Re: Account Editor

I really like Timothy's Suggestion.  Editing all of the standard 
settings for accounts within the list itself.

With the caveat that there should be a way to get into the "Advanced" 
settings which would be service specific, but would include

- Which Library to use - for a given service
- Port and ServerName*
- Any login commands and scripts (important for irc)
- Preferences, like invisible login, buddy list synchronization, ssl

	*NOTE: Since Jabber and IRC have so many servers out there, the server 
name for these systems should be included in the ID field (e.g. 
[email protected])

Those advanced settings should show up in a drop down panel attached to 
the main window.

I will create a Mock Up, but here is what I am thinking:

Single Table in the main window with the following columns:

Service, ID, Display Name, password, email alerts?, auto-login, 
connection status, advanced edit

Where:
Service - Displays icon, dropdown selector for editing which shows icon 
and name of service
ID - sometimes called the SN, would be the id on that service -  
Editable text field
Display Name - nick/alias/displayname - An editable text field
Password - if filled in, it is saved, if left blank, it is prompted for 
at login. - Secure text field
email alerts - (maybe an advanced setting) - A checkbox
auto-login - A Checkbox
Connection Status - The green/red button showing if connected - press 
it to logon/logoff
Advanced Edit - A button which brings up the advanced settings panel 
described above.

The only "interesting" part here is that we have to handle service 
specific constraints on the email alerts and Display Name fields.  For 
example, only Yahoo and MSN offer mail alerts as an option, the others 
should not be able to set it.   Also, the Display Name has interesting 
properties:

	AIM - Only allows you to add spaces and capitalization to ID.
	Yahoo, Rendezvous - Have no concept of a Display Name
	MSN, ICQ, irc, Jabber - Actively Use an arbitrary Display Name and 
give it to others

The window would have the '+' '-' buttons at the bottom to add or 
delete accounts from the list.

Here is why I like this concept:
Editing is straightforward, to make changes to Display Name and Auto 
Login simple for the user (which are the fields that will change most 
often - apart from when it is first entered.)

In the original mockup, the pane on the right half of the screen would 
change depending upon which account is selected, because the various 
services have differing options available.

In general, I don't like the prospect of having a panel change 
configuration as they go down the list. (But I could be persuaded)

If the consensus is that we stick with the original suggestion, I would 
weigh in on moving more of those items to the Advanced setting panel, 
specifically: server, port, and implementation.

My 2 cents....

Alan


On Mar 2, 2005, at 1:41 PM, Timothy B Lee wrote:

> I'm not a Fire developer so I normally just lurk on this list, but 
> since
> you're looking for feedback, my two cents:
>
> Could the fields in the account list be made editable? That is,
> double-clicking on a cell in the "Accounts" column would allow you to 
> edit
> that field directly in the list view. iTunes and other apps do this, 
> and
> I'm pretty sure that it's a standard widget in the IB toolkit.
>
> If so, I think it would be better to have "Display Name" and 
> "Password" as
> additional columns in that list view--also editable.
>
> The other fields in that right hand pane seem to be either advanced
> options ("Implementation", "Server", and "Port") or unnecessary.
> Unless I'm missing something, the "Save password"  checkbox doesn't 
> seem
> necessary at all-- if you don't want the password saved, you can just
> delete it from the "Password" field. I don't understand what the 
> checkbox
> does beyond that.
>
> I'm not sure what "Show Mail Alerts" does, but it could presumably be
> either an advanced option or treated like Auto-login, with its own 
> column
> as well as a checkbox in the "advanced" panel.
>
> With those changes, the account list could be made the full width of 
> the
> control panel, with the button for "Advanced Options"  below the list, 
> and
> the stuff on the right-hand pane removed entirely. I think that would 
> be
> much cleaner looking and less confusing for non-technical users-- they
> could do all of their account management within that main list, with 
> fewer
> extraneous options to worry about. Power users could still click the
> "advanced" button to see the full menu of options.
>
> Anyway, I'm very greatful for the work y'all do in developing the chat
> client I use every day, and I'll be quite happy whatever you decide.
>
> Thanks.
>
> -Tim
>
> On Wed, 2 Mar 2005, Jeremiah Blatz wrote:
>
>> On Mar 1, 2005, at 10:43 AM, Graham Booker wrote:
>>> Comments?
>>
>> Overall, a great improvement!
>>
>> Some quibbles:
>> * What is "Implementation"? That's a very developer-centric term.
>> Something else
>>    would probably be clearer to end users.
>> * I'm guessing that the "Advanced Options" button should have an
>> ellipses ("...")
>>    after it. It pop up a dialog, right?
>> * The "Reset" button looks like it only resets the port. I would
>> consider moving it so
>>    that it's clear what it applies to
>> * The checkbox column for autologin is convenient for expert users, 
>> but
>> the heading
>>    "Aut" is not very clear for new users. I would suggest either 
>> messing
>> with the
>>    headers so that the entire word is visible (is this possible) or
>> moving it into the
>>    group of checkboxes on the right.
>>
>>
>> Jeremiah
>>
>>
>>
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