Re: ThreePointOne: Contacts

[Alexander Larsson <alexl redhat com>]

On Tue, 2011-04-19 at 09:53 +0100, Philip Withnall wrote:
> On Tue, 2011-04-19 at 10:01 +0200, Alexander Larsson wrote:
> > On Mon, 2011-04-18 at 11:52 -0700, Travis Reitter wrote:
> > 
> > > On Mon, 2011-04-18 at 20:29 +0200, Johannes Schmid wrote:
> >  
> > > > While using GNOME 3.0 on my desktop now for a week I wanted to share my
> > > > thoughs on the UI. The problem in the current situation is that the
> > > > shell provides a nice chat integration but to start a new chat you have
> > > > to use the "Contact List" window of empathy which feels totally
> > > > out-of-place. It is also one of the windows you really don't want to see
> > > > in the overview.
> > > 
> > > Agreed. I'd like my general chat process to just be:
> > > 
> > > <Meta>, <start typing person's name>+<Enter>
> > 
> > By meta you mean the "windows key" thing?
> > 
> > > which is the same way I launch all my applications in Gnome Shell (and
> > > is one of the most compelling features of it, I think). Like launching
> > > programs, you would be able to pause to see the full results list and
> > > perform more-specific actions (such as selecting the exact account and
> > > contact you want to initiate the chat from and to, as Empathy lets you
> > > do now).
> > 
> > Yeah, this sounds like about the right thing. I'm thinking we could have
> > a new tab in addition to the windows and applications one listing
> > people, probably showing the online ones first, or at least making that
> > information prominent. Clicking on a person should let you easily send
> > mail, start a im conversation or send a file. Additionally these should
> > show up on the search results, and be possible to put in the dash.
> > 
> > > > What Daniel and Salamon mocked-up is certainly a nice start but I think
> > > > a dedicated window for it doesn't fit with the overall shell design
> > > > well.
> > > 
> > > I think it makes sense to have both. The shell search provider would
> > > focus on communicating with existing contacts (similar to launching
> > > programs), whereas the stand-alone program would be more focused on
> > > adding and managing contacts (which are much-rarer actions). And it
> > > still makes sense to have the communication buttons in the stand-alone
> > > program to make the use case of "add a person, start chat/call with
> > > them" smoother than adding them there, then going to the Activities tab
> > > to start the communication.
> > 
> > Yeah, I think this is somewhat analogous to the file management
> > situation. If you just want to find or open a file you can use the
> > shell, but if you want to do more work you'd start the file manager.
> > 
> > So, the gnome-shell integrated part is about day-to-day using of the
> > already set up stuff, whereas the contacts app is where you'd fill in
> > information, or do more complex stuff like link contacts or create
> > groups. 
> > 
> > There are other integration points we must think about too. Whatever we
> > come up with should imho replace the contacts pane in evolution, and
> > must allow interaction with evolution (dnd onto composer windows, etc).
> > Also, we should have something that corresponds to clicking on the "to"
> > button in the evo compositor to select a single email (or im if used for
> > elsewhere) address to add.
> 
> Empathy uses the “text/individual-id” and “text/persona-id” drag targets
> for dragging and dropping folks individuals and personas.

Shouldn't you be using x-something for nonstandard types like these?
Anyway, we'd need to add corresponding support to evolution too. Also, i
think the current evolution contacts dialog dnds a vcard, which seems
like a good thing to do too.


-- 
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 Alexander Larsson                                            Red Hat, Inc 
       alexl redhat com            alexander larsson gmail com 
He's an underprivileged umbrella-wielding boxer with a passion for fast cars. 
She's a violent cat-loving advertising executive operating on the wrong side 
of the law. They fight crime!