Usability issue with "export zpool" / "destroy dataset"

[monarchdodra]

I'd like to raise a usability an issue regarding the WebGUI's volume management.

The issue is that the command to export zpool and destroy dataset/zpool are both in the same column, and both use the same icon.

In my opinion, this is can creates unaceptable confusion, since one operation is a completly safe, standard and reversable operation, and the other is an entirely destructive and final operation. Mixing these two operations together is risky at best.

I know we can't save a user from his own stupidity, but case in point: I jost lost an entire dataset, snapshots and all, when I thought I was doing a simple export. It is my own fault for not being careful enough, but I feel the GUI lead me into confusion: "exports are reversible right, I didn't check 'desctroy data' so what is there to worry about?"

I would like to recomment having 2 distinct columns, with two distinct icons. One would be the safer "export zpool" column, simply marked with a friendly green upwards arrow or something, while the other would be the much more dangerous "destroy zpool/dataset", amrked with the red X. This should remove any confusion fron what the command actually does.

Furthermore, "export zpool" would not give the checkbox to "destroy data": If the user trully wants to destroy his zpool, then he should use the "destroy zpool" command.

[monarchdodra]

I also wanted to add that I am an experienced user, and that using a command line, I would have NEVER EVER (not in a thousand years) accidentally destroyed a zpool. It took me less than a week to do it with the WebGUI :(

[protosd]

++ I think there are some very valid points. It's a potentially very confusing/risky design, even more so for less experienced users. Destroy/Wipe? & Export should be separate.

[william]

The new datagrid design in trunk should mitigate this issue. We are not going back to two buttons for export and destroy, this has been discussed before.