Experience when impersonation is terminated automatically after some time

[Moin]

Fortsetzung der Diskussion von New Bug With Experimental Impersonation Interface:

@Moin

I noticed something similar and I think it was related to me doing something else in between, so I impersonated them for longer than 15 minutes. I think impersonation is terminated then, but the interface doesn’t reflect that. After a reload, I was always back at my admin account.

@martin

Yes there is a hidden experimental_impersonation_time_limit_minutes setting set to 15 minutes. I’m not super familiar with this system, but definitely would be a nicer experience if we auto-refreshed/updated the UI once you pass this limit, or at least indicate it somewhere.

@Moin

I am not sure if it was because 15 minutes had passed, but it’s not unlikely. I didn’t want to wait another 15 minutes to verify. I was more focused on how editing categories worked for the moderator than on the impersonation feature.

But I think the error in the browser console was something that refered to the timer

The change is now stable and I can still reproduce that. Are there any plans to improve the experience for admins after the impersonation expires?

I think a better indication that you are no longer impersonating the user would help to prevent false negative testing where the admin thinks something works for normal users while in fact they are using their admin privileges.

Also, it’s confusing when the button to stop impersonating doesn’t work.

Example screenshot where it seems the user is able to see the staff (Team) category and showing the error using the stop impersonating button.

[martin (Martin Brennan)]

Ah my bad I forgot about this, assigning myself to fix. I think it’s twofold:

1. When the timer runs out, send a MessageBus update to the UI to show that the time limit has been reached. Maybe even show a timer in the UI…
2. If you press “Stop Impersonating” and the time limit is up, don’t error, just reload the page

Might bump the time to 30 minutes too, 15 is pretty quick.

[ted (Ted Johansson)]

@martin

Might bump the time to 30 minutes too, 15 is pretty quick.

Do you think it should be 15 minutes of inactivity instead of a countdown that starts when you start impersonating?

If you haven’t started yet I can have a look at this.

[martin (Martin Brennan)]

I’m not sure, I just wonder how we would define inactivity, if there’s already a way to know this? Also I’m not sure of the original intent of the timer, was it to make sure admins weren’t staying logged in too long generally to other people’s accounts? Would having the timer be delayed indefinitely go against that? Not sure…

If we can figure that out then of course I’m happy to hand this off to you if you’re happy to make a PR

[ted (Ted Johansson)]

@martin

Also I’m not sure of the original intent of the timer, was it to make sure admins weren’t staying logged in too long generally to other people’s accounts? Would having the timer be delayed indefinitely go against that? Not sure…

Yeah. This predates me, so hard to infer. But since the duration is configurable, maybe better we don’t mess with this.

@martin

If we can figure that out then of course I’m happy to hand this off to you if you’re happy to make a PR

I can start with improving the UX for what’s there already with better messaging.