Hey Robbie, I agree with most of the points, and understand where you're coming from in regards to the evolution instead of revolution, but revolution was obviously our intention.
I went through what George Lambrou did, and I mostly like the UX, especially the attached contact list. Anyway, I'd love to get more feedback from all active developers and the PM - preferably with a decision on wether our UI proposal is something that you'd pursue. I'd need some kind of a decision, so we (Dawid and me) know where we stand, if we should book some time off on getting more UI done :-) Kind Regards, Oskar On May 4, 2013, at 10:35 PM, Robert Vehse <robertve...@fastmail.fm> wrote: > Hey everyone, > > First of all, thanks a lot for your work, Oskar and Dawid. > > Here are some thoughts I have on the proposal. I will pick aspects that I > find most interesting. > > Visual/aesthetic aspects > The presentation seems to suggest a completely custom-coded window. I'd > venture to say it's unlikely for someone to come around and re-code the > entire chat window. Also, in my opinion, customisability, especially in the > visual department (contact list, message view), is one of Adium's strengths, > I'd rather not lose that. As a result, my approach to realising some of what > the concept envisions would be an evolutionary, pragmatic one. I'm thinking > about how aspects could be implemented based on the current state of Adium as > an app and as a project. > > To me, the most visually striking aspect of the concept is its minimalism. > The most prevalent colour is white. That way, relevant parts of the UI, its > content (user names, status, messages etc.), are highlighted which is a good > thing. > > So the question is: how can we tone down Adium's UI to achieve this > minimalism? Well, obviously the message view part wouldn't be too hard. A > message style should easily accomplish this. I suspect styling the toolbar > and the tabs is a lot more difficult. As of 10.8 the toolbar is still > somewhat of a system standard in OS X so we would probably want to start with > the styling of the tabs. I really do think the tabs could use some work. > > Functional aspects > Chat window: message view > - emoticons in the input box: this idea has been around for some time > (https://trac.adium.im/ticket/484) and its implementation isn't far from > being done, I believe, Adrian just needs to finish the work he did in his > branch (http://hg.adium.im/adium/shortlog/b06ab45b7b91) > - inline images: I believe the message view supports this, at least in theory? > - inline video: there's an outdated plugin for Youtube videos: > http://www.adiumxtras.com/?a=xtras&xtra_id=6655. Would (message view) > performance take a hit with inline videos? I think I wouldn't mind them if > they are not displayed too large. > - message read/replied indication: I like that. > - setting status in the chat window: it's a good idea but I prefer the idea > of implementing this in the toolbar the way George Lambrou suggested it with > his "Me button" in his "Adium Next" concept > (http://markmail.org/search/?q=lambrou&q=list%3Aim.adium.devel#query:lambrou%20list%3Aim.adium.devel+page:1+mid:b7sn4zfroaxy42mv+state:results, > PDF attachment included) > > Chat window: toolbar > - reducing the default amount of items in the toolbar has been suggested > numerous times before (Paul Wilde last brought this up: > https://trac.adium.im/ticket/15400) and rightly so. The default toolbar is > way too crammed. In fact, I was going to address this here on the mailing > list soon and I still intend to do so > > Chat window: tabs > - service icons on user icons: I'm not fan of this idea, Adium tries to be > service-agnostic. > > Dropbox integration > I feel the message view isn't the most logical place for a drop zone, maybe a > toolbar items would be suited for this? We could allow integration of other > services such as Cloud.app or Droplr as plugins. > > Menu bar item > - active input: maybe a bit too geeky for the average user > > So much from now. I'd be interested in hearing the opinions of others, > especially our active developers. :) > > Cheers, > Robbie
