[JDEV] Jabber Resource Questions

[Michael Brown]

Thanks for the great reply again Max...

> At 14:08 Uhr +1000 01.08.2000, Michael Brown wrote:
> >A couple of questions regarding resources:
> >
> >Is there any way in Jabber to look up a list of resources that a person
has
> >defined, or are you just limited to seeing what ones they are online with
at
> >the time?
>
> No. This cannot be done. Well, it *could* be done by using a huge DB
> that stores each ever used resource, but it is not in JServer 1.0

I can't see it being that huge...  how often do people change resources?
How many resources do you have exactly?  :-)

> And I think it is rather pointless to do that. I'll explaing below
>
> >
> >For example, say I come across a URL I think a friend may be interested
in
> >seeing.  I know he is at work at right now (he is logged on as
> >userid at jabber.org/work say) and won't have time to read it until he gets
> >home.  I want to send it to him at home so it is waiting for him, but I
> >don't know his home resource.  It could be userid at jabber.org/home or it
> >could be userid at jabber.org/StanleySt etc).  He has not left his home
> >computer logged onto Jabber.  Is there anyway I could find out?  Ideally
I
> >would like to have a picklist with all the resources that a person uses
> >available when someone is sending a message.
>
> 1) Even if you knew that his home resource is e.g.
> userid at jabber.org/home, that wouldn't matter. If you send a message
> there, and it is not online, it will be delivered to the active
> resource, in this case his userid at jabber.org/work.

Ahh...  no way to force it to a particular resource.  I didn't think of
that.

> The only way to achieve this would be if *he* set up a  mod_filter
> (possible startin JServer 1.1).
>
> The point of Instant Messaging is to reach someone instantly,
> regardless of where he is.

Not true, or there would be no point in storing offline messages on the
server.

> >Also, I assume there is nothing to stop you from sending messages to
> >yourself at a different resource?  (Or at the same resource?)
>
> No, no problem.

Except now that is not useful to me...  I thought that it would be nice to
be able to forward a message that I got at work to my home address for
later, but as you have pointed out, it would just come back to me at work
unless I left myself logged on at home also.

I guess that resources just aren't as useful as I thought they were going to
be.  :(

> >Another thing - I understand that the Jabber ID's and resources are not
case
> >sensitive, however I have a problem if I send a time/client version query
to
> >userid at jabber.org/winjab when they are logged on as
> >userid at jabber.org/Winjab - a query error service unavailable is returned.
> >Is this something in Jabber, or maybe a client error?
>
> Uh... resources *are* case sensitive. That's why you get an error.

OMG! - that's confusing.  Why?  Why would you have one part of a URL case
preservative (userid and domain) and another part of the same URL case
sensitive?  Is this what you get when you let Unix people design protocols!
(Just kidding :-)  Seriously - what was the thinking behind that!?

> >  Also, I don't
> >understand why I can't send a time/client version query to
userid at jabber.org
> >and have a valid result returned.  Surely it should just go to the
resource
> >with the highest priority?  Again, it returns a querty error.
>
> I stumbled over this while implementing it into my client, too. I see
> the logic beind this decision (only resource have a client associated
> to them), but I agree with you, I'd find it more comfortable if this
> returned the version/time of the main resource.

Of course.  You are asking a person what the time is.  You don't say "Hey
buddy, what is the time according to the rolex that you have on your left
wrist?"  Similarly you would normally want to know what client someone is
using, so it should return the the results for the client that they are
currently using (unless you specifically request a particular resource).
Actually it wouldn't bother me so much if  JabberCOM always stored the
resource in it's JabberRosterItem, but it doesn't so I keep getting query
errors :-)

Michael.