There is a lot to love about this proposal. Great work, George, and thank you
for putting it together so professionally.
The following is fantastic, beautifully considered, and well mocked up:
- Title bar removal. Yes yes yes. I like moving the active chat's name into a
sub-toolbar indicator.
- Me button
- Emoticon insertion
- Scripts/links
- Transfer activity
- Source-target reveal behavior
- Contact info behavior improvements as shown on page 6
- Insertion buttons and proposed behavior
- Character count with smart appearance behavior
- Toolbar button redesign - looks very clean and natural
Overall, I think the above should be implemented regardless of consensus on the
single-window mode.
I basically agree with David, Luke, and James' comments about the single-window
mode:
- Minimalist contact lists are dominant in both xtras submissions and
in the way I've seen users configure their machines (if they configure them at
all - I'd say about 50% are using the default setup)
- For people who have a large number of contacts but a small number of
active chats at any given time (which I warrant is the majority situation),
being able to move the contact list to the side (and show/hide it on screen
edges, in particular) without changing the message window's primacy is great.
This has nothing to do with being borderless or not, but everything to do with
separation of function for those who integrate Adium into a workflow with other
apps in use simultaneously.
What are y'all's thoughts on the following changes to the proposal:
1. Support opening a contact list which, by default, is the Collapsed, No
Chats Open window. It allows display of chats in the list to be toggled
somehow, but it does not allow expansion. It can do the sweet collapsed,
contact selected behavior.
- This is how it appears in Regular Window mode, that is.
- The existing window styles are supported. In the bubbles styles, the
always-showing search bar and bottom toolbar are dropped.
- This window is not open when Adium starts on a fresh install. The
Main Window is.
- Ponder: The highly customizable contact list stuff would only apply
when the contact list is 'torn off' into a separate window? I think so, because
it will look terrible otherwise.
2. The Main Window behaves largely as described.
- A button next to the 'collapse' contacts button would indicate that
it is split off into a new window when clicked. This would collapse the
contacts and open a Contact List window, as described above. (This makes the
behavior easier to toggle and also more discoverable)
(Eric seems to be suggesting a similar setup in the email he sent while I was
writing this).
A few other comments:
- I feel pretty strongly that tab reordering and tearing off chats into
independent windows should remain.
- There's nothing about the design that prevents this; a single
split-off chat would default to having the chat-tabs and contacts area hidden,
but the reveal button would still work. This mirrors behavior of
'automatically hide tabs' in the current UI, but it's probably non-configurable
- Or perhaps we intelligently follow the behavior the user did
last - pull off a chat, then tap the reveal button, and you'll have the tabs
and contacts visible next time you pull off a chat).
- I do not think this should be a preference-level behavior (Peter's "third
option") but rather something we sort out by letting the user interact with the
windows.
- I think this is a truly 10.7+ UI because we'd have to reinvent the wheel to
make many of the elements happen on 10.6. That's not a deal breaker... just a
thought.
Cheers,
Evan
On Aug 25, 2011, at 4:23 PM, George Lambrou wrote:
> This is a proposal I've made for Adium. However, before you go ahead and open
> it, I'd like to ask that you look at this not as an evolution of the current
> Adium, but simply a new Adium. Yes, it does retain many old features, but at
> the expense of others as well. It's an idea for a new direction, one with a
> focus on ease-of-use, simplicity, and better consistency with Mac OS. It
> takes full advantage of Lion's new iOS-inspired design direction, the perfect
> excuse for this kind of a clean break; as such, I have not attempted to make
> compromises or accommodations for Snow Leopard. This was created for Lion.
>
> Anyways, without further ado, I would like to present to you the sum of four
> months of work, and the first step down a new road for Adium: the Main Window
> of Adium Next.
>
> <Adium Next - Message Window.pdf>
>
> Please keep in mind that this is not 100% complete; there are still some
> things that I haven't covered in this document, but the vast majority of it
> is there. Any constructive comments that you may offer are greatly
> appreciated, and I'd be happy to answer any questions you may have; thank you
> for your time. :)
>
> George
>
