was just slapped in there, which is never a good feeling to have, especially in financial software where every effort needs to be made to encourage trust in the application (ha like we do that now...)

You have a point, but in that case it would be better to not include it all yet, because it's not finished yet. And I have a vague idea why signmessage could be useful, but how to integrate "secure messaging" usefully for end users without turning it into half a mail/IM client is not exactly clear with me.

Still I like experimental features and playing with them. Sometimes you discover novel applications just by having something available. And I don't want to linger pull requests that are essentially good for too long.

So that's my reasoning to pull this and somehow make it hidden for "normal payment users", or maybe this is a good case for starting a bitcoin-next or UI-next branch where we can be 'innovative'?

On Thu, Oct 13, 2011 at 11:31 PM, Matt Corallo < reply@reply.github.com>wrote:

I would argue that putting it in the main window but without selecting any tabs is worse than having it in either a new window or a tab. The 'hidden feature' feel never sits well with me when I see it in an application - it just makes me feel like no effort went into UI design and it was just slapped in there, which is never a good feeling to have, especially in financial software where every effort needs to be made to encourage trust in the application (ha like we do that now...)

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #582 (comment)

This feature is finished, as soon as someone decides whether it's allowed to have a tab or not. It provides useful functionality that people need /yesterday/. It's not some "hey, this might be useful for new stuff", it's "hey, people are already needing to use this even before it's got a final release".

Well the consensus seems to be a separate window for now.

But please do explain to us (or point to the wiki) how this is useful in trade in the current form... Op 14 okt. 2011 08:13 schreef "Luke-Jr" < reply@reply.github.com> het volgende:

This feature is finished, as soon as someone decides whether it's allowed to have a tab or not. It provides useful functionality that people need [i]yesterday[/i]. It's not some "hey, this might be useful for new stuff", it's "hey, people are already needing to use this even before it's got a final release".

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #582 (comment)

This is a very useful addition for many merchants or pools who want to verify a user based on bitcoin address. Although I would strongly argue for merchants doing their own auth instead of wasting time with complicated sigh-message stuff, hence why I would argue for this not taking a very central role in the gui. (also, luke stop talking about your need for things in the third person)

"Wladimir J. van der Laan" reply@reply.github.com wrote:

Well the consensus seems to be a separate window for now.

But please do explain to us (or point to the wiki) how this is useful in trade in the current form... Op 14 okt. 2011 08:13 schreef "Luke-Jr" < reply@reply.github.com> het volgende:

This feature is finished, as soon as someone decides whether it's allowed to have a tab or not. It provides useful functionality that people need [i]yesterday[/i]. It's not some "hey, this might be useful for new stuff", it's "hey, people are already needing to use this even before it's got a final release".

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #582 (comment)

Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHub: #582 (comment)

In most cases, this enables merchants to just publish a single Bitcoin address for payments on their website, and if there is any confusion over who paid request individual customers sign their receipt with a sending address. It is also useful, as BlueMatt implied, for proving an Eligius miner controls an account (which is identified only by its payout address). Both of these problems have been around for a while now. ThomasV also mentioned that he has been waiting for this feature for some unspecified purpose.

ACK on the code changes for release-after-0.5. I don't have an opinion on file menu versus tab.

First time I look at signmessage_gui:

• it looks very inconsistent: it's a tab, but it is not listed as a tab?
• items in the systray should not affect what the main program window does (as opposed to say opening a pop-up separately); i know this is not entirely related to this pull request, but it still feels wrong.

ACK

Has been merged

Is there any documentation anywhere explaining what this feature is for and when it should be used? I suspect most bitcoin users won't know what to use this for otherwise.

Please don't comment on long-closed issues. Open a new one.