Top 5 Spark wishes for Spark

Spark Spark Support
1

Hello All,

We here at Jive are doing our planning for the next Spark release and would like to get a gauge from the community about the top 5 requests for Spark. If you are a current user of Spark, where do you see need for improvement? If you are not a user of Spark, what does it need for you to make the switch over?

Please help us out

Derek

2

I’'ll start it out.

  1. Less memory consumption.

  2. Tree view instead of collapsible panes.

3
  1. bug fixing, like unicode support for usernames like b€n, see http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=18001 for details or even better someone who (=you ) reviews this forum and creates an issue for all open problems / questions so we can use JIRA for voting. The forum does have a poll function, doesn’'t it? So we could also vote here?

LG

PS: So there are just two wishes left, this makes me wonder why we have five wishes and not only three.^^

4

  1. Kerberos (GSSAPI) Authentication

  2. Tab-completion of usernames in group chat

  3. Abiltiy to rule the world.

  4. Support for Java 6 (beta)

  5. Support for multiple simultaneous logins

5

It would be nice to be able to send a quick message from the system tray. Click on the Spark icon in the system tray and have one of the options to send a message a “favorite” person. The list of favorite persons could present like Status does now. Select a person and the chat box displays. This would make is little quicker to send a message. We tend to send the majority of messages to the same half a dozen people.

Great job on these products. We have been looking at a number of IM products and plan to stay with jivesoftware.org.

Bruce

6

Another thought. From the initial Spark screen, have a list of favorite quick chat messages on the right with a send option. Select the person, select the message and hit send. We often send the same messages. Something link “Customer on the hold for you” or “Meeting is starting now”.

Thanks

Bruce

7

some known problems / open issues

src:

http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=18453

Is it possible to define the text color that a user chats in? For instance can I choose green to appear on the receivers side for my messages?

Additionally would it be possible for the moderator/admin of a room to assign a color to each participant so that it is easier to look through the history for a particular message?

audio+video support

src: http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=18509

Add conference rooms to roster

src: http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=19315

Avatar resizing to 96x96px²

src: http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=18435

minor Bug: 2x Your connection was closed

src: http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=19141

minor problem with Alt + ?

src: http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=18002

faster startup time

src: http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=18853

strange Ctrl+V / paste and drag&drop behaviour in input area SPARK-261

src: http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=18854

JID without @ / IM problem

src: http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=18407

Macro / Shortcut support ?

src: http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=18710

Font problem SPARK-253

src: http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=18279

Spark memory leak SPARK-24

but these are more than five wishes

8

zip version

9

Being able to block another user has been requested in our roll out. I see this was mentioned before, but didnt see any further discussion.

10

  1. Audio / Video / Whiteboard Support - We have a lot of users in different countries, and the biggest request by far, is for audio and video support.

  2. Scheduled conferences. Maybe more of a wildfire issue. User should be able to schedule an online conference. At the scheduled time, users should get an instant message the conference is about to start, or an email if not logged into spark. The conference contents should be stored so they can be viewed at a later date.

  3. XMPP / Parameter support without Spark restarting. This

may only happen when using spark from webstart.

  1. Interfaces into office or file explorer. So you get context menu options, such as chat with user , or send current file using spark etc

  2. Change from Java to Ajax technology - This may be a bit unrealistic, but could spark be re-written in ajax technology. Java takes too much memory, and takes along time to load, we have to download webstart, or the java runtime then install spark and install on the client machines. Spark takes up a lot of memory. Couldn’'t the wilfdire server also host up an ajax spark application that requries no install. Just the user and their browser . Similar to the group chat on the forum.

It should just be built into wildfire. Just give the users a URL, no issues with rollouts etc. Infact this should be no 1

Message was edited by: ollyando

Message was edited by: ollyando

11

  1. SPARK-27 Basically like group policy for Spark. I feel that this is a must have for any large business/corporate roll-out.

  2. XMPP URI Mapping SPARK-177 (we looking to add a ton of stuff internally based on xmpp: URI’'s, like web-pages)

  3. Voice chat support would be cool.

  4. Single sign-on using Kerberos/NTLM

  5. The Outlook plugin sounds like it would be cool. SPARK-26

12

  1. Support for multiple simultaneous logins/accounts

  2. Support for multiple simultaneous logins/accounts

  3. Support for multiple simultaneous logins/accounts

  4. Whiteboard

  5. Plugins (more of a Wildfire issue) for AIM, MSN, etc.

Seriously…I love Spark. It’'s got some great features and the interface is outstanding, but I am forced to use Psi because of the multiple logins/accounts issue.

13

I just ran into another problem: You cant move what group a user belongs to if the user is offline. Some sort of roster management for users who are offline would be nice.

14
  1. Support for multiple simultaneous logins/accounts
  1. Support for multiple simultaneous logins/accounts
  1. Support for multiple simultaneous logins/accounts

Wonder how would this affect memory consuming.

Yes, i love Psi for that, and Psi interface looks ok too. Well, i dont even see anything special in Spark design:) Ok, ok, roster looks nice. But chat windows. It’‘s sooo flaaat and uncustomizable:) Hey, that’'s could be my feature request:

  1. Customizable interface (fonts, buttons(enable, disable), bg colors, etc.)

  2. Silent reconnect SPARK-48

15

My (first) request is the up and coming thing: Pen (ink) input and ink display

MSN messenger is the only IM client with this at the moment.

Second: I’'ll support the (previously posted) request for commonly used pharases/words as an option list. This makes IM easier with pen-only input.

16

  1. Less memory consumption or a release of memory when it’'s in the task bar.

  2. Better control of settings in corporate environment as outlined here SPARK-252, or done with a configuration file or customized install package created before distribution for installation (regardless of using manager, ftp, Http, or e-mailing the setup file.)

  3. Silent, or non user interaction upgrade / installation. Again, whether using spark manager, or just an install file distributed via ftp, Http, or e-mail.

  4. Mobile Client for PDA’‘s, Pocket PC’'s and Smart Phones.

  5. Less Memory consumption. (Getting there, I’'m very happy to see the improvement on the current version!)

17

Ditto all the above, with the addition of “buddy pounce” like that found in GAIM (though I guess some enterprising developer could probably accomplish this through a plugin).

18

Hey Wroot,

Well, i dont even see anything special in Spark

design:) Ok, ok, roster looks nice. But chat windows.

It’‘s sooo flaaat and uncustomizable:) Hey, that’'s

could be my feature request:

You might want to check out the Spark Skinning Service that Derek announced url=http://www.jivesoftware.org/community/thread.jspa?threadID=19505here[/url].

Cheers,

Ryan

19

Hey Wroot,

You might want to check out the Spark Skinning

Service that Derek announced

I understand this is for Spark branding? Or should i really pay $ if i want to change font color?

20

with the addition of "buddy

pounce" like that found in GAIM

as this is not a Gaim users forum and i think not everyone has used Gaim, you should describe that feature more. Maybe this is like “Notify me when contact comes online”?