Bug 287399

Summary: JJ: Chat is very verbose - provide a way to turn the presence-changes messages off
Product: [Unmaintained] telepathy Reporter: JR <zorael>
Component: text-uiAssignee: Telepathy Bugs <kde-telepathy-bugs>
Status: RESOLVED FIXED    
Severity: task CC: kde, mail, mklapetek, scarpino, yo, zorael
Priority: NOR Keywords: junior-jobs
Version: git-latest   
Target Milestone: Future   
Platform: Ubuntu   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In: 0.6.0
Sentry Crash Report:
Attachments: Verbose chat, similar messages all the way down

Description JR 2011-11-23 20:27:52 UTC
Created attachment 65996 [details]
Verbose chat, similar messages all the way down

Version:           git-latest (using KDE 4.7.3) 
OS:                Linux

Kubuntu 11.10, running KDE 4.7.3 from Kubuntu PPAs. telepathy-text-ui is from git commit 8b3d34d34a28ec868bf3821ff7668a78f3408f6e (Nov 15th).

An idle chat produces many messages, to the point where it's drowning actual conversation. See the attached screenshot; the chat is 2d 4h old, and only at the very top did either of us say something. From the point where I've scrolled and all the way down, the messages are only largely irrelevant.

"{you,counterpart} is now known as x" happens every time my connection drops and reestablishes itself. "{counterpart} is now {online,offline,away,...}" likely happens when he focuses his GMail tab or restarts his browser.

The end result is that it's very difficult to keep a conversation over time, as you have to do significant scrolling to find out what was last said.



Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Add a GTalk account
2. Start a chat with a contact
3. Let the chat window be for a time
3a. For maximum effect, let your connection drop and tell your counterpart to change his status every once in a while, unless his IM program or GMail chat tab does it automatically
4. Observe chat window's signal-to-noise

Actual Results:  
5. A whole truckload of messages not very relevant to the conversation!

Expected Results:  
5. Conversation messages prevalent, minor if any technical details or status changes reported inbetween

This may be more relevant to telepathy-gabble, but seeing as I'm seeing it in Telepathy KDE I'll try here first. I'm not sure at what level the filtering of these messages should take place.
Comment 1 Martin Klapetek 2011-12-07 20:01:51 UTC
Git commit 505d35f7e820afaf13d223f5cef8ad0f37a97162 by Martin Klapetek.
Committed on 07/12/2011 at 21:00.
Pushed by mklapetek into branch 'master'.

Write alias changes to the chat view only if the aliases really change --> less useless noise in chat view

Reviewed-by: David Edmundson
CCBUG: 287399

M  +13   -2    lib/chat-widget.cpp

http://commits.kde.org/telepathy-text-ui/505d35f7e820afaf13d223f5cef8ad0f37a97162
Comment 2 Martin Klapetek 2012-01-10 13:07:02 UTC
When we'll have the qml widget available, we could perhaps group these and show only the last one, so you'll see something like:

---------------------------------------------

....some messages....

Me (18:30): Ok, see ya.

[14 status messages -- expand]

The other user is now available.
---------------------------------------------

And if you don't care about the history of presence changes etc, you can simply ignore it and go on with your life. Or conversation.
Comment 3 Martin Klapetek 2012-07-26 13:52:09 UTC
We can't sensibly fix the amount of "{me|counterpart is now {available|away|busy}" in the chat log, but we could provide a way to turn the status-changes messages off completely (and so we got another junior job).
Comment 4 Elias Probst 2012-08-20 09:43:16 UTC
What do you think about disabling the presence change messages in group chats completely?

The status is indicated through the member list of group chats, so no need to provide this information redundantly a 2nd time in the message view.
Comment 5 David Edmundson 2012-08-20 10:16:30 UTC
Ok, in the general tab we want a combo:

"Show presence changes: [            ]"

And the box will say:
 - Always
 - Never in group chats 
 - Never

(It's normally better UI to use the positive phrase rather the negative, i.e "When in 1-1 chat", but I can't think of a good word for 1 on 1 chats). 

As we have a solid plan, I'm upgrading this from "wishlist" to "task".
Comment 6 Andrea Scarpino 2013-02-13 15:21:57 UTC
Git commit a46eb6bbeaac41556f3a6af88683acb2f478cd73 by Andrea Scarpino.
Committed on 13/02/2013 at 16:20.
Pushed by scarpino into branch 'master'.
FIXED-IN: 0.6
REVIEW: 108927

M  +35   -20   config/appearance-config.cpp
M  +1    -0    config/appearance-config.h
M  +33   -1    config/appearance-config.ui
M  +13   -0    lib/adium-theme-view.cpp
M  +10   -0    lib/adium-theme-view.h
M  +8    -5    lib/chat-widget.cpp

http://commits.kde.org/telepathy-text-ui/a46eb6bbeaac41556f3a6af88683acb2f478cd73