[Feature Discussion] Improved Login Portal

[kevATin]

The login page of NextCloud is rather bland. It allows you to log-in, reset your password, and (if you have the app installed) register, and then you're at the dashboard already. That's about it. Some people might not want more out of the login page, but I think some additional, optional features would be nice. The way it currently works NextCloud is only really useful to set up in an environment where there is internet access and where people have already decided that they want to be users. My inspirations for this come from projects like PirateBox, LibraryBox, other local websites served over WiFi, and also captive portals. It seems that NC expects to be run as an addition to already existing websites that attract users, but I think even if NC is the only thing running on a webserver it should still be able to clearly communicate what it's about and (if desired by the admin) give the visitor reasons to sign up. If the sign up process requires internet access (email codes) then it would be useless for any offline scenario; but that's probably more an issue with the registration app.

Just like how users can customize the widgets on their dashboard admins should be able to customize the widgets on the login page.

Widget Ideas:

• Text Box: a text box to display information, could potentially support variables (%useramount, %currentdate, %adminname, etc), apps could add their own variables, allows simple formatting and links,
• Image Box: a simple box for a picture file
• Link Buttons: small buttons that open a new tab to the specified link, icon file can be specified, useful for multi-site networks, linking to blogs, wikis, forums, shops, facebook, twitter, and not just web URLs but any URI like a bitcoin address for donations, email URI, etc; it might make the most sense to put these at the top where NC app icons usually are,
• Shout Box: a chat box like on old websites, could be added as a special Talk room and only be available when the Talk app is installed, option to allow/prevent visitors from typing in messages, the room should be accessible in the Talk app and admins should be able to set which users have permission to post there,
• Time and Date: UTC and/or local
• Calendar: could be used to show any events within the current week that are shared with anyone, or just a specific upcoming event,
• Warrant Canary: a warrant canary
• Guest Auto Login: if the Guest app is installed, instead of requiring a user to set up a guest account for someone and send them the login details, any visitor can simply press a "Login as Guest" button and the Guest app generates an account in the background, potentially deleting it on logout, this would be useful for instances where users just visit spontaneously and temporarily,
• Language Selection: changes the language of the text on the login page,
• RSS/Atom Feed: admins should be able to post feed entries that are then published in this feed, it should be linked on both the login page as well as the dashboard, would allow admins to easily update users about new information using an established standard without visitors having to make accounts or enter their emails or anything,
• Feed Box: a box that displays a latest entries of a specified rss/atom feed, initially my idea was to only embed the above local feed, but i see no reason why it could be used for any feed,
• Embed Box: a empty box that allows you to embed any sort of script or iframe,

Any other ideas for widgets that might be useful? Any other ideas on how the login page could be improved?

I believe by opening up the possibilities of the login page NextCloud would be opening up to a lot of new use cases. Is this something that could be added to NextCloud?

[nuokh]

This was part of an internal discussion in my it department a while back. Thanks for the elaborate feature request - couldn't have summed it up better.