improved usability for thin client with intermittent connection to daemon

[brainchild0]

I run the graphical interface as a thin client connected to a remote daemon. The details of my configuration are that the system running the graphical front end is a laptop with intermittent connectivity to the local area network on which the daemon is available. Sometimes the laptop is disconnected from a network, or is connected to another network, from which the daemon is unreachable, due to routing and firewall considerations.

The current design of the user interface does not offer strong usability for cases of intermittent connection to the daemon.

In particular, following are two observations:

1. If a connection to the daemon is unavailable when the front end launches, and if the front end is configured to connect automatically (i.e. "Auto-connect to selected Daemon"), then the application opens the Connection Manager and displays an error message in a popup dialogue box.
2. If the connection to the daemon drops after the front end had made a connection, then the connection remains closed until the user opens the Connection Manager and attempts to reconnect, at some times also needing to refresh (using "Refresh" button) the daemon status indication.

Manual interaction of both kinds imposes a cumbersome and unnecessary burden on users in scenarios such as the one described.

A more friendly set of behaviors would be as follows:

• Attempt a connection to the daemon at application startup, but request no interaction from the user if the connection is not available.
• Whenever a connection is not active, whether it has been made but then dropped, or had not been available since application startup, periodically poll for availability, at intervals which may be quite frequent, especially during times when a connection had only recently been lost.

These behavior might occur when the existing mode mentioned above has been activated, or some other new mode to be added.

Requested is a set of enhancements of such kind to support silent and automatic handling of scenarios of intermittent availability of a connection to the daemon.

Generally, the benefit of a thin client is optimal by supporting monitoring and control when desired by the user and available through the connection, but imposing minimal burden for the user at other times.