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List:       kopete-devel
Subject:    Re: [Kopete-devel] Contact List overhaul
From:       Till Gerken <till () tantalo ! net>
Date:       2002-06-02 21:40:21
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On Sun, 2002-06-02 at 15:09, Martijn Klingens wrote:
> > Psst, UI people: I repeat my call that's been out for a month to PLEASE
> > look at all of Jabber.
> 
> I don't have time for that, sorry. Maybe someone else has? Most people here 
> seem to dislike usability and GUI work at all, and I simply can't do this 

I'd like to step into the discussion here. I am not a Kopete developer,
not even remotely, I am just a new packager, so it is not really my
business, but still I'd like to comment.

Being a programmer myself, I know that design discussions are usually
the worst. Everybody has his or her own point of view and how to do
things best. Finding a common ground is hard.

I would like to suggest to take a look at the current trends and
established (and well working) procedures that others have come up with:
clearly the trend is to do things server-side. This has plenty of
advantages, I don't think that I have to recap here. Pretty much the
only disadvantage is that you cannot see your contacts when you are not
connected yourself, but what good is an Instant Messenger if you are not
online? We are not trying to build an Email client, this is purely a
messenger. What good would it be for a cell phone to call people offline
and relay a voice message once you are in reach of the next hub? Truly a
unique and cool feature, but not that important (or useful).

If synching MSN contacts takes 6 seconds on a broadband line, either the
protocol or its implementation sucks. 120 contacts can easily be fit
into a few packets, even with the lowest MTU, it should hardly be
noticeable.

This may sound like a shameless plug, but Jabber is about the most
recent development in IM protocols, and it is really _very_
thought-through. It has so truly unique features that are, in all
aspects, the same development that the step from POP3 to IMAP4 is.

If possible by any means, I would have every plugin of Kopete emulate
Jabber behavior, it would make things much easier. If you need more
features than Jabber has, implement a fake client/server protocol within
the plugins (very easy to do) and have the fake server emulate the
additional features.

As Daniel said in another post, it really is a good idea to at least
browse through the Jabber RFC quickly to see where its goals are and
what it is designed like, it makes all other protocols look stone-aged.

And synching contacts offline - who can add contacts when being offline?
:)

Till


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