#instantbird log on 02 19 2010

All times are UTC.

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00:56:37 <flo> good night
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06:00:27 <DGMurdockIII> from who?
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09:24:42 <Mic> Good morning
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10:44:28 * ChanServ sets mode +qo flo flo 
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13:23:01 <deOmega> hi.. is there a way to find out what updates are made on teh nightlies?
13:23:58 <Mic> You can always check on Mercurial what changes have been pushed recently
13:24:52 <deOmega> mercurial is over my head mic. :)  Good morning
13:25:22 <Mic> hmm, where you can see it is on the buildbot waterfall (don't worry, I'll explain)
13:25:27 <Mic> http://buildbot.instantbird.org/waterfall
13:25:37 <deOmega> i have  really been so pleased with improvements
13:25:47 <Mic> Have a look at the columns, there will be one that is your nightly build
13:26:04 <deOmega> ahh
13:26:07 <Mic> If the header is green, the most recent one has been built successfully
13:26:45 <Mic> Now scroll down - on the left hand side you see updates to HG with an explanation on the tooltip
13:27:08 <Mic> Find the ones prior to the start of building of your nightly .. that's the ones that went into it.
13:27:36 <Mic> I'm busy .. so I hope this explanation suffices
13:28:25 <deOmega> it is godo.. but let me clarify.. do i need to be under the windows 32 nightly tab?  otherwise though i will figure it out.. you have helped tremendously
13:29:02 <deOmega> ah, never mind
13:29:13 <deOmega> I understand now.. saw it by scrolling :)
13:29:23 <deOmega> thank you soo much
13:38:26 <flo> hi :)
13:38:37 <deOmega> Hi Flo
13:38:54 <deOmega> the status message capability is new.. right?  I like it
13:39:34 <flo> this looks almost like Mic is going to start writing a wiki page "how can I follow the latest news in the development of Instantbird?" :)
13:39:49 <flo> deOmega: the status toolbar appeared 2 days ago
13:40:29 <Mic> deOmega: you're welcome :)
13:40:30 <deOmega> nice.. i have not updated in a couple days i do not think.. nice
13:42:38 <flo> I wonder if I should try to force myself to use twitter to announce the new stuff in nightlies
13:44:09 <flo> the notable changes of this week are:
13:44:09 <flo>  - status toolbar
13:44:09 <flo>  - menu bar appearance fixed on Windows (will look more native than before)
13:44:09 <flo>  - libpurple statically linked to glib, libxml2, and its protocol plugins
13:44:09 <flo>  - handling of the offline status.
13:44:58 <Mic> flo: targetting which sort of people?
13:45:07 <Mic> Anyone? Developers?
13:45:20 <flo> I don't really know
13:45:32 <flo> probably people who are anxious to know that the projet is still alive
13:46:33 <Mic> Developers might be ok with the commit messages on hg
13:48:42 <deOmega> sounds awesome to me.. :)... put a link to  your tweets on instantbird homepage
13:49:53 <flo> Mic: so. Probably people who would be interested in having the information that they would have if they were here, but don't want to invest this time (yet) into this project
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14:09:43 <deOmega> I think  anyone Flo
14:10:35 <deOmega> targeting anyone....it is really discouraging to  see a product with  little indication of  updates
14:10:42 <deOmega> whether developeror not
14:11:08 <deOmega> there ar emany early adopters that are not developers.. but  simply curious
14:11:08 <flo> I guess that's what I said by "people who are anxious to know that the project is still alive" ;)
14:11:34 <deOmega> right... you triggered my comment
14:12:11 <flo> We know we are doing really poorly with "public communication".
14:12:25 <flo> I guess it will be a 2010 goal to improve that :)
14:12:44 <deOmega> lol
14:13:32 <deOmega> would be nice.. because to be honest...  anyone that is not using teh nightlies .. I am thiking they are light years behind and probably indeed seeing the project as dead
14:18:11 <Mic> flo: if I hadn't looked into nightlies once.. I might have quit using Ib a long time ago
14:18:34 <flo> do you think we can really promote nightlies to "end users"?
14:19:00 <Mic> well, they make less trouble than other softwares release version ;)
14:19:12 <flo> sure
14:19:13 <Mic> I don't think so .. nightlies are for testing and might break any day
14:19:34 <flo> we definitely need to release more often
14:19:57 <flo> for 0.2 we have rewritten way to much of the code for a single release
14:23:18 <deOmega> I have to agree too though that  yoru nighlies/releases are really not what i would call alpha or beta material..  there really is  a freat degree of stability on my end... and I have  used many beta and alpha products
14:23:50 <flo> we just have a definition of alpha/beta that is not related to stability
14:24:09 <flo> it's related to the completion of what we want to put in the release, and how things are still likely to change
14:24:23 <deOmega> I understand,, i think.. was just addressing the stability point..
14:24:34 <deOmega> 8:19:16 AM - Mic: I don't think so .. nightlies are for testing and might break any day
14:24:46 <flo> yeah, they may break!
14:25:36 <flo> until there's an easy way to "rollback an update", I would not be comfortable with giving nightlies to a large audience
14:26:05 <flo> or we would need a decent test suite: make sure that all nightlies can at least startup and connect to all protocols before being offered as automatic updates
14:26:18 <deOmega> there is an alpha program i am  using now of a known program.. letters appear randomly on teh interface lol etc....   sections disappear.. and  some overlap each other
14:27:15 <deOmega> I have no expertise in the matter to be honest.. just soundinig off as a regular joe for what it may be worth
14:28:10 <flo> the low version number is costing us in term of public image too
14:28:40 <flo> people are used to having unusable 1.0 versions of commercial software.
14:29:04 <deOmega> lol.. YEP
14:29:08 <flo> so I guess 0.1 or 0.2 has got to be totally crappy in their mind
14:29:43 <deOmega> Actually, i believe i may have seen a rightup to that extent about IB.. relating to  the version number
14:31:16 <flo> yeah, it's a really profound analysis of a software :).
14:31:16 <Mic> What about setting the version number to .. let's say .. 7? ;)
14:31:26 <Mic> IB 7 .. sounds pretty good to me :D
14:31:39 <flo> we thought about renumbering 0.2 to 0.5
14:32:07 <Mic> Or some fancy letter?
14:32:14 <Mic> "Instantbird X" ?
14:32:14 <flo> 0.2 makes sense because it's the second major release. And 0.<number> because we have not yet reached our original goal
14:32:25 <flo> but 0.5 makes sense too because we are nearly halfway done
14:33:17 <Mic> well,  see it this way
14:33:37 <Mic> You can ship the next ones pretty quickly then
14:33:44 <flo> Instantbird 2010 :)
14:33:55 <Mic> Reaching 0.5 soon and giving users a sense of fast progress
14:34:29 <flo> well. Won't users expect to have the same difference between 0.2 and 0.3 than between 0.1 and 0.2?
14:34:29 <Mic> *feeling
14:42:05 <Mic> Maybe
14:44:34 <deOmega> I think.. as a regular joe..:).. that bumping the release because of major improvements is an awesome move that the community would appreciate
14:44:57 <deOmega> release version number
14:46:03 <deOmega> would be a statement ... while u were sleeping..  we were not just screwing around :)
14:48:07 <flo> if we want to make such a statement, we need to carefully prepare the announcement, with good screenshots, nice details of the new features, etc...
14:50:14 <deOmega> makes sense
14:50:44 <deOmega> but  let me tell you as a user.. you have made TREMENDOUS improvements
14:51:13 <deOmega> well, put it this way.. this is now teh only messenger program on my pc.. and i am a picky nuisance
14:52:46 <flo> is "improvement" the message we need to communicate on? Improvement means you have used the older version.
14:54:26 * Gizmokid2005|AFK is now known as Gizmokid2005
14:54:57 <deOmega> Good question
14:55:06 <deOmega> let me ponder that
14:55:22 <deOmega> I   hope that  the release you   do though  would have teh installer
14:55:28 <deOmega> PLEASE
14:56:56 <flo> oh sure
14:57:57 <deOmega> I am not sure you can get away from improvements/enhancements...  unless you state.. re-engineered if you indeed  did so
15:03:38 <deOmega> any progress on the minimize to tray implementation? 
15:04:02 <flo> no
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15:07:39 <deOmega> that was succint lol
15:08:07 <flo> bah. Did you make any?
15:08:16 <flo> I haven't touched any tray-related code since June
15:09:42 <deOmega> Flo.. i wish i could say  I made SOMETHING for IB.. but  i  woul dnot even know where to start.
15:09:52 <deOmega> it is out of  my league
15:10:25 <flo> giving suggestions, reporting bug, moral support. That's already something!
15:10:39 <flo> don't think doing something for an open source projet is only writing code.
15:12:07 <deOmega> awesome.. felt  a little short-handed when you asked if i  created one lol
15:12:18 <deOmega> Not slighted.. just   shorthanded
15:17:16 <deOmega> I do look forward to when users could get the feel for the  IB crew that I do
15:17:35 <flo> :)
15:17:47 <deOmega> You guys strikes me as well as the  SOngbird crew did
15:18:27 <deOmega> strike
15:34:43 <deOmega> well, i think it is important for the community to get a feel for the  folks working behind the scenes
15:35:04 <flo> so you think we need to show how few we are?
15:35:24 <deOmega> nah
15:35:36 <deOmega> not at this point
15:35:43 <deOmega> just your mannerism
15:35:47 <deOmega> well.....
15:35:51 <deOmega> let me explain
15:35:58 <flo> our goals/purpose?
15:36:14 <deOmega> sees to me that you guys have no problems hearing what is  wrong with your creation and accept ideas
15:36:48 <deOmega> usually ego is attached to development.. which causes  issues
15:37:10 <deOmega> on teh community side anyway
15:38:01 <Mic> I guess that might be a matter of the size of the community in some sense
15:38:06 <deOmega> i am multitasking so  hang in there with me if i lose clarity etc
15:38:48 <Mic> When there are 10 people suggestion/criticizing things it might be easier to respond to something then when 100k people are sending emails to a project?
15:38:54 <flo> I think ego is flatted when people care enough to report issues rather than just being angry about them ;)
15:38:54 <Mic> well, just my 2 cents
15:39:22 <deOmega> I agree with both of you
15:40:02 <flo> Mic: depends on the quality of the tools we setup I guess.
15:40:16 <flo> obviously we cant' send good answers to 100k emails
15:40:37 <flo> but there are probably not 100k interesting different feedbacks each days
15:41:13 <flo> so if people have the necessary tools to aggregate this feedback, we can probably still take some good value from it
15:41:14 <Mic> A problem is that someone considered his idea as "interesting feedback" even though it might not be the case
15:41:41 <flo> how can it not be the case (if the idea is different)?
15:42:00 <Mic> is it different?
15:42:19 <flo> knowing how people feel, when if we can't agree with everything they say is interesting
15:42:24 <deOmega> true Mic..LOL.. so then teh problem exist where teh devlopers ego is in check, but  users in teh community...maybe even one that considers himself a developer...is experiencing ego rage and  infects the community :)
15:42:28 <flo> s/when/even/
15:44:42 <Mic> what's your idea concerning the tools to aggregate user feedback
15:45:19 <deOmega> YOu shuld be a Minister Flo.   Good words :)
15:45:24 <flo> for ideas, we probably need something like: http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/
15:46:12 <flo> for crashes, we already have something (when it works :-/)
15:46:20 <flo> for bugs, we have bugzilla
15:46:37 <flo> where bugs can be marked as duplicated if the bug reported failed to find the existing bug for the same issue
15:47:20 <flo> the most difficult thing to scale in my opinion is 1-to-1 support
15:48:09 <flo> I like being able to talk with one specific random user for a few minutes, and help him out through something, ask for what he would like to see changed, etc...
15:48:50 <flo> it doesn't mean that we will do what he said of course. But it's interesting to understand "individual use cases", the strategies people have when using features. See what they don't understand immediately.
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15:49:33 <iLobster> Greetings
15:50:03 <flo> for us it's great because it often generates new interesting ideas (to try to improve things that are confusing), and for the user, it's a great user experience to be able to talk directly to a developer.
15:51:56 <Mic> "Support lottery: win one out of ten 1-to-1 support chances" ;)
15:52:14 <flo> ahah
15:52:47 <flo> Mozilla is attempting to do great things in this area with SUMO.
15:53:31 <flo> they develop a community of people who spend time helping others in 1-to-1 chat sessions. They try to make it a great experience for everybody
15:53:45 <flo> the user-experience is great
15:54:32 <flo> the people who do the support learn a lot, because when they don't know the answer, they learn the ways to get it, either from discussing it with other helpers, asking the developers or querying bugzilla
15:54:42 <flo> some of them then become progressively developers
15:55:21 <flo> and for developers and people driving the project, it's a great way to have feedback. They regularly gather statistics about which support issues are the most common, so that they know which "user annoyance" they should try to fix
15:56:34 <Mic> Is there an 'easy' system to refer to some part of a program (for reporting)?
15:57:07 <flo> what do you mean by "some part of a program"?
15:57:18 <Mic> So instead of the user describing the dialog/button/.. they let's say, click and put an annotation there with some additional comment what's wrong or why it sucks..?
15:57:47 <flo> maybe with screensharing and the user pointing the thing with the cursor?
15:58:22 <Mic> I think that might take too much time on developer side
15:58:52 <flo> well, if the user can take a screenshot an anotate, and then just send one picture
15:58:58 <flo> the helper doesn't need to be a developer
15:59:02 <Mic> I thought more of a compressed report like "User complained about button (id="disconnectAll") saying "breaks on connecting accounts")
15:59:37 <Mic> Do you get the idea?
16:00:18 <flo> oh, so it would be for outside of 1-to-1 sessions? so that we can aggreagate feedback automatically?
16:01:01 <Mic> oh, sure. I'm not talking about 1-to-1 sessions here
16:01:13 <Mic> More on a in-program-bug-report system
16:01:27 <flo> I'm not sure of how many user know that their problem is with a specific button
16:01:36 <flo> and even when they think it is, it may not be
16:04:39 <Mic> gtg
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17:45:18 <deOmega> Flo..   nice writeup
17:45:33 <deOmega> about   helpiing others
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18:03:26 <Chaz6> flo - how about icon fallback for the new status bar
18:03:42 <Chaz6> i'm using stratini and the status icons are missing
18:03:48 <Chaz6> (very nice, btw!)
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18:09:17 <Mic> re
18:17:36 <deOmega> Instantbot: welcome back Mic, we missed you.
18:17:39 <instantbot> deOmega: Sorry, I've no idea what 'welcome back Mic, we missed you' might be.
18:18:28 <deOmega> lol.. oh,  so she is still around  have not seen her in a while hehe
18:18:46 <deOmega> guessi hav enot been here a while
18:30:40 <Mic> hello
18:33:32 <flo> Chaz6: using a different application theme replaces all the skin folder (with CSS and icons), so I guess there's nothing we can do easily
18:34:02 <flo> I fear using an application theme with nightly builds that change everyday is probably not the best thing for stability
18:34:27 <Chaz6> Yeah i'll stick to the default theme for now
18:34:34 <flo> (of course, while saying that it's not possible to do the fallback, I had to think about what it would involve to do it, and find how it's doable... :-D)
18:40:01 <flo> hmm. Not easy to do.
18:40:36 <flo> The chrome registry converts the URL before checking if a file exists, so once we know the file doesn't exist, we don't have the old url to convert it to the url in the default skin
19:07:08 <Chaz6> flo, do you think it's hard to enable snapping for resizing?
19:07:23 <Chaz6> e.g. when you drag a border of the chat window, it snaps to the screen edge or another instantbird window
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19:25:05 <flo> Chaz6: I've no idea of how to do that.
19:25:26 <rnr> do wat?
19:25:49 <rnr> what*
19:26:00 <flo> rnr: http://log.bezut.info/instantbird/100219/#m223
19:27:05 <rnr> http://ivanheckman.com/allsnap/
19:27:17 <rnr> Chaz6: http://ivanheckman.com/allsnap/
19:28:18 <flo> rnr: I'm not sure Chaz6 uses Windows.
19:28:59 <rnr> flo: What os is he using?
19:29:09 <flo> I don't know :)
19:29:09 <rnr> flo: I have some experience with linux.
19:29:53 <flo> hmm, actually that feature may be a nice idea of an addon
19:30:11 <flo> *for an addon
19:31:16 <Mic> flo: Put it on the list ... one more or less won't make a difference :P
19:31:18 <Mic> https://wiki.instantbird.org/Instantbird:extension_wish_list
19:31:34 <flo> Mic: :)
19:32:19 <Mic> You know that none of these ideas has been implemented yet (beside the offline buddies, which 'added permanently')
19:32:22 <Mic> :(
19:33:14 <rnr> is it worth it?? I think w7 has the the feature builtin already and most modern linux/bsd based os..ect have it too
19:33:21 <rnr> don't know about macs
19:34:19 <flo> Mic: you know that I have 3 master students that picked ideas from this list? :)
19:34:59 <Mic> I know that you have some master student(s) experiment with event timelines and canvas'
19:35:09 <rnr> http://coderage-software.com/zooom/index_green/index.html http://www.irradiatedsoftware.com/twoup/
19:35:15 <Mic> Or something like that
19:35:19 <rnr> some searches found for mac
19:35:32 <flo> rnr: that's the point. It's probably not worth spending *our* time on this. But if someone wants to do it, it would be welcome. And if the code is clean and the extension become popular, maybe one day we will integrate it
19:35:53 <flo> Mic: that's different students.
19:36:08 <Mic> ah, these are a sort of interns then?
19:36:16 <flo> I have 5 master students "working" (or supposed to work) on Instantbird
19:36:35 <flo> 2 on the timeline experiment
19:36:40 <Mic> Are you doing a PhD or how comes you're supervising other students?
19:37:17 <flo> 1 on the "Message style editor" addon idea
19:37:33 <flo> one on "Video link tooltips"
19:37:41 <rnr> I'm new to instantbird and I'm loving it. Thanks!!
19:37:49 <flo> one on "Repeat this to <someone>"
19:37:56 <flo> rnr: :)
19:38:08 <flo> Mic: long story. :)
19:38:18 <flo> 2 completely separate stories actually
19:39:06 <flo> I may start doing a PhD next year, and 2 of the students (the ones on the canvas experiment) come from the person who would supervise my potential PhD work.
19:39:30 <flo> the 3 others are from: http://comete.info.univ-evry.fr/
19:41:13 <flo> rnr: are there things you would like to see improved? bugs you have encountered, or other idea/suggestions you would like to share?
19:41:55 <rnr> I'm even been using nightly trunk, no bugs. :D
19:43:17 <Mic> They are just well hidden ;)
19:43:44 <flo> they hide themselves in bugzilla
19:43:57 <rnr> They must be hiding under the floorboards.
19:45:05 <Mic> rnr: here's a list of pages related to Instantbird: https://wiki.instantbird.org/Instantbird:related_links
19:45:30 <Mic> It might come in handy if you're looking for a certain page or service of Instantbird
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20:09:30 <deOmega> hey guys.. have a great day
20:09:42 <deOmega> heading out.. thanks for everything
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20:36:44 * Mic wants Star Trek technology ... :/
20:38:22 <Mic> "Computer! Create a decent graphical user interface for gnuplot" ... *bling!*
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21:36:00 <Mic> flo: how much experience with the Mozilla framework did you have when starting Ib?
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22:00:35 <flo> Mic: 3 years
22:02:36 <flo> I developed an addon, wrote a few patches (mostly in the Page Info window), did summer of code in 2006 (I made the new page info window of Firefox 3), and spent 2 months interning in a company where I made a very simple (targeted at old people) UI above a Thunderbird core.
22:05:09 <flo> Mic: is that enough experience? Am I hired to work on Instantbird? :-D
22:13:18 * stevo_afk is now known as stevo
22:16:44 <Mic> lol
22:16:56 <Mic> I was just curious..
22:20:54 <Mic> I thought about a proper UI for gnuplot for a while now (there's nothing decent out there, just programs that let you enter the dimension of your plot in a dialog and maybe allow to view a dataset at best..)
22:22:37 <Mic> My idea was more to have a real UI, allowing to drag and drop the key to the place you want, adding labels by just pointing/clicking and typing the caption, ..
22:32:51 <Mic> gn
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