Re: [Gaim-devel] Slash commands

[Luke S. <lsc...@us...>]

On Thu, Oct 20, 2005 at 03:56:23PM +0100, Richard Laager wrote:
> On Thu, 2005-10-20 at 09:16 -0500, Ethan Blanton wrote:
<snip> 
> > Add to this the fact that NO ONE uses /commands in Gaim.  Sure, there
> > may be a few developers who do, but I think the complete and utter
> > lack of outside feature requests for commands is a testament to the
> > fact that most users do not.  And it's not even that "power users"
> > expect to have /commands ... I know that I, for one, don't use them
> > and don't want them.  There are simply not enough control-style
> > actions which one would wish to perform with sufficient regularity to
> > justify being unable to paste a simple filename to a buddy.  :-P
> 
> Likewise, how many bug reports do we have about slash commands? Have you
> actually experienced a problem with a slash command conflicting with a
> filename you wanted to send?

We have a hand full of feature requests surrounding slash commands.
We DID have a significant number of bug reports concerning them, but
then we made strings that happen to start with / get passed on as
messages, and that cleared up the reports in nearly all cases.

> 
> > So, in short ... how is using a non-conflicting keystroke to bring up
> > a command input box (for those users who are convinced that they MUST
> > HAVE a command input box) a bad solution?  I think it's a good
> > solution, and superior to prefixing commands with a printable
> > character.  (Note that I suggest leaving /commands in place for IRC,
> > and maybe SILC.)

what if the input box were tied to the window, for example,
displaying it just above the input box?  we'd have to watch for
window resizing though.

> 
> I'm not sure I like the idea of having slash commands in some protocols
> and not others. I believe that the ultimate goal should be to abstract
> away protocol differences to the extent possible. As a user, I want
> similar behavior regardless of what protocol I happen to be using.
> 
> Richard

This is an argument that carries weight with me.  It is in fact the
origin of my thought to avoid slash commands entirely where the UI
allows it.

luke