RequestPolicy/tractest — Issue #64: add option to permanently allow items that are temporarily allowed
Author: jsamuel
Created: 2011-12-22 02:34:56+00:00
State: open
Labels: extension

A user reports by email:

When a site has been temporarily allowed (for instance, to see if images will now load) it would be very useful, if when you select that site under 'allowed destinations' in addition to the 'forbid all requests to siteX', you had the additional choice of permanently allowing the requests to siteX, because out of the 50 or so sites that were requested, that was the one where the pictures were (I hate websites like that, but I have to use them too often).

As I'm sure you are aware, siteX quite often has NO obvious connection to the requesting site and it is a pain to sort through, find the site, allow it temporarily, disallow it and then re-allow it permanently (as a from-to pair, rarely as an open to, in which case I will deal with it).

This does make sense. Making it easier to use "temporarily allow" is good because it keeps people from getting annoyed at the process of "temp allow, forbid, permanent allow" and just resorting to permanently allowing.

For consistency, it seems that the option should be available both when the origin-to-destination is temporarily allowed and when the destination is temporarily allowed. Actually, it should arguably exist for when the origin is temporarily whitelisted. This isn't because I imagine huge demand, but I feel the UI should be consistent and it's a reasonable need for any form of temporary whitelisting people are doing. It would change the temporary whitelisting to a permanent whitelist of the same type.

The part I'm uncertain of is what the text should be.

The first way that comes to mind is that it should be the same as other times one is permanently whitelisting. However, it turns out it would be confusing seeing this in the submenu of an allowed destination:

* Forbid requests from X to Y
* Allow requests from X to Y

as the item is already allowed.

The next line of thinking says "well, let's just put the word 'permanently' in front". However, I've tried to avoid using any form of the word 'permanent' anywhere because it's not really permanent and the word 'persistent' seems a bit too technical (and keep in mind whatever word gets used is going to be translated into many languages, some which will be clearer and some of which will be more confusing).

So, what this should say needs to be thought about more and suggestions are welcome. I should probably take a look in a thesaurus for other options besides 'permanent' and 'persistent'.

Of course, this menu option won't need to reload the page when selected.