[JDEV] Emoticons: guidelines

[Thomas Parslow (PatRat)]

> here's something to ponder:

> emoticons can be viewed as a special case of a more generic
> capability.  Let's call it "jabsters" (c).  In essence a
> jabster is a textual description that has a meaning
> different from the text itself -- a "short cut" if you will.
> Emoticons are one example, all of the other little acronyms
> like BTW, IANAL, TIA, RTFM are short cuts too (but they
> aren't emoticons).  If I type BTW, what can't it come up as
> "By the way" on the other client?

> I suggest that we have a more generalized format to
> accommodate other short-cut uses.  We also need a mechanism
> to identify which jabster "sets" are available on each
> client (a capabilities exchange).  We don't want one person
> typing LOL on a client assuming it will come out as
> "laughing out loud"  and the other client uses a different
> jabster set that translates LOL to "lots of luck".

> A more esoteric application can be for the non-tradition IM,
> like from human-to-device.  Perhaps I want to IM my coffee
> machine and say "Turn On".  The coffee machine could see
> this as a jabster and translate it to the relevant command
> string for the device.  Here the jabster is a translation
> from a human readable command to a device command.

> Similar to emoticons?  I think so.  So when we finalize how
> we want to handle emoticons, lets also think about the more
> generic case and perhaps cover it, too while we are at it.

I'd find that sort of thing incredibly annoying (ok, I also find
emoticons annoying but this would be more so:). If I write "BTW" I
probably want the user at the other end to see "BTW". Maybe if I'm
lazy (which I am;) I might appreciate some sort of auto complete in my client but it
would just be a pain if the remote client went and changed what I'd
written.

Thomas Parslow (PatRat)
E-Mail/Jabber: tom at almostobsolete.net
ICQ: 26359483