[Asterisk-Users] Help with questions for initial Asterisk wizard (GUI)

[Leif Madsen]

Steven Critchfield wrote:
> On Mon, 2003-10-06 at 23:59, Leif Madsen wrote:
> 
>>Hey all,
>>
>>I am in the middle of creating a new user wizard which will generate all 
>>the .conf's the new Asterisk user will require to get themselves up and 
>>running in Asterisk without having to touch a single configuration file. 
>>  This is what I have come up with as a rough draft.  It is far from 
>>complete, so I'm asking people to submit things that should be added, 
>>changed, removed etc.. etc...  so please help me come up with a good 
>>logic for the questions so that I may start the work on the actual wizard!
> 
> 
> Maybe it's me, but only the most basic of setups will be handled by a
> wizard. The person who does the setup necessarily needs to know a fair
> amount about routing of calls.

Exactly.  This is not meant for the advanced user to come in and manage 
their entire system (at least not at this point).  This is meant to give 
the clueless newbie a little place to start in making their 
configuration instead of having to search all over the web for the 
handbook, websites from different people, asking questions in the IRC 
channel that have been asked 1000 times, etc.. etc..

I understand your concern, but it is simply meant to be a stepping stone 
for those with NO knowledge of how to setup a .conf file in Asterisk.  I 
realize it won't be able to take a non-existant * box to an advanced 
setup ready for production, and that is not what I am trying to 
accomplish.  I'd simply like to give the user a place to start and get 
some basic configuration files so that they can kind of visualize how 
they work.

>>	Do you have any SIP devices? (yes/no)
>>		+ SIP phone
>>		+ Softphone
> 
> 
> Does this make a difference as to whether it is software or not?

No, but it was late, and I was just writing stuff as it came to me :)

> As a side note, you might want to disable the sip module if it isn't
> going to be used to help close down unused ports. If you plan to coddle
> a user, might as well do it right.

Good idea.  I'll have to keep stuff like that in mind for disabling 
modules that aren't being used.

  > Where do you plan on connecting these with actual channels? Also do you
> plan on building out menu generation.

Menu generation would be something I would like to add, perhaps using 
the festival application?  It might not be something I worry about at 
first though.

> Don't forget to explain to the user your coddling about significant
> digits, ie. for x number of extensions you will probably need to extend
> 1 more digit so they all start with the same digit, or only consume 1 or
> 2 significant digits since one or more will also be used to signify
> outbound dialing and any number of other lead digits might need to be
> used in other functions like meetme apps.

Hrm... right.  Yet another thing to keep in mind.

> Might as well add configuration of outbound prefixes for dialing. Ready
> to tackle all those international codes too. I'm sure our euro friends
> will love it if you get those patterns all down for them.

Might as well eh? :)  Perhaps I can just have it ask for the prefixes 
that the user would like added, then the administrator can worry about 
adding all their own prefixes.  If I get THAT ambitious, then we'll see...

>>Would you like to activate any of these extensions now? (yes/no)
>>	+ List extensions with CONFIG | EDIT | DELETE | ADD links
>>		+ Who is going to use this extension? (name)
>>		+ What is the email address of the person as this extension? (for 
>>email notification)
> 
> Shouldn't this be folded into the extension setup?

Probably.

> This should be folded into channel setup. Of course this is where it
> gets tricky as you can't specify a mailbox until you specified
> extensions and worked out the problems with the extension logic.

Right... perhaps voicemail configuration should come more towards the 
end, or at least after all the extensions are configured... ?

> Set up Meetme apps, upload and use voice prompts, layout appropriate
> contexts for incoming outgoing and menus, DISA. 
> 
> What point do you feel that a user is too advanced to us your wizard, or
> at what point do you think a user of your wizard will be more pissed at
> being hindered by the product than helped?

I don't feel that any user should go in thinking this wizard will help 
them put a machine into production.  This wizard is simple meant to give 
the beginning a user to start and learn how to actually manage the .conf 
files him/herself.  I look at it like this:  I'm a new user, and I have 
never even thought about looking at a configuration file for Asterisk, 
what kinds of things might I want to start out with.  I'd probably want 
to setup my dev kit I just ordered from Digium.  I might want to connect 
to some sort of SIP proxy so I can receive calls, such as FWD, 
SIPPhone.. etc.. etc..

I may have a pair of Asterisk boxes with SIP devices that I want to call 
between either with SIP or IAX (and as has been mentioned, the SIP 
devices can be either softphones or hardphones.... my bad :))

I'd like to have voicemail setup, meetme conference, call parking, music 
on hold, and any of the other number of basic functionalities that are 
touted on the asterisk.org website.  Simply to get up and running with 
some of these things might be nice for an end user to get a good idea of 
how the configurations work.  Perhaps a tutorial can be built in at each 
step explaining to the user WHY they are doing what they are doing?  Who 
knows.

> I'm not trying to insult you, or necessarily put down what you want to
> do. I just feel that it is way to simplistic to think a wizard will make
> anyone happy but a small fraction of users. If you 

I don't take anything as you said as an insult or a put down, but I have 
to respectfully disagree with you.  I think a large number of users will 
be helped by this application, specifially the people who have never 
looked at a configuration file.  It all seems so easy now to go and 
simply add an extension, or a registration for another service, or add 
MOH, call parking blah blah blah, but to a new user, these things seem 
immensely complicated, especially with no real workable configuration. 
Sure, there are the sample config's, but if you just go make samples, 
then /usr/sbin/asterisk -cvvvvvvg, then you really aren't going to have 
much of a working configuration.  This is maybe meant as a stepping 
stone for something to get that working configuration instead of using 
make samples, or to compliment it.

I'm all in favour of people learning how to configure their own boxen, 
and I'm not really trying to make an interface for administrating an 
Asterisk box (that is a ways away), but as I've said a few times now, a 
place for newbies to get an asterisk box up and running without having 
to spend 3 days searching archives, and allow them to play in the least 
time possible.

At least this is my thought in that crazy little world with the purple 
sky I live in...

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