Bug 94178 - Better chat logs needed
Summary: Better chat logs needed
Status: RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Alias: None
Product: kopete
Classification: Unmaintained
Component: History Plugin (other bugs)
Version First Reported In: unspecified
Platform: Mandrake RPMs Linux
: NOR wishlist
Target Milestone: ---
Assignee: Kopete Developers
URL:
Keywords:
Depends on:
Blocks:
 
Reported: 2004-11-30 19:40 UTC by k776
Modified: 2024-09-18 18:34 UTC (History)
0 users

See Also:
Latest Commit:
Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:


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Description k776 2004-11-30 19:40:27 UTC
Version:            (using KDE KDE 3.2.3)
Installed from:    Mandrake RPMs
OS:                Linux

Kopetes chat log system is confusing. So I have a better idea. Store each log as a text file for each account in each users folder. For eg:, im k776

file:/home/k776/kopete/ is where the logs are stored for one account, or:

file:/home/k776/kopete/msn/ and whatever for multiple accounts. For eg, a chat log today with multiple accounts:

file:/home/k776/kopete/msn/whatever@hotmail.com.txt

and a chat log three month ago:

file:/home/k776/kopete/msn/archives/september2004/whatever@hotmail.com.txt

And it adjust to each day, and user, and account etc etc. I would really love this feature. What does everyone think??
Comment 1 Richard Smith 2004-11-30 19:51:19 UTC
On Tuesday 30 November 2004 18:40, k776 wrote:
> Kopetes chat log system is confusing.

How so?

> So I have a better idea. Store each log as a text file for each account in
> each users folder.

You want one text file per account? And you definitely want to store it as 
text?

> file:/home/k776/kopete/ is where the logs are stored for one account, or:
>
> file:/home/k776/kopete/msn/ and whatever for multiple accounts.

I don't really understand what you mean by this. You want it laid out 
differently depending on the number of registered accounts?

> For eg, a chat log today with multiple accounts:
>
> file:/home/k776/kopete/msn/whatever hotmail com txt
>
> and a chat log three month ago:
>
> file:/home/k776/kopete/msn/archives/september2004/whatever hotmail com txt

And what if you've not run Kopete in the last three months? When do the files 
get moved? Why not just have a consistent system which doesn't depend on 
whether the logs are for today?

> And it adjust to each day, and user, and account etc etc. I would really
> love this feature. What does everyone think??

I'm unconvinced.
Comment 2 k776 2004-11-30 20:57:43 UTC
>> How so?

I dont know where they are stored, I dont know how to open them, I
dont know what format they save in.

>> You want one text file per account? And you definitely want to
store it as text?

No, one text file per contact and one folder per account, but if only
one account is made, just stroe in file:/home/k776/kopete/, not
file:/home/k776/kopete/XXX/ where XXX is one for msn, icq, aol etc
etc. And yes, text file is the easiest??
 
>> I don't really understand what you mean by this. You want it laid
out differently depending on the number of registered accounts?

Yes, for eg:, I have one icq and one msn, so text chat logs for msn
contacts go in file:/home/k776/kopete/msn/ and text chat logs for icq
go in file:/home/k776/kopete/icq/ etc for the others. If you have more
than one MSN account, you do file:/home/k776/kopete/msn
[address@whatever.com]/ and file:/home/k776/kopete/msn
[address@whatever.com]/

>> And what if you've not run Kopete in the last three months? When do
the files get moved? Why not just have a consistent system which
doesn't depend on whether the logs are for today?

If you chat to someone, then dont login for three months, logs would
be archived if older than 30days. The place they would be archived to
is something like file:/home/k776/kopete/XXX/archives/month 2004/text
file goes in here.txt . If you regually come on, logs should be
archived instantly.

>> I'm unconvinced.

Awww, come on. I really need this feature. I do all my school work
online and I contantly talk to teachers over MSN, but sometimes I
forget save what they say, and I cant get to my logs (if they even
exsist). Lots of people would like this feature Im sure.
Comment 3 Jason Keirstead 2004-11-30 23:08:01 UTC
On November 30, 2004 03:57 pm, k776 wrote:
> Awww, come on. I really need this feature. I do all my school work
> online and I contantly talk to teachers over MSN, but sometimes I
> forget save what they say, and I cant get to my logs (if they even
> exsist). Lots of people would like this feature Im sure.

The logs are stored in plain-jane XML and are in ~/.kde/share/apps/kopete/logs

The format may change someday, but the location won't. KDE apps store their 
files under their apps directory - that's how it goes.

Maybe an "Export" could be added or something.

Comment 4 k776 2004-11-30 23:48:56 UTC
ahh, thanks for the folder address. I did not know that exsisted.

kp


On 30 Nov 2004 22:08:02 -0000, Jason Keirstead <jason@keirstead.org> wrote:
> ------- You are receiving this mail because: -------
> You reported the bug, or are watching the reporter.
> 
> http://bugs.kde.org/show_bug.cgi?id=94178
> 
> ------- Additional Comments From jason keirstead org  2004-11-30 23:08 -------
> On November 30, 2004 03:57 pm, k776 wrote:
> > Awww, come on. I really need this feature. I do all my school work
> > online and I contantly talk to teachers over MSN, but sometimes I
> > forget save what they say, and I cant get to my logs (if they even
> > exsist). Lots of people would like this feature Im sure.
> 
> The logs are stored in plain-jane XML and are in ~/.kde/share/apps/kopete/logs
> 
> The format may change someday, but the location won't. KDE apps store their
> files under their apps directory - that's how it goes.
> 
> Maybe an "Export" could be added or something.
> 


Comment 5 Richard Smith 2004-12-01 16:56:52 UTC
On Tuesday 30 November 2004 19:57, k776 wrote:
> >> You want one text file per account? And you definitely want to
> >> store it as text?
>
> No, one text file per contact and one folder per account, but if only
> one account is made, just stroe in file:/home/k776/kopete/, not
> file:/home/k776/kopete/XXX/ where XXX is one for msn, icq, aol etc
> etc.

> And yes, text file is the easiest?? 

If the on-disk format of the history plugin were meant for people to read, 
then you'd be right. But it's really designed only for the history plugin to 
read. That said, XML isn't that hard to understand, so you ought to be OK 
reading the logs. It's a pity the history plugin decided to use a completely 
different XML format from the rest of Kopete or you'd be able to apply the 
XSL files to your history to generate pretty HTML views of it.

> >> I don't really understand what you mean by this. You want it laid
> >> out differently depending on the number of registered accounts?
>
> Yes, for eg:, I have one icq and one msn, so text chat logs for msn
> contacts go in file:/home/k776/kopete/msn/ and text chat logs for icq
> go in file:/home/k776/kopete/icq/ etc for the others. If you have more
> than one MSN account, you do file:/home/k776/kopete/msn
> [address whatever com]/ and file:/home/k776/kopete/msn
> [address whatever com]/

That is basically not going to happen. The extra complexity of moving the 
directories around when accounts are added / removed (and on loading the 
history plugin) is not worth the tiny improvement in navigation around the 
directory structure by users (which is not what the data is for anyway).

> >> And what if you've not run Kopete in the last three months? When do
> >> the files get moved? Why not just have a consistent system which
> >> doesn't depend on whether the logs are for today?
>
> If you chat to someone, then dont login for three months, logs would
> be archived if older than 30days.

How? Magically? If the program's not run, who moves them around?

Given all the above, your best bet would be either (1) to ask for a nicer 
history viewer, or (2) to ask for some sort of utility to export history XML 
to text files.
Comment 6 k776 2004-12-01 20:56:15 UTC
> Given all the above, your best bet would be either (1) to ask for a nicer
> history viewer, or (2) to ask for some sort of utility to export history XML
> to text files.

ok, well then I'd have to go with (2) to ask for some sort of utility
to export history XML
to text files. but also specify where to export them too.

Comment 7 Ralph Shoop 2005-02-09 19:03:56 UTC
The archiving and dynamically moving are silly, but storing the files or being allowed to export to plain text would be nice. I find it hard to use the history from within kopete, and as it is xml, its very diffucult to read by itsself in a text editor, wrowser, etc.
Comment 8 Jason Keirstead 2005-02-09 19:12:33 UTC
On Wednesday 09 February 2005 2:04 pm, Ralph Shoop wrote:
> I find it hard to use the history from within kopete, and as it is xml, its
> very diffucult to read by itsself in a text editor, wrowser, etc.

In the very short term I am going to write an XSLT for the history chat and 
start referenceing it inside the log files. Then if you open the XML file in 
Firefox it will show up as a plain text page, or maybe something a bit nicer 
if I have the time. At this point, I will probably close this bug, since it 
will not be valid anymore.

Unfortunatly this won't work with Konqueror since it has no XSL support. But 
for this I would vote for support in konqueror, not Kopete.

Anyway - XML is just plain better. We can view it as text, but it also lets us 
organize the data and index it well. for example, one could write a utility 
that would let you search for messages by any field in the XML, rather than 
just a plain text search.

Comment 9 Sonyu Chen 2005-06-11 03:25:10 UTC
I don't think creating "not-hidden" folders under ~/, ~/Documents/, or simliar locations and saving all the IM things in it is a good thing.  The M$-Windows convention usually make the folder "My Documents" be stuck with a lot of "My...", such as "My Music", "My Video", perhaps even "My Breakfast" :P As someone mentioned above, the chatlog is saved for the history plugin to display.  So saving it somewhere "hidden" is generally a better idea.  If the user prefers it to be somewhere else, a symbolic link can be made.  

Well, talking about the chatlog location, I have another wish now @_@"  Can there be an option to set the default directory for incoming files, as seen in the official MSN Messenger?  Currently I manually save them in another location. Should I open another new wish for this functionality!!??  Thanks
Comment 10 Thomas Beinicke 2005-06-11 06:48:07 UTC
Yes, I think you should open another wish.
Having a default location for incoming files is a good idea.
Comment 11 alancio 2007-05-17 18:08:48 UTC
I agree, the chat logs should be plain textfiles, and separated by account.

I use three different computers, and sometimes I want to find a conversation and I don't remember which computer I was using at the time. (No, NFS is not an option).

With gaim I have a script to sync my conversation history to a single computer:
(cd $HOME; tar cf - .gaim/logs .gaim/blist.xml) | ssh single-server tar xf - && rm -rf .gaim/logs/*

This NEVER overwrites old conversations, because there is just one log file per conversation (the filename has a datetime part).  Also, I can read my logs with a simple "less".

I think gaim got it right, it should be done the same way.
Comment 12 Christoph Cullmann 2024-09-18 18:34:41 UTC
Dear user, unfortunately Kopete is no longer maintained.

Please migrate to another solution, e.g. for Jabber a possibility is Kaidan, for Matrix a candidate is NeoChat.