[JDEV] Chatting with the correct resource

[Bart van Bragt]

Mikael Hallendal wrote:

>>So IMO in these cases it would be nice if there was some 'Client UI 
>>design best practices'-guide :D
> The fact that you are sending over Jabber shouldn't enforce anything on
> your UI. I think however that it's very important to have rules on how
> to behave with other clients (these are called specifications).

True, from a technical point of view :D


Indeed, users won't switch to another client all that often but for me 
it's kind of hard to help a friend that's using Exodus while I'm on Psi. 
I have no clue how Exodus handles this resource priority stuff. IMO the 
user should be able to predict what will happen to their message when 
they use a Jabber client, regardless of the specific client that they 
use. This is _really_ important from a usability point of view. The 
resource problem is only a minor aspect of that. IMO the 
installation/JID problem is a bigger problem. It's just impossible to 
help someone with getting Jabber working without either looking for 
documentation about the specific client (which doesn't exist for 9 out 
of 10 clients ;)) or installing the client yourself.

IMO it isn't that hard to just create a small convention about the 
JID/Password form? If a particular client developer really feels that 
they way he/she invented the wheel then he/she can do what they want but 
if there is some kind of basic UI guideline then there will be at least 
_some_ conformity in basic area's like filling in the initial connect 
form. This will make it a LOT easier to get people to use Jabber. If 
users are already confused at the first screen then we're going to lose 
a LOT of users before they've even tried Jabber.

Again: I'm talking about a guideline. At the moment clients devs are 
(luckily!) looking at each other to see how (some) others do it. All 
that would be needed is a small document that actually documents how 
most client devs do these things. All this to create some conformity in 
the basic UI elements. If devs want to expand on the basic elements then 
more power to them ;)

-- 
Bart

Hit any key to continue, or any other key to quit.