[Adium-devl] User Interface Idea's Chat Window and other thoughs

[Andrew Harvey]

On 20/02/2007, at 12:55 AM, Bart van de Biezen wrote:

> I have some remarks about the user interface from the chat window:
> - Emoticon icon is on the top: mouse movements are long. Because  
> people start to point to the input field before they type (mental- 
> image). Therefor I would suggest to move the emoticon icon to  
> bottom of the window.
>  - People use a few icons most of the time. Adium could count and  
> store which emoticons are used most often. These few "favorite  
> emoticons" could be displayed in a more convenient way to the user.

Personally, I don't ever want to see emoticons as part of my message  
view. I only use a few, and have them memorised. The advantage of  
having them in the menu bar is that I don't have to see them, as I  
can simply remove that button from the bar, or hide it.

> - Search could be available right in the chat window to that  
> particular person.

Are we searching chat transcripts? If so, it would be interesting as  
a toolbar item. If not, I don't see the point.

> - Chat input field doesn't really look like an input field. I think  
> this should be more emphasized.

I can see what you mean, and would only perhaps suggest some  
shadowing, á la the text input fields in mail (well, it's where I see  
them at the moment. Seeing as most of the time it is  a single line  
input field, and it seems that they generally have a shadow, whereas  
multi-line text areas do not.
> I also had some other thoughts. Just generally:
> - Adding a person from address book should work without selecting  
> an im service. Adium should enable all the possible ways of  
> contacting that person.
Hmmm... I just don't think this is a) workable b) a good idea.  
Selecting the IM service is standard, like selecting which phone  
number (home, work or mobile) is in the address book.

> - When it is someone's birthday the status icon could be a birthday- 
> cake or something?

Cute, but not really worth spending that much time on.

> - if there is a unread im, the first part of this text could  
> replace the status message of the contact person.

Interesting... I don't use status messages in the CL, so I'm not sure  
how it would go.

> - Making the contact list the "tabs". I have to think more about  
> this :)

That idea scares me. I like the idea of having the CL and the Message  
window separate. The CL hides on one side of my screen, like the  
dock, and the message window visible as a standard window. It just  
works nicely and is intuitive. I just feel like this wouldn't be...  
OS X-esque. Of course, that's just me. I have far too many contacts  
to fit into tabs, and I like my message view quite small, so it  
really wouldn't work for me. I don't know about the rest of the  
userbase.