cocoaforge

You make some good points there. On the other hand, why can't emoticons be seen as any other customization? If user X likes to use the Stockholm message style, and South Park emoticons, why should we forbid her to?

djmori wrote: I belive that both sides of a chat should see exactlty the same emoticons, so it does'nt make any sence to change local emocitons

No way.

The way it should work is as it is now.

The icons specific for the service take priority (unless otherwise stated), then if an image for that particular emoticon is not present, it should go through the packs until a match is found.


Personally, I use the IPB emoticon set and have it prioritised above all others so that service-specific icons are only used if an IPB one isn't present. Besides, all the service-default ones are ugly. Especially MSN and Yahoo!

This solution is a bit like swatting a fly using a sledgehammer. It accomplishes the goal, but in doing so goes too far in its impact. Why is it necessary to (basically) completely remove a feature to solve this issue?

Some notes:
- not all protocols support anything akin to MSN's custom emoticons or image sending
- emoticons are meant to be text interpreted by the client
- as Evan noted, every client has different versions of icons even just for themselves
- why should you initiate a file transfer every time you want to send an emoticon? (overkill)

well you've got some points there too... but I belive that right know its not as friendly and intuitive as it should be.
Maybe you guys should remove the checkboxes and add some kind of drop down menu where one could choose wish one to use with each protocol.

Argh, emoticons for each protocol suck. I use Adium because I want to forget about the different protocols, not have a noticeable difference. What you are proposing djmori is the opposite of that.

Given what Adium does, how does "per service emoticons" really fit into that?

evands wrote:Not only planned, but already implemented and present in Adium 0.89. If you have multiple emoticon packs enabled, and one is appropriate for the protocol, it wil be preferred.

Preferences->Appearance->Emoticons: Customize. Turn on Yahoo, MSN, etc. Grab more packs from adiumxtras.com as appropriate, and turn those on. No step 3.

I think I have a better idea of how we could implement this.

In the accounts, have a drop down somewhere in the account that allows you to select the emoticon pack/use default.


Maybe, heh.

The_Tick wrote:

evands wrote:Not only planned, but already implemented and present in Adium 0.89. If you have multiple emoticon packs enabled, and one is appropriate for the protocol, it wil be preferred.

Preferences->Appearance->Emoticons: Customize. Turn on Yahoo, MSN, etc. Grab more packs from adiumxtras.com as appropriate, and turn those on. No step 3.

I think I have a better idea of how we could implement this.

In the accounts, have a drop down somewhere in the account that allows you to select the emoticon pack/use default.


Maybe, heh.

well that would work too. You're right with the "forget about protocols thing", but that's why I would prefer that adium automatically handles that.

djmori wrote:You're right with the "forget about protocols thing", but that's why I would prefer that adium automatically handles that.

But that's not right. Either you forget about the protocols entirely, or you do the opposite. Having emoticons specific to the protocol is the opposite of forgetting about it entirely.

The_Tick wrote:

djmori wrote:You're right with the "forget about protocols thing", but that's why I would prefer that adium automatically handles that.

But that's not right. Either you forget about the protocols entirely, or you do the opposite. Having emoticons specific to the protocol is the opposite of forgetting about it entirely.

And how about improving the default emoticon pack (it should include emoticons for every key-combinations from every protocol supported). That would also work as a guide for xtras-devs.

djmori wrote:

The_Tick wrote:

djmori wrote:You're right with the "forget about protocols thing", but that's why I would prefer that adium automatically handles that.

But that's not right. Either you forget about the protocols entirely, or you do the opposite. Having emoticons specific to the protocol is the opposite of forgetting about it entirely.

And how about improving the default emoticon pack (it should include emoticons for every key-combinations from every protocol supported). That would also work as a guide for xtras-devs.

How about one topic per thread

The_Tick wrote:

djmori wrote:

The_Tick wrote: But that's not right. Either you forget about the protocols entirely, or you do the opposite. Having emoticons specific to the protocol is the opposite of forgetting about it entirely.

And how about improving the default emoticon pack (it should include emoticons for every key-combinations from every protocol supported). That would also work as a guide for xtras-devs.

How about one topic per thread

I'm not offtopic.. its an alternative to solve this issue.

djmori wrote:

The_Tick wrote:

djmori wrote: And how about improving the default emoticon pack (it should include emoticons for every key-combinations from every protocol supported). That would also work as a guide for xtras-devs.

How about one topic per thread

I'm not offtopic.. its an alternative to solve this issue.

Didn't say you were offtopic.

The_Tick wrote:

djmori wrote:

The_Tick wrote: How about one topic per thread

I'm not offtopic.. its an alternative to solve this issue.

Didn't say you were offtopic.

Sorry, I misundertud you.

Anyway, back on track...ideas?

bgannin wrote:- why should you initiate a file transfer every time you want to send an emoticon? (overkill)

well, with connection speeds getting faster and faster every time you blink, sending tiny images instead of emoticons (in the future, that is) isn't that silly.
on a different note, my main problem isn't the emoticons I see, it's the emoticons my contact doesn't see. i really hate it when I want to comment on something my friend said with an emoticon, and I have the perfect one for the job, but all he sees is "(p0s)" or something.
yelly

The_Tick wrote:

djmori wrote:

The_Tick wrote: How about one topic per thread

I'm not offtopic.. its an alternative to solve this issue.

Didn't say you were offtopic.

May I ask what then was the point of your post?
You suggested that he was discussing a topic other than that of the thread?
How is this different from saying his post is off topic?

yelly wrote:

bgannin wrote:- why should you initiate a file transfer every time you want to send an emoticon? (overkill)

well, with connection speeds getting faster and faster every time you blink, sending tiny images instead of emoticons (in the future, that is) isn't that silly.
on a different note, my main problem isn't the emoticons I see, it's the emoticons my contact doesn't see. i really hate it when I want to comment on something my friend said with an emoticon, and I have the perfect one for the job, but all he sees is "(p0s)" or something.
yelly

This can't really be done without protocol level support and the only protocols that support this are MSN (custom emoticons) and AIM (directIM).

memark wrote:

The_Tick wrote:

djmori wrote: I'm not offtopic.. its an alternative to solve this issue.

Didn't say you were offtopic.

May I ask what then was the point of your post?
You suggested that he was discussing a topic other than that of the thread?
How is this different from saying his post is off topic?

He was discussing the default emoticon set, rather than setting a specific pack per protocol. Which is a different topic entirely, and deserves its own thread.

on a different note, my main problem isn't the emoticons I see, it's the emoticons my contact doesn't see. i really hate it when I want to comment on something my friend said with an emoticon, and I have the perfect one for the job, but all he sees is "(p0s)" or something.
yellyc

That's exactly the hole point!.... I'm positive that's why flyabusa opened this thread.
Having une set of emoticoncs per protocol is the obvios way to solve this... but if the porpuse of adium is to "forget about protocols" we should look for another solution.
In the first post of this topic, he talks about "smart emoticon switching". That's why I was thinking (and I insist) in making one improved, and smart default icon pack that enables certain emoticons acording to the conversation you're having (in the emoticons button). This can be a cool, simple and friendly way to handle this, and in the case of AIM direct connect and msn, every emoticon could be used using direct connect and custom emoticon transfer.

Surely the ultimate purpose of Adium is to enable communication, and while I have to agree that it's good that Adium helps you forget about the different protocols, I think the emphasis with emoticons should be in displaying an emoticon in the way the sender intended.

I know emoticons are in essence just text, but since in every official client the text is replaced with a particular image then we should admit that they are now much more than just text (a picture being worth a thousand words and all that).

I don't know about you guys, but I personally don't always necessarily select the right emoticon for my communication, I usually select the right image, and my contacts seem to do the same. For example on msn I may use the 8o| baring teeth image to mean extreme smiley, or the eye-rolling image to mean *lost*, and usually the :-P tongue out image has some innuendo. These meanings are all because of the specific images used in msn, so displaying these emoticons with alternative images would possibly loose these meanings. Also, aside from the meanings of the unique images, the emoticons may have completely different meanings on the different protocols: I just saw on my preview that msn's eye-rolling seems to mean cool on this message board!

Since the meaning of a given emoticon is not universal, and even for the ones which are, the meaning of the pictures used by the different protocols are not universal, I think replacing the different sets with an Adium 'super set' will mean that the emoticons' loose some of their meaning.

When already so much of a sender's intended communication cannot be conveyed over IMs (ie tone of voice, body language etc), and many of the new, ever-inventive method's of communication added to the official clients (like the whiteboard thing, winks, nudges etc) cannot be conveyed over Adium, I personally don't think that Adium should alter the parts of an intended communication that can be conveyed (without good reason), however minor they are.

So my thoughts on the matter are that Custom emoticons should be displayed if possible (for msn/aol), and if not then the protocols most recent default pack should be used. I think this enables the sender's communication the most effectively since emoticons are still sent as text and the senders actual intended emoticon image (including via their client and it's version) cannot be determined.

Another good point about Adium is that it gives users the freedom to set use their own preferences for many things - such as emoticons, so I think the best way to implement emoticons is exactly how it's done now - with the user able to set their own preferences. That way djmori could create her Adium 'super pack' and give it the highest precedence, this could even be a default setting but I personally think that would discourage switchers.

In addition, an Adium 'super pack' would not solve the fact that your contacts won't be able to see emoticon's not supported by their client until Adium is capable of sending all Custom emoticons over all protocols. A (partial) solution to this would be to only make available the most recent default packs for the current protocol for insertion in a conversation. I say partial solution because people with older versions of the offical clients still obviously may have problems (at least then it's their 'fault' and not Adiums!).

As a suggestion to simplify the settings for new users: for the emoticon drop down on the appearance preferences tab, you could have three options:
1) Protocol defaults (- all the default emoticon packs would have to be included)
2) Adium Super pack (- with an image for every emoticon on every protocol)
3) Custom (- which would display the current Customize window in all it's glory)

I could understand if Adium was to have it's own pack selected by default, because as someone else previously mentioned - the 'localisation' of (none custom) emoticons for specific protocols is actually done by the clients, and Adium is a client in it's own right, and so possibly deserves it's own unique default emoticon set. However I would have the protocol defaults selected by default so that the senders intended communication remains intact.

budoink wrote:I don't know about you guys, but I personally don't always necessarily select the right emoticon for my communication, I usually select the right image, and my contacts seem to do the same. For example on msn I may use the 8o| baring teeth image to mean extreme smiley, or the eye-rolling image to mean *lost*, and usually the :-P tongue out image has some innuendo. These meanings are all because of the specific images used in msn, so displaying these emoticons with alternative images would possibly loose these meanings.

This is a very good point. I use my emoticons in pretty much the same way.

What is your take on using custom emoticon sets, like a South Park pack? Should this be disencouraged to avoid confusion with images displaying the 'wrong' emotion?

As you touch upon there will be a problem when Adium sends a (text-based) emoticon that the receiver doesn't have. I don't think Adium should concern itself with this. Or we might be on our way to introducing...

Adium Emoticon Police, Fuck Yeah!