[JDEV] Emoticons: guidelines

[Mattias Campe]

Michael Brown wrote:
[...]
 >>>
 >>> Sorry to reply to my own reply, but thinking about it, I can see
 >>
 > Mattia's
 >
 >>> point (I think)
 >>>
 >>> Why don't we come up with a Jabber "standard" list, that is text
 >>> mode friendly, and the transports can handle the translations to
 >>> annoying
 >>
 > systems
 >
 >>> like MSN.  (Transports are cool!)
 >>
 >> Yes, you see my point, thx! Because of the text mode friendlyness
 >> the transports don't even have to handle the translations because
 >> anyone will be able to understand it, they only won't see it
 >> graphically...
 >
 >
 > Sorry, I ment that the transports will have to do the translations
 > when messages are sent to other IM systems.  For example, if a
 > graphical Jabber user clicks the icon with the mouse for "email",
 > they will see the icon on their client, and when they send it to a
 > text only Jabber client, the other client will see :email:, however
 > if they send it to someone on MSN, the MSN transport must know to
 > translate :email: to (e) so that native MSN clients can interpret
 > it. (and back again when messages come from MSN to Jabber.  So for
 > this to be practical, we need to define a list of tags, and a lookup
 > table, and convince the transport authors to implement the
 > translation. Otherwise we are stuck with using whatever Microsoft
 > comes up with.  You see?

Yes I see, but the Jabber community wouldn't have to wait for the MSN 
transport to do a translation, e.g. :love: to (l). Because if sb. (using 
Jabber) sends "I :love: you" to sb. using MSN, the MSN person gets "I 
:love: you". That person won't see any cool graphical emoticon, but 
still (s)he'll be able to understand it!
Maybe, at a later point, the MSN transports developers have the 
time/spirit/... to implement the translations, and then the MSN person 
gets: "I (l) you" and again (s)he will understand it because the (l) 
will be showed as an graphical emoticon.
So my point is that we don't have to wait for the MSN transport to 
change. You see?

 >
 >> Michael, you proposed [email] instead of (e), but I should take
 >> :email: over [emailed]. Why? Well, I live in Belgium and I've got
 >> an azerty keyboard where the "[" and "]" are in a quiet
 >> unreachable position (and I need the <Alt Gr> key) and I think the
 >> ":" will be easy reachable with every keyboard. Conclusion: I can
 >> type :email: much faster than [email]
 >
 >
 > That's fine by me, but I don't really understand...  I would have
 > thought the harder to type the better, since it is less likely to be
 > used in normal conversation.  If you are using a graphical client
 > then you will not be typing emoticons, but selecting them from a
 > menu (is this right? - I have never used them), and if you are the
 > type of person that prefers to use a text only client, the chances
 > are you think emoticons are a stupid idea and won't bother using
 > them anyway.

If use a colon, it will allways be followed by a space: like this. I 
won't type sth. like this :this is an example or sth like this :this: is 
another example.
I have to agree, if you *start* using a graphical client you will select 
emoticons from the menu. But once you learn the syntax of the emoticons, 
  "I :email: you to say I :love: you" will be faster done than "I (pick 
mouse, select email-emoticon from menu, put fingers back on keyboard) 
you to say I (pick mouse, select love-emoticon from menu, put fingers 
back on keyboard) you".
Of course this implies that the graphical client actually shows what the 
translation is of a certain emoticon. So if you select an emoticon from 
the menu, it is shown as text where you are typing (lower part) but 
shown as graphic in your chat window (the upper part).

 > Michael.
 >
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