unity-design team mailing list archive

["frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx" <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx>]

Hi Martín,

On Thu, Dec 16, 2010 at 13:56, Martín A. Casco <martincasco@xxxxxxxxx>wrote:

>  --------- Mensaje reenviado --------
>
> *De*: Mark Shuttleworth <mark.shuttleworth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx<Mark%20Shuttleworth%20%3cmark.shuttleworth@xxxxxxxxxxxxx%3e>
> >
> *Para*: Frederik Nnaji <frederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx<Frederik%20Nnaji%20%3cfrederik.nnaji@xxxxxxxxx%3e>
> >
> *Cc*: Ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx <Ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<%22Ayatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx%22%20%3cAyatana@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx%3e>
> >
> *Asunto*: Re: [Ayatana] Presence via Me Menu
> *Fecha*: Thu, 16 Dec 2010 07:56:18 +0000
>
> On 09/09/10 11:00, Frederik Nnaji wrote:
> > I was hoping Mission Control 5 in Telepathy would make it possible to
> > change back to "online", "away" or "busy", even when Empathy says my
> > accounts are "offline".
> > Another thing is, that i'm being logged out, not sent offline. My
> > computer is still online, it's just that IM accounts are being logged out.
> > This is why i don't understand the use case of "offline", if all it
> > does is actually "log out".
> >
> > If offline was to be a state of Presence, it would be better if i
> > could alternate between "offline" and the other states of Presence via
> > the MeMenu directly.
> > Now remains the question, why in the implementation the Presence part
> > of the MeMenu is "disabled" when all Empathy-configured accounts are
> > "offline"..
> >
>
> Sorry for the response to old email, but I didn't see a follow-up.
>
> If empathy is not running, you should be able to launch it simply by
> changing your status to Available or another online state. In other
> words, the states should be achievable even if that means first starting
> empathy.
>
> Mark
>
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>
> Hi there,
>
>    Well, no, that's not the actual behavior; the only  way (at least in my
> case) to launch Empathy it's clicking on chat entry on Messaging Menu..
>
> BTW, If we want to use Me Menu, and running Empathy -x example the
> notification odf interfere with Me Menu...
>
> There is an interesting mail here about unifying Messaging Menu and Me
> Menu... for example, launch empathy (or Pidgin if installed) from Messaging
> Menu, see contacts chats from messaging menu, but if we want to set quickly
> our chat status we have tu use Me Menu... Maybe a unified option could be
> mor logical and better.
>
> On Gwibber, launch and see mentions or DM from Messaging menu, but if we
> want to twit we have to go to Me Menu, delete de "Publicar en Twitter" (I'm
> from Argentina) and write our twit, but there is no shorter URL (Like
> twitter) and sometimes notification bubble interfere...
>
> I believe that a unified solution could be better, don't you?
>
> Martín
>

Bug #452067 handles that MC 5 issue.. i.e. to keep the Presence controls in
the Me Menu enabled, even when Empathy is not running.

At the moment, we have no discoverable interface to logging in and out of
chat, aka enabling, disabling chat, aka Chat [ON|OFF].
The only way to achieve this, is to go into the account setup/management
dialog of Empathy, open the page of the respective service and tick/untick
the checkmark for "Enabled".
This is not what i'd expect from "Social from the Start".

I personally came to think, they might as well stay disabled, until "Chat"
is set to "ON". That, of course, would require ON|OFF toggles for CHAT, MAIL
and BROADCAST on the bottom of the MeMenu, after the user has configured
these services.
I personally don't think BROADCAST is ready to be presented, but the
majority of users in the "Do You Use Gwibber" thread replied that it is
useful to them, so i wouldn't remove it just as yet.
The ON|OFF toggles are an idea i like in the design mockups of the new
network indicator (see mockup attached) that mpt sketched.
I love it! ¹
We should place those consistently into all indicator menus, where there is
a service activate | deactivate toggle.
i think even in the sound menu, sound ON | OFF would not be bad.

Back to the Me Menu..
Instead of having 3 seperate links to account configuration interfaces on
the bottom of the Me Menu, we should tie those seperate configuration
interfaces into a single entry "Setup Accounts.."
If that is too undiscoverable, then at least, once the respective service is
configured, they should be replaced, respectively, by:

*ON | OFF [Chat]*
*ON | OFF [Broadcast] *
*ON | OFF [Email]*

An On | Off toggle for Chat saves us the need for two now redundant rows in
the menu:
** Available*
** Offline*

Semantically, "Available" is the default state², unless something else is
specified.
"Offline" in fact means "Chat (Off)".
(Users are more familiar with the simple ON/OFF metaphor, than with
complicated multi state control interfaces)
..Chat=Off ..in which case, as i mentioned above, Presence controls might as
well be disabled / greyed out.

This leaves:
*[Away] or [Busy]*
these two are closely related, often iterated between, they both represent
the state of unavailability, they deserve being horizontal, i.e. in one row!
They should not be greyed out, when CHAT is set to ON.
When one of them is active, the other cannot be. So the active one (AWAY |
Busy) should be highlighted as "active" with font-weight, saturation or
border strength.

** Invisible*
i consider "Invisible" to be some sort of Stand-by mode. I am connected, but
i don't appear as such to the world. I am supposed to have even less
disturbances going on than with "busy" or "away".
i would very much prefer to replace this term with a better one, especially
it should be a positive formulation.
Perhaps "visible" is the correct word, in combination with a symbolic icon
to indicate that i'm speaking of a connected WAN of humans, e.g. a Globe
Icon or something similar..

On the long run, we won't have to start Empathy to see somebody's Presence.
Presence will be handled by Telepathy Mission Control 5 (MC5), which Empathy
will then be but a client to ( AIUI ).
Stuff like Places > People will then link into MC5 as "Observer"³, they can
see what's going on but won't interact per se.

I'm looking forward to a comfortable chat experience, but it will not happen
without further designing and some more confident user opinions.



¹ https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Networking#Network%20status%20menu
² default state of Presence: actually, if you consider it thoroughly, busy
and away are not even mutually exclusive. A user can be away and busy at the
same time, in reality. So the final goal is to allow for a more realistic
way of describing my present state of availability.. So far, [Status Text]
should serve that purpose, perhaps one day it will take over Presence
entirely, rendering Away, Busy and other predefined states obsolete.
³
https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Networking?action=diff&rev2=40&rev1=38#Wireless%20connections

Related Launchpad Bugs:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/indicator-me/+bug/452067
"indicator-applet-session should launch empathy if I change my status"

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