Re: GUADEC BOF

On Sun, 2006-07-02 at 11:44 +0100, Martyn Russell wrote:
> Guys,

Hi Martyn, nice to meet you. :)

> Ideas:
> 
> * Use combo box entry completion in presence dialog.

I did this at GUADEC. Actually, this has all the previous status
messages from the current session for that state listed. The presets are
ALL shown in the main menu from the button.

> * Detect where the panel is and put the presence chooser closest to it.

I don't like this idea. What do people think? I have had mixed comments
about the position of the presence chooser.

> * Don't show "<state> Custom Message..." and "<state> <state string>" in
> presence menu, only show one which always shows the dialog.

We do it the way Google do it, I prefer this way because sometimes I
like to just set my state to Away without setting a message.

> * Flash notification area for 15 seconds and then stay static, if away
> keep flashing until available for the first 15 seconds.

I love this idea. Flashing is stressfull. We currently stop the flashing
in the task bar after about a minute I think, we should do the same
here.

> * Perhaps show most recent contacts spoken to in Peekaboo and/or make it
> configurable who you show.
> * Searching in roster like Firefox (i.e. Ctrl+F shows a small toolbar at
> the bottom of the roster window with next/highlight/etc options).

We are waiting for an enhancement in GTK+ I think (right Richard?) so we
can place the search entry instead of float it.

> * Gimmie support for Gossip (currently this uses DBus with GAIM only it
> should be easy to write a patch for this).
> * DBUS API for Gossip to set visibility in notification area based on
> use of Peekaboo.

In case I didn't make this clear, the idea was that we could show
everything in the notification area if the applet is NOT running and
signal Gossip to hide everything EXCEPT notifications, so there would be
no icon most the time.

> * Add "hidden" presence state.

I think everyone wants this. We tried not long ago, but it proved
difficult because it wasn't working as spec'd I think.

> * Presence for groups of people, e.g. Show busy for work colleagues and
> available for friends and/or be able to do this on a per contact basis?

Mmm, I don't know if this is a good idea, but I think we agreed at the
time it would be quite difficult and probably confusing to
maintain/implement. What if have a group which you set to busy then you
globally set yourself to busy and some time come back to available. Does
everyone go available? Plus you will think that your presence is what is
shown in the presence chooser so you may forget what you have set others
to see. There were ideas of a presence icon perhaps in the roster for
special cases?

> * Set end of conversation in logs based on long time between messages or
> online/offline state changes (not quick online/offline changes).

Yes please!

> * Revise the Beagle log patch to get the current logging working.

Yes please!

> * Show older chat messages in a different colour to make it obvious it
> is an older conversation.

This is a good idea, I think GAIM does this.

> * Have an image for accounts so it can be used in places like the 
> chatroom window.

Good idea from Mikael here. This might be easier in places (for example,
for my Imendio account to show the Imendio icon) to make it easier to
spot the account you are changing, etc.

> * Have a menu in the log window so we can quit instead of having a close
> button but also have delete log, etc in there.

I am working on this at the moment.

> * Show multiple accounts in the chatroom window with an ALL item and
> make other accounts selectable even if not connected.

Another good idea from Mikael. This is a gnome-love bug for anyone
wanting a quick coding exercise.

> * Perhaps make use of www.plazes.com information which works out where
> you are in the world based on your network topology and save that
> information to the log so that Beagle will find conversations when you
> search for "Barcelona Richard".

Watch this space, I am planning on writing some sort of proposal about
this in the desktop. Since I think this should be done centrally for the
Weather applet, the Time/date applet, etc.

> 
> Does anyone have anything extra to add here?

No, good summary Martyn ;)

-- 
Regards,
Martyn