ulc-devs team mailing list archive

[Patrick Seemann <patsee14@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hello everyone,



> I think we should not follow these proposals, unless we really think
> they describe something we think is desirable. I think we should stick
> more to the common unity lens features and do something with that.
>
+1


>
> So I think these are the things we need to discuss:
>
>     1. What categories make sense for our lens? (Categories are the
>        sections the main dash view provides for displaying results,
>        like “most used apps”, “installed apps”, and “downloadable apps”
>        for the application lens.)
>     2. What filters make sense for our lens? (Filters are those items
>        in the unfoldable right-hand column used to limit search results
>        by certain criteria.)
>     3. How to display results in the dash?
>     4. Which actions to perform on the contacts?
>
> Here are my first thoughts on this:
>
> Ad 1: I could think of these categories to make sense for us:
>      * Online contacts
>      * Recently used contacts
>      * all contacts
> Online contacts are those that are currently available for chat. We
> should get this information from telepathy. Since libfolks can merge
> contacts, one can link contact information from the system address book
> (EDS) and telepathy chat buddies. Thus, we can have complete address
> information available for online contacts.
>
> Recently used contacts should be contacts that one recently interacted
> with, be it by mail, chat, or voice call. I just don’t know if this
> information is available in Zeitgeist. Evolution, telepathy, and
> possible other applications would have to pass this information to
> Zeitgeist, and I don’t know if they currently do. If not, we could
> easily do without this category for now, and maybe talk to application
> developers about Zeitgeist integration for future use.
>
> All contacts would be, surprise surprise, all contacts. Just one open
> question: Is it possible to assign one dash item to multiple categories?
> Should the contacts listed in “recently used” also be listed in “all
> contacts”?
>

Yes, you can assign one dash item to multiple categories. So I think it
makes sense to include a contact that is listed for example under the
"online contacts" category also under the "all contacts" category.
Unfortunately I can't answer your question whether or not a category like
"recently used contacts" can be accomplished at the moment. But the
category sure makes sense I think!



> Ad 2: I can think of these possible filters:
>      * Address book
>      * Category
>      * Group
>
> One issue with this is that different sources use different grouping
> criteria: Evolution has different address books, and additionally allows
> to add categories to contacts. Empathy/Telepathy allow to assign
> contacts to groups. I don’t know how libfolks handles these, and how one
> deals with only chat contacts having groups, and only EDS contacts
> having categories, etc. I think we should first see what is possible
> with libfolks, and then discuss what is reasonable.
>

Yes, libfolks is the key to this. Has anyone had some experience with
libfolks and python?


>
> Ad 3: I think we need to discuss these display related questions:
>      * Image
>      * Title
>      * Renderer
>
> For the image, I think the contact photo is the natural choice. I think
> we have two image sources, EDS photo and (possibly multiple) telepathy
> buddy icons. I think the photo should have precedence. If we have no
> photo, but multiple buddy icons, I am not sure how to handle this. But
> maybe libfolks and/or GNOME contacts already provide a reasonable image
> selection mechanism that we could use.
>
> +1

Another issue is contacts that have no image information at all. Most
> mockups I have seen so far simply use a stock person icon in this case.
> But since I guess that in many address books, having photos for all (or
> most) contacts is rather not the case, I am not really in favour of this
> solution. On the Nokia N9, they create an ad hoc image using the
> initials (e.g. FE for Frederik Elwert). I think this solution is quite
> nice, since it makes contacts distinguishable.
>
> I've never used a contacts app that creates a thumbnail with the initials,
but I like the idea. I also don't have images for most of my contacts, so
seeing the initials at least would be nice. Displaying simply a stock
person icon is just boring and doesn't look nice when you see a page of 30
some contacts with all the same icon.


> Regarding the title, this should obviously be the name. One question,
> however, is which name representation to choose. Evolution has a “file
> as” field, which can either be “Family Name, Given Name” or “Given Name
> Family Name” (but why not “Family Name Given Name”, as common in Japan
> or Austria?). Should we use this, or should we always use “Given Name
> Family Name”, which is a bit more informal (the N9 actually does this)?
> This also affects sorting, i.e. sorting by family name or given name.
>

I like the "Given Name Family Name" representation best. As you said it's
more informal and therefore more personal!


> Regarding the renderer, I have to be honest I have no clue what the
> difference of the lens renderers is. ;-)
>

There are basically two renderes. The VERTICAL_TILE and the HORIZONTAL_TILE
renderer. The only difference between the two is where the text associated
with the icon is displayed. A vertical_tile renderer displays the text
beneath the item and the horizontal tile renderer displays the text next to
it (to the right I believe, not sure if it can be on the left as well). We
should probably use the vertical tile renderer because it would just be the
Name of the contact that we want to display in addition the the
item/picture. Horzontal tile renderers are nice if you want to additionally
display a comment or something... so if you want to display more text to
each item, then its better to use the horizontal  tile renderer. You can
use both renderers in the same lens so we would have to see which one fits
best.


>
> Ad 4: I think the default action would be to display the contact in
> GNOME contacts. This would mean we depend on it, but I think that’s
> okay. One question could be if we want to perform different actions
> depending on the category. Especially worth discussing could be if we
> want to directly start a conversation with online contacts instead of
> displaying the contact.
>

+1 to use gnome contacts! It's a nice application. I think we should always
display the contact in gnome-contacts - even if the contact is online. That
way we create some consistency. If the contact is online, you can start the
conversation from gnome-contacts I believe. I think the problem with
starting a conversation automatically is that if you just want to see the
contact information you can't do that through the contacts lens while the
contact is online. You would then have to start
gnome-contacts separately and search for the contact.



regards,
-- 
Patrick Seemann

launchpad: ~patrickseemann
irc.freenode.net: patsee14