[Network Settings GUI] "DNS Server" and "Search Domains" Add buttons overwrite item currently being edited

[Loren]

This is a bug in the "Network Settings" GUI in Ubuntu 8.04.

This applies to the "DNS" tab on the "Network Settings" dialog:

UBUNTU VERSION:

loren@loren-desktop:~$ lsb_release -rd
Description: Ubuntu 8.04
Release: 8.04

BUG DESCRIPTION:

if a DNS server IP address or a search domain is being edited (or is selected for editing with the text cursor flashing in it) and you click the "+ Add" button, the item you are currently editing will be replaced by the new entry.

DESIRED BEHAVIOR:

When a field in the either list is being edited, clicking the add button should close the current item *AND* add a new one (perhaps unless the current item isn't valid). The same bug applies to the "Search Domains" list This is a look and feel issue, but is very unintuitive.

[Michele Mangili (mangilimic)]

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better. You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering if this is still an issue for you. Can you try with the latest Ubuntu release? Thanks in advance.

[Loren (loren-silvercash)]

I am still running Ubuntu 8.04 (for 3rd party software support reasons) but it is fully up to date. I have just tested this bug and found it to still be intact. Let me detail the steps to reproduce the bug and let me know if you can reproduce it in Karmic Koala.

1) open the System->Administration->Network application
2) Select the DNS tab
3) click the Unlock button and enter the password to unlock the dialog
4) Click the "Add" button (to add a new DNS server)
5) for example let's type "8.8.8.8"

HERE IS THE BUG:

6) now say we want to add a SECOND DNS (say "8.8.4.4") the obvious thing to do is click "Add" a second time

If you haven't pressed "Enter", clicking "Add" will remove the 8.8.8.8 entry and replace it with "Type address".. and search domains works the same way.

[Mathieu Trudel-Lapierre (cyphermox)]

This was a common issue with treeview-like widgets. However, the DNS/search domain entries has been vastely redesigned since 8.04 and so this issue no longer applies to newer Ubuntu releases. I'm marking this a Fix Released because newer versions of Ubuntu than 8.04 don't have that bug, though I can understand and accept that it's not fixed yet in 8.04...

However, I'm not sure how much we *can* fix it. I'd rather avoid making small UI changes if even for adding a signal like it's likely missing to handle this particular method of updating the fields, because 8.04 has been released for a while and this bug doesn't seem very critical to me: there's a clear workaround. I agree though that doing this may cause loss of data in some cases.

As an alternative, you may want to try using a slightly more up-to-date version of NM from the NetworkManager team PPA: http://launchpad.net/~network-manager/+archive/ppa