Questions about the new log format

[memark]

So by that logic, we should make all chats between the same two participants log into a single file, if we took the argument far enough.

Which is not so bad, provided powerful search capabilites are provided.
Personally, when I use the log viewer my question is more often on the form
"what was said about x when we last discussed it?"
than
"what did we discuss on date y?"

Taking that further as well, the choice of log file format and how the files are divided should then never matter to the user anyway...

[bgannin]

There are technical concerns in it though, specifically that a gigantic flat file is a lot more to read in and search through than micro files of fixed content. Another aspect is failure - if there's a single file and a corruption occurs during logging, you could lose years of chats. Thus file separation of some form is required and I'm for chronological, not window activity-based, breaking, with day as logical choice IMO.

[MacMom]

I agree with bgannin.

[Rita]

I agree with bgannin.

Ditto.

[Glamdring]

(why someone would want more than one username per service i don't know, but some people do actually do this)

I was a gm for an mmorpg for a while, and everyone had my aim... I was okay with this, and it was actually helpful, but I soon got another for when I just wanted to talk to people that I actually know, and didn't want to be bugged. It makes life a lot easier. Recently I've been considering adding a second msn as well.

Also, my sister occasionally uses my powerbook and has added her accounts as well. It gets kind of confusing looking at the logs sometimes.

How about switching to a new log file when the day changes -OR- when they close the window?

I assume you're talking about doing both at once... which would actually be a pretty decent solution. Conversations would get logged both per-chat for those who want it that way, and per day for those who want to just leave windows open for long periods of time. But those who close windows many times (even during a single conversation) would soon have a whole lot of tiny logs, and all their convos would be chopped up into bits.

Maybe instead there could be an option in the preferences pane to choose whether you want to log per day or per chat.

[bgannin]

This is an incredibly specific and overly complex preference that users don't likely need. Here's a simple test: do 90% of people NEED the functionality to be exposed? If you can't answer yes, you shouldn't add it. This is certainly a case where 90% of people don't need fine-grain control of when log file separating occurs and how the files are grouped/created/etc.

In addition you create twice the work by having different formats/locations that have to be supported for a preference, that, as discussed, won't be a generally useful addition. Work towards one goal, do it great, and then extend. Try to do multiple tasks at once and it only gets worse. (thus, if we switch logging formats let's switch the format, not re-write the entire saving/timing, make it dynamic, slice toast, and run a marathon)

[MacMom]

Because in the current specs both the service and the username are placed in the sole <chat> element it also means that it's not actually one log per service, but one log for every username on every service (why someone would want more than one username per service i don't know, but some people do actually do this), so someone with 2 yahoo accounts, 2 AIM accounts, 1 MSN and 1 Google Talk account could potentially generate 6 logs every day. Whereas using 1 log per chat removes this problem completely.

I have more than one username per chat service. Having multiple logs per day is really not an issue for me at all. When I am searching the logs, I am more interested in finding the user name of the person with whom I chatted than I am in searching for which username I used for the chat. And the username becomes apparent upon opening the chat log. So I really don't see what the problem here would be.

Edited to add that my daughter added her username to my list of AIM accounts also, but it is still not an issue.

[Ludge]

Plus 1 vote for day split.


One log per chat is not so good.

[LuxuryChair]

Plus 1 vote for day split.


One log per chat is not so good.

[da_baum]

I'd rather it split logs per day rather than per conversation as well.

Edit: I'm a Bull Shark now!

[Ringo]

Colin, I'm going to complicate things with a third option. Sincere apologies, but you (and the other devs) might like this.

The basic premise of this thread seems to be "how do we get Adium to recognize when conversations begin and end?" The problem is that neither the daily approach nor the per window-session approach solve the problem.

Note: This was actually suggested by me to Adam for the second or third public release of Adium, but he didn't like it. I've been waiting a long time! Some of you probably thought of it too, because some of it was added added to AdiumX (which means it's probably a good idea).

Enough setup, here's the idea:

Whenever a conversation begins, Adium checks the logs for that contact to see if you've recently talked to them. If there are messages within the timeout period it displays the entire conversation up until now in the window (having already scrolled to the bottom automatically). This is possible since all the pertinent information is in the log file, unlike the HTML and text logs. Additionally, it continues logging the conversation in the same file as it before, adding an event tag representing "opening the window".

If the last message is outside that timeframe, however, then you're probably not having the same conversation as before. As a result, it gives you a shiny new window and a shiny new log file.

This way the log files (more or less) represent the flow of conversations based on criteria that actually determine what a conversation is. Even better, it adds a sort of "saved state" feature to Adium which I think a lot of people would find useful.

The way I picture this is as an additional option in the "Message History" panel. In order to prevent massive log files (as bgannin rightly said, risking corruption) and straining the system, the option for automatically continuing conversations would be disabled if the user has the "if we have talked in the last" option set past a certain amount of time (perhaps a day).

That's the general idea, there's a bit more but I've typed too damn much already. I'd love to hear what you all think of it.

[ofri]

I thought about something like this not long ago, but it appears that Ringo did it much better . I think we should go with this approach.

[Diatribe]

The way I picture this is as an additional option in the "Message History" panel. In order to prevent massive log files (as bgannin rightly said, risking corruption) and straining the system, the option for automatically continuing conversations would be disabled if the user has the "if we have talked in the last" option set past a certain amount of time (perhaps a day).

That's the general idea, there's a bit more but I've typed too damn much already. I'd love to hear what you all think of it.

I really like this. Makes a lot of sense and isn't too complicated. Great idea.

[evands]

I don't use message history as a way of closing and then reopening a window and continuing the conversation; it's a quick reminder of what I spoke about last with a contact regardless of how long ago the conversation was. If my message history timeframe were used to determine when to split log files, I'd end up with one file per contact.

[Diatribe]

I don't use message history as a way of closing and then reopening a window and continuing the conversation; it's a quick reminder of what I spoke about last with a contact regardless of how long ago the conversation was. If my message history timeframe were used to determine when to split log files, I'd end up with one file per contact.

I think he is talking about a separate option to determine that timeframe for logging.

[Ringo]

I think he is talking about a separate option to determine that timeframe for logging.

That's correct.

I'm working on a mockup of the preferences interface right now. Hopefully it will clear things up a bit.

[bgannin]

This addresses display more than the file writing and management. In addition, you run the chance of still creating large files (i.e., thousands upon thousands of objects internal) that would need to be read in again. I don't think you can just read the last X% of an XML file, you have to read it all and seek to the end. Thus every conversation opened would require a log file to be read into memory, seeked to the end, checked, and then parsed for display and passed over for continued logging or generate a new file.

[Ringo]

I hope this helps.

[evands]

This addresses display more than the file writing and management. In addition, you run the chance of still creating large files (i.e., thousands upon thousands of objects internal) that would need to be read in again. I don't think you can just read the last X% of an XML file, you have to read it all and seek to the end. Thus every conversation opened would require a log file to be read into memory, seeked to the end, checked, and then parsed for display and passed over for continued logging or generate a new file.

Actually, Mac-arena's liblmx (get it?) allows reading XML files backwards.

[evands]

I hope this helps.

Are you saying that "Resume conversation" would output the entire previous log into the new message window?