[Psi-devel] Re: Usability.

[Cliff Dugal]

I think I really like this feature (status updating via an edit line much 
like for a URI in a browser at the bottom of Psi in a toolbar). I think it 
would make it easier for me to update my status when I'm online. If it's 
easier to do, and actually in a spot where I can see it, I'll most likely 
update it more, and I imagine this would help make Psi have a more friendly 
atmosphere. Of course, if I'm updating my status message all the time, I 
would like to see other people's status messages in a more direct fashion, 
like the status message in the roster patch. :-)

Now, how to actually implement this method... There are both an availability 
and a status that change. If we can live with them both changing at 
different times, then I would suggest that the status message would stay 
the same regardless of the availability and let the user change the status 
message separately. On the other hand, if we want to be able to change both 
at the same time, then we need a way to confirm that both are selected 
accordingly. I can think of two ways: one is to have a confirm button, the 
other is to have a timeout after a selection of an availability. An example 
of the timeout method would be the user selecting a different availability, 
the status changing to the previous status (or not changing if that's a 
better design), and Psi waiting ~5 seconds without any availability/status 
changes to publish the change, allowing the user enough time to change the 
status (there should be some type of feedback around the status box 
indicating that it is not yet published, but will be shortly). I think I 
like the timeout confirmation method as it leads to less cluttering, fewer 
mouse clicks, and I think is a little more intuitive to use.

I do think that even if this method is implemented (and I hope it is), we 
should still keep the dialogs for those that can't spare the screen real 
estate. Possibly we could have a button to show the status change dialog 
for those that want to change their status infrequently. Also, we should 
probably be able to edit availability status message defaults through the 
Status tab of the Options dialog.

Cliff

On Sunday, February 13, 2005 19:31, Dawid Ciezarkiewicz wrote:
> On Monday 14 of February 2005 01:15, Dawid Ciezarkiewicz wrote:
> > I can provide
> > screenshot but not sooner than tomorrow.
>
> http://www.gwiazdy.net.pl/~arael/dump/konntakt.png
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