[GSoC-2012-Idea] Better chat log viewer

[Mark Doliner]

On Mon, Mar 26, 2012 at 1:19 PM, adeel khan <ak1733 at gmail.com> wrote:
> There is search filter which would highlight for accounts as you type it /
> no pruning the tree here.

In your application I'd be interested in hearing your reason for
choosing to highlight rather than filter.  Personally I prefer
filtering, but this does seem like something people will disagree
about.

> There is refresh log button which would refresh/sync the logs with any
> changes that has happened.

I don't think this should exist.  A good program would automatically
update the viewer as changes happen.  This is technologically
possible, and I think that's what we should do.  Users shouldn't need
to care whether they've clicked a refresh button.

> Still i'am unable to understand the third use case that is
>
> Grouped by contact (person), so if I have "markdoliner" on AIM and
> "mark.doliner@…" on XMPP combined into a contact/person, the logs show up as
> being for one person, with some differentiation for me to tell which IM
> account was used.
>
> Please if some one elaborate this a bit.

Pidgin has a concept of group two buddies into a single entity.  This
is sometimes referred to as meta-contacts.  To see what I mean,
right-click on a buddy in your buddy list and select "expand," and
then drag another buddy into the expanded person.  The idea is that
users should care which screen name they use to IM someone... they
should just click on "Henry" and know that the message will get
delivered one way or another.

And so the chat log viewer should aggregate conversations from all of
Henry's usernames and display one combined conversation.