pidgin-devel

Re: [Gaim-devel] Usability issue and suggestion: remote file transfer requests

[Andy <spi...@in...>]

All my suggestions bar one are based on current gaim behaviour. 

> 1) What do you do when you do not have a conversation open with a
>    user?

What currently happens if you have the option "Preferences/ Hide new IM
conversations / Always" turned on. Is instead of a new window popping up
when a new message comes in, gaim makes a sound (if you've set one) and
flashes the tray icon with a little envelope emblem on it. If you then
click on that tray icon it opens the new window with the message or adds
a new tab to the current window if you have one open already depending
on your preferences.

I suggest the same behaviour for incoming files, with possibly a
different emblem on it (a document emblem perhaps?)


> 2) I personally tend to ignore new messages most of the time, until I
>    am ready to deal with them.  I don't get file transfers, so I don't
>    have a good feeling about this, but do people tend to expect to be
>    notified of these in a relatively short period of time?  (I would
>    suspect yes, since inattention leads to failed transfers.) Does
>    this mean some additional notification would be in order.

Me also, that's why I have the annoyances set off. I get a sound and a
flashing tray icon then I deal with it in my own time. File transfers do
time out. I don't believe that additional notification is needed other
than the ability to set a different sound and the different tray icon
emblem I mentioned above.

3) We currently don't really allow a way to modify existing text; this
   probably would have to change, if the conversation became more
   dialog-like.  What should this be like?

Okay mock ups are in order as a picture is worth a thousand words an
all... So as not to spam the list with files go here to see a mock up of
what I'm proposing  http://users.on.net/~c0pkf48/Mockup.png

This is what I'd consider the "easy" route as it uses aspects of the
interface that are already there. That is, conversation text and URL
style text.

The other route would be to write some widgets to the bottom of the
window somehow.

Re: [Gaim-devel] Usability issue and suggestion: remote file transfer requests

[Andy <spi...@in...>]

On Thu, 2007-03-22 at 20:52 -0400, Etan S. C. Reisner wrote:
> I think that going the original ICQ client route of creating a whole bunch
> of emblems for different events and sticking them all on the docklet icon
> is rather bad route to take and that the current 'icon flashes on new
> messages' is more than enough, adding other things is just going to get
> complicated.

Not an incredibly important feature, but I based this suggestion on
existing behaviour I just noticed this morning.
If gaim has a message for me it flashes a plain tray icon, if there's a
new conversation waiting for a tab to open it seems to flash the icon
with an envelope emblem on it.


> I *hate* this idea (no offense to you Andy) 
LOTS taken - I slaved over a hot GIMP for seconds to make that! lol ;)

> it is an immense abuse of the
> conversation window to my mind. The linkifying of urls is one thing,
> because that is purely the simplifying of the normal copy and paste action
> for links (and to be honest, personally if I could turn it off I probably
> would) but this idea completely changes the idea of what is involved in a
> conversation, what clickable items in conversations can do, etc.
That's probably down to personal taste. I like to keep stuff simple
also.

> Not to mention that I happen to think the mockup looks terrible, but
> that's entirely a side point.
Okay now you're just getting personal ;) It's just a rough mock up lol


> Adding a menutray icon for a pending file transfer on the other hand is
> not a particularly bad idea, if subtle and only sort of helpful.
I'd be equally as happy with that. I only suggested a combination of;
 1. the tray icon.
 2. the sound prompt
 3. the in window accept/reject dialogue
;to cover all bases as some users do not have a tray in which to display
an icon. I only recently added one to my Gnome panel. Previous to that I
was quite a tray Luddite. But the little flashy man in Gaim has turned
me. 

Re: [Gaim-devel] Usability issue and suggestion: remote file transfer requests

[Casey H. <cas...@gm...>]

Andy wrote:
>> Adding a menutray icon for a pending file transfer on the other hand is
>> not a particularly bad idea, if subtle and only sort of helpful.
> I'd be equally as happy with that. I only suggested a combination of;
>  1. the tray icon.
>  2. the sound prompt
>  3. the in window accept/reject dialogue

I haven't followed all of this thread, but I'd thought I'd chime in and 
say implementing #2 should be trivial (add event to libgaim/sound.h, add 
entry to sounds[] in gtk/gtksound.c, connect to file-recv-request signal 
and play the sound in gtk/gtksound.c). However, this will introduce new 
strings which need translating (HEAD is string frozen, right?).


-casey

Re: [Gaim-devel] Usability issue and suggestion: remote file transfer requests

[Phil H. <ph...@ha...>]

Andy wrote:
> Okay mock ups are in order as a picture is worth a thousand words an
> all... So as not to spam the list with files go here to see a mock up of
> what I'm proposing  http://users.on.net/~c0pkf48/Mockup.png
Thanks for the image.  I just wanted to give my tuppence worth.

Displaying the message inline is fine except that it can move.  If you are sent
a message like this, you take a moment to find your mouse, move to click the
accept and the sender sends a message asking you to hurry up and it moves from
under you.

It reminds me of the old HTML scrolling banner or blink tags, great for normal
people but awful for partially sighted or slow at reading.

Its kind of interesting that I have never heard anyone complain about Firefox or
IE's file download box which works in a similar way, you can navigate to a page
and a download dialogue box opens up which is similar to Gaims practice.

Maybe what is required is like firefox's download statusbar plugin:
http://downloadstatusbar.mozdev.org/

Just a thought.

Regards
Phil Hannent

Re: [Gaim-devel] Usability issue and suggestion: remote file transfer requests

[Andrew S. <an...@en...>]

Phil Hannent wrote:
> Its kind of interesting that I have never heard anyone complain about
> Firefox or IE's file download box which works in a similar way, you
> can navigate to a page and a download dialogue box opens up which is
> similar to Gaims practice.

Web browsers don't send you to download a file when you're not expecting
to download one.  When you click a link, the box appears; this differs
from IM, where you can be sent something while you're not paying
attention to Gaim at all.

> Maybe what is required is like firefox's download statusbar plugin:
> http://downloadstatusbar.mozdev.org/

Something generally like this -- i.e. not inline -- would be better than
having it inline.  The official MSN client always annoyed me when
someone sent me two files: "argh, it moved".

Perhaps something like the buddy authorisation box, stacking up along
the side of the chat window?  That way you have consistency in UI.

Andrew Sidwell