Bug 200887

Summary:	Usability problem: "Autoconnect" feature is hard to find
Product:	[Unmaintained] kopete	Reporter:	Claus Appel <spectrumdt>
Component:	general	Assignee:	Kopete Developers <kopete-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED UNMAINTAINED
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	mattr
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	unspecified
Target Milestone:	---
Platform:	unspecified
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Claus Appel 2009-07-20 16:49:15 UTC

Version: 0.70.4 (using 4.2.4 (KDE 4.2.4), 4.2.4-2.fc11 Fedora)
Compiler: gcc
OS: Linux (i686) release 2.6.29.5-191.fc11.i586

In order to get Kopete to automatically connect when the program is started, you have to go to Configure -> Behavior and set "Initial status" to "online".

It took me several months as a Kopete user before I found out that this option existed. I had long been unhappy that Kopete did not autoconnect, and I had looked through the "Configure" menu many times in search of an autoconnect option. In the end I had given up, thinking that Kopete was probably just bugged and couldn't figure out how to autoconnect. Finally, after months, I discovered that the "initial status" field had (presumably) been there in front of my eyes all along.

This is bad user interface design. The setting is very easy to overlook. I don't know how to solve the problem, but here are some thoughts.

1. "Initial status" should be set to "online" by default when Kopete is installed. There might exist people who do not want Kopete to autoconnect, but I am certain they are a minority. Most people will want autoconnect enabled.

2. The name "initial status" is not intuitive. In my head I imagined an option that said "Autoconnect on startup? (yes/no)" or something like that.

3. The name is not consistent with the rest of the interface. Under Configure -> Accounts -> Modify account, there is a field called "exclude from connect all". To my mind, this suggests that the autoconnect setting should have a name like "connect all on startup".

4. Why is "initial status" a drop-down menu? A "radio button" menu would make more sense IMO. It would also take up more space and thus be easier for the user to notice.

Comment 1 Matt Rogers 2009-09-06 04:21:16 UTC

Regarding your points:

For point 1: do you have user research to support this? 

For point 2: We used to have an 'autoconnect at startup' option. When that was the case, we got reports that Kopete didn't autoconnect when they started it because they hadn't actually connected to their ISP and so Kopete never autoconnected. This may be fixed by now, but I need to investigate

For point 3: Another decision related to the rationale behind point 2.

For point 4: Again, do you have user research to support this? If you can point me to something that says a radio button is more usable than a drop down box, then I'll gladly adapt it.

Comment 2 Claus Appel 2009-09-06 13:46:12 UTC

Hello. No, I do not have any research to cite. The above are just my personal thoughts. And I admit that when I say "most people want X", what I really mean is "I want X, and everyone else should agree with me". :P

Comment 3 Matt Rogers 2009-09-06 20:32:51 UTC

And there isn't anything wrong with that. :) 

Thanks for your feedback. As a lot of stuff around auto connection and
network detection has changed, we may very well end up making it like
you want and hope that everybody agrees with you. :)

Comment 4 Christoph Cullmann 2024-09-18 18:26:57 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.