From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2005-05-23 21:38:24
|
On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 02:31:37PM -0700, Kai Chen wrote: > > Hi dear Gaim developers, > > I am Kai from Linspire.com. We noticed that "Raise window on events" in > newer version (after 1.1.0) of gaim doesn't work. It works in version > 1.0.2. > > And sleeping and resuming often confounds Gaim too. It seems to think > you're connected, but you are really not. > > I would appreciate it if you could take a look the issues and let me know. > > Best regards! > > Kai I am not able to duplicate this on debian linux with fvwm2. I am not really familiar with what sort of environment linspire puts you in, but if it is possible to change window managers, you might try that. further, 1.1.0 is several versions old, does it persist if you upgrade to 1.3.0? luke |
From: Marcos P. <mar...@gm...> - 2005-06-01 21:34:05
|
not at all, i'd be happy to help. these werent unsuspecting users, btw. in my company the IT department works very closely with the employees to make sure everything is how they want it and that they're comfortable. the ones who tested gaim knew ahead of time that there'd be problems and willingly allowed themselves to be put on the spot so that their findings and reactions might help in the future when there actually *is* a rollout. i find that people are often willing to go through that because they understand that it'll probably help them later on. it's not like i installed it overnight and expected them to deal with it. but yeah, to put an end to this email, i look forward to helping conduct a survey with some of my users once the freeze happens. thanks again for the work with gaim On 6/1/05, Luke Schierer <lsc...@us...> wrote: > I hope you are not *too* upset with me here. I'm more than a little > upset that someone would do that to unsuspecting users. It was > horridly premature. That being said, when we *do* get to a freeze > point, and are looking for testers (as I said, we've already promised > to give warren from redhat an early look), this sort of testing > *would* be valuable. If I haven't utterly turned you off, there will > be an announcement on gaim-devel when the time comes. >=20 > luke >=20 > On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 03:56:50PM -0500, Marcos Pinto wrote: > > > This is going to be blunt. that was a STUPID thing to do. How many > > > times must we tell people that cvs is NOT ready for general use? > > > > i have no problem with bluntness. :-) i was *not* thinking of doing a > > release of gaim 2.0.0 before it's finished. this was nothing more > > than a test case for me to gage things (which was why it was only > > installed for a few users) and i thought that you might also like some > > feedback. trying to do you a favor here, luke. because of my > > findings i now plan to write a guide about the changes to gaim to hand > > out to the employees when the upgrade occurs. that way, when they > > have a problem or find something different, they'll have a place to > > very easily look up a solution. in fact, i'd be more than willing to > > give you the guide once gaim 2.0.0 freezes if you want to put it on > > your site or something. > > > > > That's interesting, but not entirely unpredicted. When we removed > > > the button bar, I suggested we move the "send" up to the right of the > > > input widget, just as the buddy icons are currently to the left of > > > them. I wonder why this is though, since it is so much more > > > efficient to use a key stroke to send. > > > > i'm pretty sure none of the users even use the "send" button. it's > > just something that confused them when they saw that it wasnt there. > > i like your idea of having "send" to the right of the input widget. > > > > > I'm not surprised. this is unfinished, it should not be loosing away > > > messages like this when we release. BUT YOU KNEW IT WASN'T FINISHED > > > BECUASE WE'VE BEEN SAYING IT IS NOT READY FOR GENERAL USE SINCE WE > > > FIRST BRANCHED. so you KNEW that users were going to hit this, and > > > that it wouldnt' be intuitive, BEFORE you did this to your users. > > > > > > > yes, i did know and i wasnt surprised in the least. i was not > > planning on rolling out gaim 2.0.0 before release even if the small > > group ran into zero problems. again, and i'm not sure how else to say > > this, it was simply a test case and i thought you might like to hear > > some feedback. > > > > > some things you didn't note: preferences, as a ui, are horridly > > > broken, esp. if you enable plugins. There are some issues upgrading > > > new accounts, under unknown circumstances, the first time an account > > > signs on with 2.0.0cvs, sometimes the buddies will appear to be > > > groups. under unknown situations, preferences aren't saving. under > > > partly understood situations, draging or closing tabs will cause a > > > crash. other issues are listed at gaim.sf.net/gary/bugs.xml > > > > this wasnt brought up because most of my users arent the type to look > > at a program's preferences. like i said, these are the typical joes. > > > > > Further, I've seen your name on this mailing list before, so you > > > probly saw the LONG threads on the usability of the ui, and what it > > > should look like. So you saw Tim's proposed, and generally liked, > > > modifications to the ui at sean/status.php, which also have not been > > > implemented yet. > > > > i'm not talking about what *i* liked and disliked here. i'm a fan of > > what's been done. i'm talking about how normal users react to what's > > been done, which is why at the end of my last email i stated that i > > didnt know which type of userbase you were aiming for, but hoped you > > could find my information useful. if you dont find it useful, then > > that's fine with me. no loss on my end > |
From: Peter L. <spa...@si...> - 2005-06-01 21:45:45
|
Luke Schierer wrote: > On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 03:56:50PM -0500, Marcos Pinto wrote: > > >>i'm pretty sure none of the users even use the "send" button. it's >>just something that confused them when they saw that it wasnt there. >>i like your idea of having "send" to the right of the input widget. > > > I'd wonder. It'd be worth looking over people's sholders. I know my > mother, who surpisingly does use IM (though primarily to see if my > brother, way at college, is available for a phone call or not), is > consistently confused by the send button exactly as Sean describes. > For that reason, sean's position is something that I have significant > sympathy for, though I am not sure how to make this change more > obvious and intuitive for people who are used to seeing a send button. > > The only reason I miss send is when I'm so bored in a chat room and descend in to sending one line smilies (or I only have one hand free, eg, drinking a cuppa). Click smiley selector->select smiley->release mouse->press enter on keyboard. Not a particularly fluid usage of UI. Regards, Pete. |
From: Gary K. <gr...@re...> - 2005-06-01 23:15:59
|
On Thu, 2005-06-02 at 07:45 +1000, Peter Lawler wrote: <snip> > The only reason I miss send is when I'm so bored in a chat room and=20 > descend in to sending one line smilies (or I only have one hand free,=20 > eg, drinking a cuppa). Click smiley selector->select smiley->release=20 > mouse->press enter on keyboard. Not a particularly fluid usage of UI. >=20 > Regards, >=20 > Pete. Perhaps shortcuts for EVERYTHING on the imhtml toolbar would be more consistent? --=20 Gary Kramlich <gr...@re...> |
From: John B. S. <joh...@gm...> - 2005-06-06 20:41:46
|
On 6/1/05, Peter Lawler <spa...@si...> wrote: > The only reason I miss send is when I'm so bored in a chat room and > descend in to sending one line smilies (or I only have one hand free, > eg, drinking a cuppa). Click smiley selector->select smiley->release > mouse->press enter on keyboard. Not a particularly fluid usage of UI. Yeah, I miss it as well at times. For me, it's a slightly different situation - paste and send. If I want to send something to someone, it's very convenient to just middle-click the text area, and then click Send. Otherwise, it's middle-click and Enter. Either way, I'll live. On the other hand, I guess I understand the usability issue, except that it just looks so 'empty' to me, and I'd bet there are some people who are just so mouse-oriented that they might not know what to do without a button. Every day, I see people log into various systems by clicking in the user field, then clicking in the password field, and finally, clicking on the log in button. (Talk about not being fluid!) If you took away the 'log in' button, and left the "Enter to submit" action, they'd be hopelessly lost. Cheers, John --=20 John B. Silvestri perl -we 'use strict; print qq|[Insert witty .sig here]\n|;' http://knuth.mville.edu/~john/ |
From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2005-06-06 21:35:56
|
Someone needs to beat me to get me to Reply All. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sean Egan <sea...@gm...> Date: Jun 6, 2005 5:34 PM Subject: Re: Fwd: [Gaim-devel] UPnP To: Robert McQueen <rob...@de...> On 6/6/05, Robert McQueen <rob...@de...> wrote: > I'm sure someone has posted (several times?) a proof of concept UPnP > traversal implementation to this mailing list... no library dependency > or bloat. yes, it was a stand-alone application that did something with UPnP NAT traversal. Most likely the real trick isn't so much implementing the protocol, but in integrating UPnP in Gaim anyway. Either way, it's the applicant's job to justify the project as an appropriate learning experience. Just being on the list doesn't necessarily mean it's a good project. -s. |
From: Warren T. <wt...@re...> - 2005-05-23 21:55:36
|
Luke Schierer wrote: > On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 02:31:37PM -0700, Kai Chen wrote: > >>Hi dear Gaim developers, >> >>I am Kai from Linspire.com. We noticed that "Raise window on events" in >>newer version (after 1.1.0) of gaim doesn't work. It works in version >>1.0.2. >> >>And sleeping and resuming often confounds Gaim too. It seems to think >>you're connected, but you are really not. >> >>I would appreciate it if you could take a look the issues and let me know. >> >>Best regards! >> >>Kai > > > > I am not able to duplicate this on debian linux with fvwm2. I am not > really familiar with what sort of environment linspire puts you in, > but if it is possible to change window managers, you might try that. > > further, 1.1.0 is several versions old, does it persist if you > upgrade to 1.3.0? > AFAIK Linspire is Lindows, and KDE? And according to the GNOME guys, metacity is behaving "like KDE" according to the freedesktop.org spec, so maybe they're seeing the same issues as us. Warren Togami wt...@re... |
From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2005-05-23 22:08:09
|
On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 11:56:01AM -1000, Warren Togami wrote: > Luke Schierer wrote: > >On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 02:31:37PM -0700, Kai Chen wrote: > > > >>Hi dear Gaim developers, > >> > >>I am Kai from Linspire.com. We noticed that "Raise window on events" in > >>newer version (after 1.1.0) of gaim doesn't work. It works in version > >>1.0.2. > >> > >>And sleeping and resuming often confounds Gaim too. It seems to think > >>you're connected, but you are really not. > >> > >>I would appreciate it if you could take a look the issues and let me know. > >> > >>Best regards! > >> > >>Kai > > > > > > > >I am not able to duplicate this on debian linux with fvwm2. I am not > >really familiar with what sort of environment linspire puts you in, > >but if it is possible to change window managers, you might try that. > > > >further, 1.1.0 is several versions old, does it persist if you > >upgrade to 1.3.0? > > > > AFAIK Linspire is Lindows, and KDE? And according to the GNOME guys, > metacity is behaving "like KDE" according to the freedesktop.org spec, > so maybe they're seeing the same issues as us. > > Warren Togami > wt...@re... > if it is kde, look at their "focus stealing prevention" preferenes. luke |
From: Marcos P. <mar...@gm...> - 2005-05-23 22:36:50
|
works fine here on gnome 2.10 ubuntu hoary as well as gnome 2.8 debian unstable..both using metacity On 5/23/05, Luke Schierer <lsc...@us...> wrote: > On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 11:56:01AM -1000, Warren Togami wrote: > > Luke Schierer wrote: > > >On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 02:31:37PM -0700, Kai Chen wrote: > > > > > >>Hi dear Gaim developers, > > >> > > >>I am Kai from Linspire.com. We noticed that "Raise window on events"= in > > >>newer version (after 1.1.0) of gaim doesn't work. It works in versio= n > > >>1.0.2. > > >> > > >>And sleeping and resuming often confounds Gaim too. It seems to think > > >>you're connected, but you are really not. > > >> > > >>I would appreciate it if you could take a look the issues and let me = know. > > >> > > >>Best regards! > > >> > > >>Kai > > > > > > > > > > > >I am not able to duplicate this on debian linux with fvwm2. I am not > > >really familiar with what sort of environment linspire puts you in, > > >but if it is possible to change window managers, you might try that. > > > > > >further, 1.1.0 is several versions old, does it persist if you > > >upgrade to 1.3.0? > > > > > > > AFAIK Linspire is Lindows, and KDE? And according to the GNOME guys, > > metacity is behaving "like KDE" according to the freedesktop.org spec, > > so maybe they're seeing the same issues as us. > > > > Warren Togami > > wt...@re... > > >=20 > if it is kde, look at their "focus stealing prevention" preferenes. >=20 > luke >=20 >=20 > ------------------------------------------------------- > This SF.Net email is sponsored by Oracle Space Sweepstakes > Want to be the first software developer in space? > Enter now for the Oracle Space Sweepstakes! > http://ads.osdn.com/?ad_id=3D7412&alloc_id=3D16344&op=3Dclick > _______________________________________________ > Gaim-devel mailing list > Gai...@li... > https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/gaim-devel > |
From: Marcos P. <mar...@gm...> - 2005-06-06 04:49:06
|
i thought someone who wanted to work on UPnP might find this useful, from zacbowling.com/upnp ---- I hoped to get this working one day. A UPnP IDG client library for Linux so we can do zero-config, NAT transversal with our favorite UPnP based consumer routers (basicly any medium to higher end D-Link, Netgear, Linksys, 2-Wire, etc models sold now days). I did all the research trying to write it myself as an extention to Gaim, but lacked the time to finish it (setting aside the evil ego trips from a nameless member of the Gaim team). Well with all the Summer of Code sponserships by Google, the Gaim team put this feature up as a thing they want done. Here you go people :-) . Basicly $4,500 to the first student to do it and I'm handing it to you, all reverse engineered and documented. The only thing I ask is make it in the form of a Glib/Gobject based library that we can all use. Credit would be nice but I really don't care as long as we get it out there. I just want it so if we write a new Bit-Torrent client, a DCC extention for an IRC client, or anything else that could use direct connection between two people behind a firewall, we have it like the Windows users do. I'm willing to help, but I'm just a little bit occupied to lead this one up myself and I want to get new developers to join in the efforts. Have fun and enjoy http://www.zacbowling.com/upnp/ |
From: Michael R H. <bu...@su...> - 2005-06-06 05:26:00
|
On Sun, 2005-06-05 at 23:47 -0500, Marcos Pinto wrote: > i thought someone who wanted to work on UPnP might find this useful, > from zacbowling.com/upnp > ---- > http://www.zacbowling.com/upnp/ Any reason why libupnp can't just be used? The license is BSD-style without the advertising clause. http://upnp.sourceforge.net/ mike --=20 Michael R Head <bu...@su...> GPG: http://www.suppressingfire.org/~burner/gpg.key.txt (ID 23A02B1F) |
From: Marcos P. <mar...@gm...> - 2005-06-06 06:05:28
|
if it's not gpl, it's not getting into gaim On 6/6/05, Michael R Head <bu...@su...> wrote: > On Sun, 2005-06-05 at 23:47 -0500, Marcos Pinto wrote: > > i thought someone who wanted to work on UPnP might find this useful, > > from zacbowling.com/upnp > > ---- > > http://www.zacbowling.com/upnp/ >=20 > Any reason why libupnp can't just be used? The license is BSD-style > without the advertising clause. > http://upnp.sourceforge.net/ >=20 > mike > -- > Michael R Head <bu...@su...> > GPG: http://www.suppressingfire.org/~burner/gpg.key.txt (ID 23A02B1F) >=20 >=20 > BodyID:141233033.2.n.logpart (stored separately) >=20 > |
From: Michael R H. <bu...@su...> - 2005-06-06 06:26:27
|
On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 01:05 -0500, Marcos Pinto wrote: > if it's not gpl, it's not getting into gaim But the advertising clause-less BSD license is considered GPL compatible! Seems a shame to rewrite (presumably) perfectly good code, particularly when there is no licensing conflict. --=20 Michael R Head <bu...@su...> GPG: http://www.suppressingfire.org/~burner/gpg.key.txt (ID 23A02B1F) |
From: Marcos P. <mar...@gm...> - 2005-06-06 06:36:35
|
guess we'll wait and see what sean has to say :-) On 6/6/05, Michael R Head <bu...@su...> wrote: > On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 01:05 -0500, Marcos Pinto wrote: > > if it's not gpl, it's not getting into gaim >=20 > But the advertising clause-less BSD license is considered GPL > compatible! Seems a shame to rewrite (presumably) perfectly good code, > particularly when there is no licensing conflict. >=20 > -- > Michael R Head <bu...@su...> > GPG: http://www.suppressingfire.org/~burner/gpg.key.txt (ID 23A02B1F) >=20 >=20 > BodyID:141238250.2.n.logpart (stored separately) >=20 > |
From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2005-06-06 19:35:26
|
On Mon, Jun 06, 2005 at 02:23:42AM -0400, Michael R Head wrote: > On Mon, 2005-06-06 at 01:05 -0500, Marcos Pinto wrote: > > if it's not gpl, it's not getting into gaim > > But the advertising clause-less BSD license is considered GPL > compatible! Seems a shame to rewrite (presumably) perfectly good code, > particularly when there is no licensing conflict. the bsd license is GPL compatable without advertising clause, and such code can be included in Gaim. As Robot101 noted, we have done so in the past. Its also worth noting that the sha1 code has been replaced with gpl code except for oscar (in which grim continued our tradition of not making oscar require gaim except in the oscar.c file) in cvs head. luke > > -- > Michael R Head <bu...@su...> > GPG: http://www.suppressingfire.org/~burner/gpg.key.txt (ID 23A02B1F) |
From: Robert M. <rob...@de...> - 2005-06-06 10:04:25
|
Marcos Pinto wrote: > if it's not gpl, it's not getting into gaim I don't know where this attitude came from. We already have non-GPL code, such as Mozilla's SHA1 implementation (although you can go and retrieve a later version of the same file which is also under a GPL license), but probably some X11 licensed code too. The problem is GPL-incompatible licenses such as OpenSSL's four-clause (advertising requirement) BSD license. Regards, Rob |
From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2005-06-06 19:49:09
|
Luke's reply made me realized I forgot to Reply All this. -s. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Sean Egan <sea...@gm...> Date: Jun 6, 2005 11:52 AM Subject: Re: [Gaim-devel] UPnP To: Robert McQueen <rob...@de...> On 6/6/05, Robert McQueen <rob...@de...> wrote: > I don't know where this attitude came from. We already have non-GPL > code, such as Mozilla's SHA1 implementation (although you can go and > retrieve a later version of the same file which is also under a GPL > license), but probably some X11 licensed code too. The problem is > GPL-incompatible licenses such as OpenSSL's four-clause (advertising > requirement) BSD license. The SHA code was a problem, though, and has been replaced with GPL-compatible code for 2.0.0. BSD sans advertising clause is perfectly acceptable to be integrated with Gaim. The problem with libupnp is that it attempts to integrate *all* of UPnP, most of which is useless sucky bloat. We're only interested in NAT traversal, which (accoding to Zac) can probably be implemented in a few hundred lines. There's no point adding a new external dependency for all of UPnP when the only functionality we really want is that simple. Of course, the code for NAT Traversal can be lifted out of libupnp, if that's feasable. If that's the case, though, it probably won't make an appropriate "Summer of Code" project. -s. |
From: Robert M. <rob...@de...> - 2005-06-06 20:41:37
|
Sean Egan wrote: > BSD sans advertising clause is perfectly acceptable to be integrated > with Gaim. The problem with libupnp is that it attempts to integrate > *all* of UPnP, most of which is useless sucky bloat. We're only > interested in NAT traversal, which (accoding to Zac) can probably be > implemented in a few hundred lines. There's no point adding a new > external dependency for all of UPnP when the only functionality we > really want is that simple. > > Of course, the code for NAT Traversal can be lifted out of libupnp, if > that's feasable. If that's the case, though, it probably won't make an > appropriate "Summer of Code" project. I'm sure someone has posted (several times?) a proof of concept UPnP traversal implementation to this mailing list... no library dependency or bloat. > -s. Regards, Rob |
From: Kai C. <kai...@li...> - 2005-05-23 23:39:37
|
Yes, we use KDE, and I tried 1.3.0 on Linsprie 5.0 and these functions still don't work. Kai Luke Schierer wrote: >On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 11:56:01AM -1000, Warren Togami wrote: > > >>Luke Schierer wrote: >> >> >>>On Mon, May 23, 2005 at 02:31:37PM -0700, Kai Chen wrote: >>> >>> >>> >>>>Hi dear Gaim developers, >>>> >>>>I am Kai from Linspire.com. We noticed that "Raise window on events" in >>>>newer version (after 1.1.0) of gaim doesn't work. It works in version >>>>1.0.2. >>>> >>>>And sleeping and resuming often confounds Gaim too. It seems to think >>>>you're connected, but you are really not. >>>> >>>>I would appreciate it if you could take a look the issues and let me know. >>>> >>>>Best regards! >>>> >>>>Kai >>>> >>>> >>> >>>I am not able to duplicate this on debian linux with fvwm2. I am not >>>really familiar with what sort of environment linspire puts you in, >>>but if it is possible to change window managers, you might try that. >>> >>>further, 1.1.0 is several versions old, does it persist if you >>>upgrade to 1.3.0? >>> >>> >>> >>AFAIK Linspire is Lindows, and KDE? And according to the GNOME guys, >>metacity is behaving "like KDE" according to the freedesktop.org spec, >>so maybe they're seeing the same issues as us. >> >>Warren Togami >>wt...@re... >> >> >> > >if it is kde, look at their "focus stealing prevention" preferenes. > >luke > > |
From: Marcos P. <mar...@gm...> - 2005-06-01 20:07:33
|
i work in a real estate company of about 150 people spread out in three different locations. we use gaim along with our own jabber server to provide secure and efficient communication between the employees. these are your average computer users and not geeks by any stretch of the imagination. before rolling out any new applications or upgrade, i install it for a small group of users to gage their reaction and try to work out any usability problems. i compiled gaim 2.0.0 cvs (05/27/05) and installed it for ten employees on the branch that i'm usually at. the reaction was mixed, but for the most part not very good. for starters, everyone noticed the new slick smooth scrolling and liked it. honestly, though, that's the only thing that got a thumbs-up. they were confused by the fact that there wasnt a "send" button on the IM window. one person complained that she couldnt figure out how to send someone a file, since that button was also removed from the IM window. they were also confused about where their saved away messages had gone. when setting themselves away using the button on the bottom of the buddy list, they werent sure how to make the message they had typed go active since there wasnt an "ok" button or anything like that. now, i realize that gaim 2.0.0 isnt a finished product, but i thought you guys might want some feedback on this test case of normal users. for geeks, these are all very simple things and i was able to show them how to do what they wanted.=20 however, depending on the userbase that you guys are aiming for, you might want to take this stuff into consideration. |
From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2005-06-01 20:28:44
|
This is going to be blunt. that was a STUPID thing to do. How many times must we tell people that cvs is NOT ready for general use? On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 03:07:28PM -0500, Marcos Pinto wrote: > i work in a real estate company of about 150 people spread out in > three different locations. we use gaim along with our own jabber > server to provide secure and efficient communication between the > employees. these are your average computer users and not geeks by any > stretch of the imagination. before rolling out any new applications > or upgrade, i install it for a small group of users to gage their > reaction and try to work out any usability problems. i compiled gaim > 2.0.0 cvs (05/27/05) and installed it for ten employees on the branch > that i'm usually at. the reaction was mixed, but for the most part > not very good. for starters, everyone noticed the new slick smooth > scrolling and liked it. honestly, though, that's the only thing that I'm pleased to hear they liked the smooth scrolling. > got a thumbs-up. they were confused by the fact that there wasnt a > "send" button on the IM window. one person complained that she That's interesting, but not entirely unpredicted. When we removed the button bar, I suggested we move the "send" up to the right of the input widget, just as the buddy icons are currently to the left of them. I wonder why this is though, since it is so much more efficient to use a key stroke to send. > couldnt figure out how to send someone a file, since that button was > also removed from the IM window. they were also confused about where also noteworthy. > their saved away messages had gone. when setting themselves away I'm not surprised. this is unfinished, it should not be loosing away messages like this when we release. BUT YOU KNEW IT WASN'T FINISHED BECUASE WE'VE BEEN SAYING IT IS NOT READY FOR GENERAL USE SINCE WE FIRST BRANCHED. so you KNEW that users were going to hit this, and that it wouldnt' be intuitive, BEFORE you did this to your users. > using the button on the bottom of the buddy list, they werent sure how > to make the message they had typed go active since there wasnt an "ok" > button or anything like that. now, i realize that gaim 2.0.0 isnt a Right. the away functionality right now nearly does not exist. this is known. We don't want feedback on it right now. becuase it is not usable right now, it is not finished right now, it DOES NOT EXIST for all intents and purposes right now. > finished product, but i thought you guys might want some feedback on > this test case of normal users. for geeks, these are all very simple > things and i was able to show them how to do what they wanted. > however, depending on the userbase that you guys are aiming for, you > might want to take this stuff into consideration. I'm surprised you were able to make it more than minimally functional. some things you didn't note: preferences, as a ui, are horridly broken, esp. if you enable plugins. There are some issues upgrading new accounts, under unknown circumstances, the first time an account signs on with 2.0.0cvs, sometimes the buddies will appear to be groups. under unknown situations, preferences aren't saving. under partly understood situations, draging or closing tabs will cause a crash. other issues are listed at gaim.sf.net/gary/bugs.xml I'm sure there *are* others that we don't know. but this is NOT the time to be testing 2.0.0cvs. There is quite simply far too much to be done before we even *think* about releasing it. We have stated that there will be a longer than normal freeze before 2.0.0 is released. We have also stated that we will give people, such as warren with redhat, a look at it before we do so. But we aren't even there yet. compare what currently exists to gaim.sf.net/sean/status.php does it look like its done? no, it doesn't. Further, I've seen your name on this mailing list before, so you probly saw the LONG threads on the usability of the ui, and what it should look like. So you saw Tim's proposed, and generally liked, modifications to the ui at sean/status.php, which also have not been implemented yet. basically, while a *few* of your observations were valuable, you've hurt your users for very little reason at this time, and the biggest complaints are utterly invalid because the UI is in a known broken, inconsistent, and unfinished state. luke |
From: Marcos P. <mar...@gm...> - 2005-06-01 21:03:34
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> This is going to be blunt. that was a STUPID thing to do. How many > times must we tell people that cvs is NOT ready for general use? i have no problem with bluntness. :-) i was *not* thinking of doing a release of gaim 2.0.0 before it's finished. this was nothing more than a test case for me to gage things (which was why it was only installed for a few users) and i thought that you might also like some feedback. trying to do you a favor here, luke. because of my findings i now plan to write a guide about the changes to gaim to hand out to the employees when the upgrade occurs. that way, when they have a problem or find something different, they'll have a place to very easily look up a solution. in fact, i'd be more than willing to give you the guide once gaim 2.0.0 freezes if you want to put it on your site or something. > That's interesting, but not entirely unpredicted. When we removed > the button bar, I suggested we move the "send" up to the right of the > input widget, just as the buddy icons are currently to the left of > them. I wonder why this is though, since it is so much more > efficient to use a key stroke to send. i'm pretty sure none of the users even use the "send" button. it's just something that confused them when they saw that it wasnt there.=20 i like your idea of having "send" to the right of the input widget. > I'm not surprised. this is unfinished, it should not be loosing away > messages like this when we release. BUT YOU KNEW IT WASN'T FINISHED > BECUASE WE'VE BEEN SAYING IT IS NOT READY FOR GENERAL USE SINCE WE > FIRST BRANCHED. so you KNEW that users were going to hit this, and > that it wouldnt' be intuitive, BEFORE you did this to your users. >=20 yes, i did know and i wasnt surprised in the least. i was not planning on rolling out gaim 2.0.0 before release even if the small group ran into zero problems. again, and i'm not sure how else to say this, it was simply a test case and i thought you might like to hear some feedback. > some things you didn't note: preferences, as a ui, are horridly > broken, esp. if you enable plugins. There are some issues upgrading > new accounts, under unknown circumstances, the first time an account > signs on with 2.0.0cvs, sometimes the buddies will appear to be > groups. under unknown situations, preferences aren't saving. under > partly understood situations, draging or closing tabs will cause a > crash. other issues are listed at gaim.sf.net/gary/bugs.xml this wasnt brought up because most of my users arent the type to look at a program's preferences. like i said, these are the typical joes. > Further, I've seen your name on this mailing list before, so you > probly saw the LONG threads on the usability of the ui, and what it > should look like. So you saw Tim's proposed, and generally liked, > modifications to the ui at sean/status.php, which also have not been > implemented yet. i'm not talking about what *i* liked and disliked here. i'm a fan of what's been done. i'm talking about how normal users react to what's been done, which is why at the end of my last email i stated that i didnt know which type of userbase you were aiming for, but hoped you could find my information useful. if you dont find it useful, then that's fine with me. no loss on my end |
From: Luke S. <lsc...@us...> - 2005-06-01 21:28:34
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On Wed, Jun 01, 2005 at 03:56:50PM -0500, Marcos Pinto wrote: > > This is going to be blunt. that was a STUPID thing to do. How many > > times must we tell people that cvs is NOT ready for general use? > > i have no problem with bluntness. :-) i was *not* thinking of doing a > release of gaim 2.0.0 before it's finished. this was nothing more > than a test case for me to gage things (which was why it was only > installed for a few users) and i thought that you might also like some > feedback. trying to do you a favor here, luke. because of my I understand and appreciate the attempt, its just horridly premature, and I'm shocked that you didn't realize that before proceeding. I'm also more than a little upset, because there is a huge tendency in normal users to see something labeled beta, or even more so something labeled "cvs" since they won't understand what cvs is, and form impressions that will continue even after massive changes have taken place to bring it to a release-ready point. We saw this with the wingaim alpha releases, so many of the responces clearly were looking for a finished product, and some of those users will not seriously consider gaim again because we made it available to them before we were ready to try to provide that. > findings i now plan to write a guide about the changes to gaim to hand > out to the employees when the upgrade occurs. that way, when they > have a problem or find something different, they'll have a place to > very easily look up a solution. in fact, i'd be more than willing to > give you the guide once gaim 2.0.0 freezes if you want to put it on > your site or something. when we get FAR FAR closer to a freeze, this sort of testing, and the guide that would come out of it, *would* be useful. And it *would* be something that I would look at putting in the documentation section of the website with a link to it in the release announcement. > > > That's interesting, but not entirely unpredicted. When we removed > > the button bar, I suggested we move the "send" up to the right of the > > input widget, just as the buddy icons are currently to the left of > > them. I wonder why this is though, since it is so much more > > efficient to use a key stroke to send. > > i'm pretty sure none of the users even use the "send" button. it's > just something that confused them when they saw that it wasnt there. > i like your idea of having "send" to the right of the input widget. I'd wonder. It'd be worth looking over people's sholders. I know my mother, who surpisingly does use IM (though primarily to see if my brother, way at college, is available for a phone call or not), is consistently confused by the send button exactly as Sean describes. For that reason, sean's position is something that I have significant sympathy for, though I am not sure how to make this change more obvious and intuitive for people who are used to seeing a send button. > > > I'm not surprised. this is unfinished, it should not be loosing away > > messages like this when we release. BUT YOU KNEW IT WASN'T FINISHED > > BECUASE WE'VE BEEN SAYING IT IS NOT READY FOR GENERAL USE SINCE WE > > FIRST BRANCHED. so you KNEW that users were going to hit this, and > > that it wouldnt' be intuitive, BEFORE you did this to your users. > > > > yes, i did know and i wasnt surprised in the least. i was not > planning on rolling out gaim 2.0.0 before release even if the small > group ran into zero problems. again, and i'm not sure how else to say > this, it was simply a test case and i thought you might like to hear > some feedback. > > > some things you didn't note: preferences, as a ui, are horridly > > broken, esp. if you enable plugins. There are some issues upgrading > > new accounts, under unknown circumstances, the first time an account > > signs on with 2.0.0cvs, sometimes the buddies will appear to be > > groups. under unknown situations, preferences aren't saving. under > > partly understood situations, draging or closing tabs will cause a > > crash. other issues are listed at gaim.sf.net/gary/bugs.xml > > this wasnt brought up because most of my users arent the type to look > at a program's preferences. like i said, these are the typical joes. This highlights the importance of things Just Working, and setting good defaults. While my first thought is that this thought also undermines the idea of prefs slashing, on second thought, I think it makes the idea of few preferences more important. If the user *is* forced to go into preferences for some reason, too many preferences will confuse them, and further, as I've seen in the past (ie the hide on send plugin), they'll forget what they changed and think they are still using the defaults. > > > Further, I've seen your name on this mailing list before, so you > > probly saw the LONG threads on the usability of the ui, and what it > > should look like. So you saw Tim's proposed, and generally liked, > > modifications to the ui at sean/status.php, which also have not been > > implemented yet. > > i'm not talking about what *i* liked and disliked here. i'm a fan of > what's been done. i'm talking about how normal users react to what's > been done, which is why at the end of my last email i stated that i > didnt know which type of userbase you were aiming for, but hoped you > could find my information useful. if you dont find it useful, then > that's fine with me. no loss on my end eventually your users would provide a valid test case. But not yet. There is simply too much to be done to get an accurate impression from anyone who doesn't already *know* what parts of the UI are unfinished and transient. luke |
From: Sean E. <sea...@gm...> - 2005-06-01 20:50:34
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I think Luke summarized this pretty well. We're certainly not looking for feedback on 2.0.0 at this time (if we were, it would be released). As status is far from done, the only actual criticism is that we've removed the buttons from the conversation window. Their absence is only seen negatively because they're used to those buttons from their past Gaim experience. New Gaim users won't be bothered by this, and experienced Gaim users will quickly adapt (as they always do when we make controversial UI changes). In fact, that they see the absence of a Send button as a bad thing highlights the very reason why the Send button was poor usability to begin with. Hitting "Enter" to send is a *far* better way to send. Having the "Send" button implies that it must be pressed to send a message. The fact that its absence was seen as a bad thing means that all these users have been typing their messages, removing their hands from the keyboard, moving it to the mouse, moving the cursor to the "Send" button, clicking it, and returning their hands to the keyboard, rather than just hitting "Enter." This usability problem has even been highlighted by an actual usability engineer http://mpt.net.nz/archive/2005/04/11/ubuntu#gaim Existing users may have to relearn a few things, but all users benefit in general. -S. |
From: Wim De S. <fra...@yu...> - 2005-06-02 19:21:32
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On Wed, 1 Jun 2005 16:50:28 -0400 Sean Egan <sea...@gm...> wrote: > I think Luke summarized this pretty well. We're certainly not looking > for feedback on 2.0.0 at this time (if we were, it would be released). > > As status is far from done, the only actual criticism is that we've > removed the buttons from the conversation window. Their absence is > only seen negatively because they're used to those buttons from their > past Gaim experience. New Gaim users won't be bothered by this, and > experienced Gaim users will quickly adapt (as they always do when we > make controversial UI changes). > [...] > -S. I agree with you in that pressing that send button all the time is not very productive. However, I think you are overestimating some of the people in your userbase a bit. I'm pretty sure that many people are going to have quite some trouble figuring out how to send a message. I don't know if this can be avoided, but I would recommend listing it in the FAQ as a precaution at the time of release. Wim |