Bug 311487

Summary:	RFE: Allow custom aliases for XMPP Chat rooms
Product:	[Unmaintained] telepathy	Reporter:	David Alston <david.alston>
Component:	contactlist	Assignee:	Telepathy Bugs <kde-telepathy-bugs-null>
Status:	RESOLVED INTENTIONAL
Severity:	wishlist	CC:	kde, stevenroose
Priority:	NOR
Version First Reported In:	0.5.1
Target Milestone:	Future
Platform:	openSUSE
OS:	Linux
Latest Commit:		Version Fixed/Implemented In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description David Alston 2012-12-10 21:39:07 UTC

There is a public chat room I like to log into (on muc.appriss.com - for NOAA weather reports by region).  I don't have a problem logging in via my google talk account, but I would like to change my alias that others in the room see.

When I join the chat room with pidgin I am able to specify an alias and the XMPP Spec for multiuser-chat-rooms seems to support alternate nicknames for use within a chat room.. (http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0045.html)

Reproducible: Always

Steps to Reproduce:
1. Attempt to join a chat room
2. Look for a setting to change your nickname for that chat session
Actual Results:  
no setting for changing nickname for chat session found

Expected Results:  
ability to change the nickname for at least the duration of that chat session

It'd also be nice to be able to save the chat room settings with a specific nickname.. but that might be another bug/feature request.

Comment 1 David Edmundson 2012-12-10 22:04:46 UTC

Unfortunately we go through an abstraction layer between raw XMPP and us. Great for us, but it means we don't always have access to the lesser-used features.

I can't see anything in our docs [1] which relates to that XMPP option.

If it's not there it's still possible, but it means we have to add support in the telepathy protocol and in the layers above, which realistically is generally more time consuming than we can afford.

In this case it's especially difficult, because our abstraction layer means we only have one object representing our own contact shared across all channels, telepathy's design deliberately goes against what this needs.

[1] http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/spec/Channel_Interface_Group.html

I'll leave this open in case any other devs can find something/comment, but upon my investigation I don't think this is something we can feasibly do. Sorry.

Comment 2 David Alston 2012-12-16 07:09:20 UTC

Could it be implemented using the Contact_Handle type?
http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/spec/Connection.html#Simple-Type:Contact_Handle

If this type is set whenever the chat room is joined then the handle that is set might be stored where the list of chat rooms is stored.

Comment 3 David Edmundson 2013-01-15 17:11:55 UTC

Not really, that a unique ID assigned to a contact, something Tp related not server side.

Realistically it's not something we can fix without an absolute tonne of work and rewriting for little gain, so I am closing this rather than leaving you in false hope. Sorry.