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List:       kopete-devel
Subject:    Re: [kopete-devel] Usability issues in Chat History dialog
From:       Johannes Jowereit <jowereit () googlemail ! com>
Date:       2007-02-28 20:02:49
Message-ID: 200702282102.55263.jowereit () googlemail ! com
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Hello,

Am Montag, 26. Februar 2007 11:44 schrieb Martijn Klingens:
> Please note that Kopete 0.12 (KDE 3.5 version) is in maintenance
> mode, and only bugfixes are allowed. Some of your changes are
> perfect, but others probably belong in KDE 4's Kopete.

OK. I didn't distinguish between bug fix and feature, but just 
coded ... I would of course love to see the new features in KDE4 :-)

> Speaking of which, do you think you'll be able to work on Kopete
> for KDE 4 as well? We could use more developers there...

Yes, this would be possible, as it's maybe a good entry point for KDE 
programming. Is there already a KDE4 version of Kopete?

BTW, I have subscribed kopete-devel now, so you don't have to CC me 
any more.

> > - The search line above the date list view has been removed.
>
> Is it gone entirely or replaced with something else?

It has been completely removed; as I explained in my mock-up, it is 
not needed because you can filter for the contacts with the combo box 
and sort by date by clicking on the corresponding list view column.

However, this is only my personal opinion, and I would be interested 
to hear someone else's.

> [The message header] is a new feature and probably a no-go for KDE 
> 3.5, especially given that it introduces new strings.
>
> For KDE 4 it's a good idea.

OK, then I'll continue developing on it, since it is not really mature 
yet.

> * In that same line of code you do
>
>    QString( "%1 %2 %3" ).arg( A ).arg( B ).arg( C );
>
>   Don't do that. Using arg() like this is slower, but worse, if A
> contains the text "%1", it will replace that %1 with B, and %2 with
> C. This is the Qt 2 way of doing things, in Qt 3 and Qt 4 it should
> be:
>
>    QString( "%1 %2 %3" ).arg( A, B, C );

OK, thanks. BTW, I think I found that way of calling QString.arg() 
somewhere else in KDE, so it isn't fixed everywhere :-)

> * Should we use the chatwindow style here too, to make it look
> consistent?

This sounds like a good idea,especially when sharing the chatwindow's 
code with the one of the history plugin. On the other hand, some 
chatwindow styles take much space which might be unfit for having a 
quick overview of what you have written. So maybe a "text mode" style 
should be provided for the history plugin, which would look much like 
the one used now.

> > - I commented out the code in line 374-381 (non-patched version)
> > and replaced it by putting the account in the header. However,
> > the original code does some checks I don't really understand. Is
> > my code sufficent?
>
> I'm not sure what it does either. Did you try 'svn annotate' to see
> what revision added this and find the corresponding 'svn log'
> message?

No, thanks for the tip. I guess I'll have to get familiar to SVN 
anyway if I want to start with KDE programming ...

> > - I couldn't get Qt to let the size of the date list view fixed,
> > so now it is too big and resizes when the window is resized. How
> > can this be fixed?
>
> QSizePolicy::Fixed? But I'm not sure if hardcoding is a good idea.
> A splitter might be better.

Yes, I wanted to keep the splitter, but when resizing the window, only 
the message viewer should resize (as it is done now, but I changed 
the layouts and it doesn't work any more). But I guess a little more 
playing around with QSizePolicy should help.

> The cryptical string is the ID from the address book. But within
> Kopete you don't need to make this indirection. I think the chat
> window already does this. Take a look at that. But this really
> screams for sharing the code between history and chat window.

Yes, indeed - maybe for KDE4 it would be possible to put the chat 
window code into a separate class.

> It's *badly* missing. Kopete makes a mess of history of
> multi-person chats.
>
> I have some chat logs with 3-person chats, but when viewing them in
> History I don't see who wrote what, history assumes it's all
> written by one person :S
>
> The data on disk is correct, it's the display that's broken, so it
> can be fixed for my existing logs btw.

I see ... Maybe I can try implementing something; this would again be 
a thing for KDE4, I guess.

> I now have a request for you:
>
> Can you please send a couple of smaller patches that each address
> one or a few issues? This cumulative patch is hard to breakdown in
> the individual fixes.

OK, see attachment. I made this big patch more as a "proof of 
concept", but I see it's better if some parts are split for KDE 3.5.

> Those can probably all go into KDE 3.5 right away and make the
> remaining patch a fair bit shorter.

I think I'll continue working on the rest (header, UI, maybe I'll try 
to get something done about multi-person chats) which could then 
maybe go into KDE4.

> Thanks for the work you've done!
Thanks for your support!

Best regards,
Johannes

-- 
Black holes are where God divided by zero -- Steven Wright

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