On Wed, May 8, 2013 at 11:31 AM, Robert Vehse <robertve...@fastmail.fm>wrote:
> Hi folks, > > With a beta of 1.6 on the horizon, I'd like to talk about some of Adium > defaults. About a year ago Rick Fillion of Black Pixel (Kaleidoscope, > Versions, NetNewsWire) went to the trouble of giving us detailed feedback > via email on why he is unhappy with Adium's defaults and Peter Hosey > forwarded the email to us for consideration: > http://markmail.org/message/m3f777mmqu66tqaa?q=default+list:im.adium.devel#query:default > list:im.adium.devel+page:1+mid:m3f777mmqu66tqaa+state:results<http://markmail.org/message/m3f777mmqu66tqaa?q=default+list:im.adium.devel#query:default%20list:im.adium.devel+page:1+mid:m3f777mmqu66tqaa+state:results>. > Nothing came of it back then but I think now is a good time to make > substantial improvements that don't necessarily mean a lot of work. > > I just want to start by saying that I really truly do like Adium. It's a > good app, and I use it heavily every day. > > > I get a lot of people asking me what the best way to get MSN or AIM on a > Mac. The answer for this is very clear in my mind: Adium. And so that's > what I recommend. Basically everyone I recommend it to goes and tries it > out. But very very few end up sticking with it. Why? Cause > the default install turns just about everyone off except those of us who > know that we can go and tweak it to turn down the suck. > > > Rick's critique touches very different aspects of Adium's defaults but one > particularly struck a nerve with me: default notifications. > > > *Default notifications* > > - Sounds. It's tacky. Unless my Mac has something VERY important to tell > me, it better not make a peep. Certainly not every time I get a message. > I turn that off immediately. All sounds. > - Growl Messages. Treat it like sound, only a smidge less severe. It's > not cute, it's not flashy, it's annoying. A growl alert takes my focus > away from whatever I was doing (usually something significantly more > important than IM). Tell me something important, something that warrants my > attention. Think _hard_ about that one […] > > > I really can relate to that criticism. From what I've gathered over the > years, many users are unhappy with the high amount of default notifications > (two examples from the last two days: > https://twitter.com/steveklabnik/status/331848672918769665, > https://twitter.com/kaelifa/status/332123768749178881). As far as I can > tell, even most of us on the Team turn off many of the default > notifications. > > The number one reason for this default setup I've been given is > "discoverability", that is pushing all options in the user's face so that > they know about them. However, as Rick mentions above, only those who > bother and are somewhat technically inclined will go and check out the > events settings to make changes, many will just move on to the next piece > of software if they are too pissed off. So in my opinion, we should choose > "sane defaults", defaults that make sense. People shouldn't be forced to > figure out our events preferences to make Adium fun to use. If people add > more notifications or use a different type of notification, they can still > go and discover the possibilities. > > My general recommendation with Growl is to only show notifications that are actionable. The user sees it and then can do something with that information is ideal. Personally when I use Adium, it's a very tuned down subset of whatever the default is (I don't even know what it is), so I'd agree with tuning it to be more friendly. Good luck with whatever you end up with. :) Chris > > *Toolbar items* > > This is really just scratching the surface. > > > Rick Fillion didn't specifically comment on our current selection of > default toolbar items in the chat window but I've seen it being criticised > many times as well (Paul Wilde last brought this up: > https://trac.adium.im/ticket/15400). The toolbar is definitely too > crowded and crammed with some rarely-used functions. Arguably, > only frequently-used functions should be given this much permanent space in > the UI. > > > Let's review these two areas of defaults, notifications and toolbar > items, for Adium 1.6. I've set up pages on our Wiki for discussion: > https://trac.adium.im/wiki/DefaultsReview2013. > > > Cheers, > Robbie > -- Chris Forsythe @The_Tick <http://twitter.com/The_Tick>
