Connect UI

[bitwiseshiftleft]

I think that the UI for connecting and disconnecting accounts in earlier versions of Adium (haven't used it in a while, maybe in 0.7?) were much more convenient, intuitive and HIG-compliant than the current one.

The old "Connect bitwiseshiftleft" and "connect all" buttons in the File menu were nice, and they contained verbs for actions (connect and disconnect) rather than adjectives (Available and Offline). Furthermore, they were only one menu away for a common action, rather than two.

Just a thought.

[Strifer]

i would like to have my connect all back, with the according key combo. truly missing that one! option command k!

[Adam Iser]

I think that the UI for connecting and disconnecting accounts in earlier versions of Adium (haven't used it in a while, maybe in 0.7?) were much more convenient, intuitive and HIG-compliant than the current one.

The old UI did not allow setting of account specific status, the new one does. The new menu is just as HIG compliant (if not more) than the old one, on what grounds do you say that it is not?

The old "Connect bitwiseshiftleft" and "connect all" buttons in the File menu were nice, and they contained verbs for actions (connect and disconnect) rather than adjectives (Available and Offline). Furthermore, they were only one menu away for a common action, rather than two.

The new menus don't contain actions, they contain states, hence why we are using adjectives instead of verbs. I do not understand the issue here.

[Adam Iser]

i would like to have my connect all back, with the according key combo. truly missing that one! option command k!

When and why do you use connect all?

[qedbach]

I think I have to agree with bitwise here. I understand the desire for consistency in the way statuses are treated. However, I feel like "connect/disconnect" works better than "set status to available/offline."

My intuitive idea of a "status" is that it only makes sense when you're already online. Connecting and disconnecting an account are overarching actions outside the status paradigm. For instance, if I'm initially offline and I want to be online with a certain away message up, the course of action breaks most naturally into TWO steps:

1. connect
2. set away message

Simply switching status from "offline" to "blah" breaks my sense of connecting as an action, and hides it behind something more abstract. And this, I think is the essential point -- behind "set status to available" and "set status to offline" are two stronger verbs: "connect" and "disconnect." Hiding these underlying actions from the user might mean fewer menu items, but, for me at least, it's somehow less intuitive.

(It seems a bit like these issues have analogs in the philosophy behind Java. On the one hand "everything is an object" has a nice simplicity to it. However, the problem is, everything is NOT an object! And that's part of why Java sucks . Well, I sort of feel like everything is not a status. Perhaps it's because there's some big picture I'm missing. If so, convince me otherwise!)

[Bosk]

i would like to have my connect all back, with the according key combo. truly missing that one! option command k!

When and why do you use connect all?

for laptop users who do not always have an internet connection, if adium attempts to connect twice and fails, it is convenient to have an option to connect all accounts once the internet connection has been reestablished.

[bitwiseshiftleft]

The old UI did not allow setting of account specific status, the new one does. The new menu is just as HIG compliant (if not more) than the old one, on what grounds do you say that it is not?
...
The new menus don't contain actions, they contain states, hence why we are using adjectives instead of verbs. I do not understand the issue here.

I may not be typical here, but I think of logging into and out of a service very differently from setting my state in such a service. Specifically, I think of it as an action (connect/disconnect) rather than a simple state change (available/offline) on the same level as the other state changes (available, away, idle...).

Given that some other people (you, for one) don't think this way, saying that the current state violates the HIG was too harsh, but the HIG does require that actions be labeled with verbs.

To be fair, there is a point for putting all the statuses there: the user may wish to connect and set away simultaneously, thus going from "offline" to "away" without passing through "available".

When and why do you use connect all?

I actually don't, but I used to when testing an AIMbot :-)

[FredAkbar]

This type of thing is always going to be a problem (or at least a disputed topic) in a multi-protocol client. AIM focuses more on "online vs. offline" since they don't have any actual states other than away and invisible. MSN and Yahoo! focus on states, which include Away, Offline, Out to Lunch, Invisible, and Available. Personally I think there is still a bit of a difference between Offline and the rest of them. When you're offline, you aren't connected to the server. When you're online (no matter what state) you are. So I think it's reasonable to say that connecting (going from Offline to any non-Offline state) is a separate and distinct action, as opposed to going from "Out to Lunch" to "Available."

However, the ability to go directly from Offline to a custom state should still be an option (as it is now, on the Status menu), as this is more practical and intuitive on services such as MSN and Yahoo!. But I think it is a lot more AIM-like to have "Connect" and "Disconnect," and someone who uses Adium as an AIM client would probably expect this.

[Adam Iser]

Simply switching status from "offline" to "blah" breaks my sense of connecting as an action

And that is the intent! Online is a state, just like away, idle, invisible, or offline. I'd argue that removing the separate concept of connecting and disconnecting is highly beneficial, and this is the path we've been taking (with the exception of auto-connect, which I'm still bitter about ).

[Adam Iser]

i would like to have my connect all back, with the according key combo. truly missing that one! option command k!

When and why do you use connect all?

for laptop users who do not always have an internet connection, if adium attempts to connect twice and fails, it is convenient to have an option to connect all accounts once the internet connection has been reestablished.

Select 'available' from the status menu and all those account will connect in this situation. When and why do you need connect all?

[Adam Iser]

I may not be typical here, but I think of logging into and out of a service very differently from setting my state in such a service. Specifically, I think of it as an action (connect/disconnect) rather than a simple state change (available/offline) on the same level as the other state changes (available, away, idle...).

In adium, it is a state change, hence the layout of the status menu!

Given that some other people (you, for one) don't think this way, saying that the current state violates the HIG was too harsh, but the HIG does require that actions be labeled with verbs.

Correct, but they're not actions, they are states! It doesn't make a difference at all that you want them to be actions, because we are treating them as states and therefor the wording needs to reflect that.

[TheSilverFox06]

I didn't like these changes at first either, simply because it was not what I was used to doing. But, after sitting and thinking about it, I realized that the new setup is slightly more intuitive (for me) if I let myself forget about my previous habits and look at the situation purely from a pro-con perspective. I find this same sort of things happens a lot in life in general - something changes to something else that I'm not used to, so I don't like it at first, but then I stop and ask myself "ignoring the fact that I'm used to it being a certain way, is this better than the way it used to be?"

So, in essence, I'm "forcing" myself to get used to the new system, because purely unbiased analysis shows this to be a better system (in my opinion).

[Kepi]

Adam Select 'available' from the status menu and all those account will connect in this situation. When and why do you need connect all?

I use connect all in the same fashion that selecting Available in the .8beta achieves: connecting all my accounts.

I would like the cmd-k and cmd-shift-k back, though. I use the keyboard quite heavily and being able to hit cmd-shift-k when I would be leaving my computer for a longer period of time (vs. just cmd-y and enter for brief absences) was really nice. And when I came back, just cmd-k and I was back up and running in Adium.

[The_Tick]

with the exception of auto-connect, which I'm still bitter about.

You can pry auto-connect from my cold dead hands! Or toes, whichever you find more gross.