I doubt that a rewrite of Spark is needed, some improvements can be made here and there but overall, a rewrite may be excessive.
For our organization there are a few improvements that would really be nice.
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Some kind of persistent notification when an open conversation gets a new message. Currently if a user walks away from his desk for a minute or two, when he comes back, there’s no easy way to tell if one of his open conversations has a new message. I’ve found a way to hodge-podge the settings in spark that “usually” make the task bar icon turn orange, but something more reliable would be really great.
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A central management option for the end user’s spark clients, either via ADM or settings on the openfire server.
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This isn’t a feature, but a bug. The ability to easily print conversations out. Currently the print option cuts off the right hand side of the characters, so they have to copy/paste the converstation into word to print it.
I really like that idea that users can set custom message, here’s the Jira issue: http://www.igniterealtime.org/issues/browse/SPARK-1001
Yes, a default with the option to override per window would do what I want, and only the settings associated with persistant group conferences would need to be saved between sessions. But it would also be a nice touch to have custom notifications (sounds, color backgrounds on the toaster, etc.) that you could associate with specific senders regardless of the target window.
#2 ditto. ADM FTW.
Also, the ability to adjust the retry logic. a few 10 econds attempts is not the best for us here. I would like to make it 3 tries in 30-45 second intervals.
Roblaw80 wrote:
- Some kind of persistent notification when an open conversation gets a new message. Currently if a user walks away from his desk for a minute or two, when he comes back, there’s no easy way to tell if one of his open conversations has a new message. I’ve found a way to hodge-podge the settings in spark that “usually” make the task bar icon turn orange, but something more reliable would be really great.
I think that turning to orange and flashing in taskbar (Windows XP) is the default behavior of any windows program. Maybe systray icon notification (changing colors, flashing) would fit your needs? I am suggesting that feature and it was a high voted one in my poll. SPARK-971
- A central management option for the end user’s spark clients, either via ADM or settings on the openfire server.
Once it was possible via Spark Manager (which is discontinued, though open sourced if i remember right). What do you mean by ADM? A template? Some people are just creating their own msi packages and deploy them via GPO.
jeffreyvsmith wrote:
Also, the ability to adjust the retry logic. a few 10 econds attempts is not the best for us here. I would like to make it 3 tries in 30-45 second intervals.
Well it could be something more smarter and progressive. Retry time could grow after every failure. Or this could be a random value (so all clients wont login at once and wont create a high peak load). And maybe could be a setting “Keep trying forever”.
Here’s a thread I started some time ago on the flashing task bar issue. Though since then I’ve upgraded openfire and spark to the newest versions.
As for turning orange and flashing by default under windows xp, it most certainly doesn’t do that by default (for whatever reason) on any of the machines here. The closest I was able to get it was to flash for a short period, about 15-20 seconds, then it stops. A systray icon might help, though then the users will be complaining about the icon being hidden by windows. (lol)
Number two isn’t so much of a big deal. An active directory template probably wouldn’t work since (i could be wrong about this) spark doesn’t store it’s preferences in the windows registry, and I can take care of the same thing via some creative VB scripting if it really becomes an issue.
Roblaw80 wrote:
The closest I was able to get it was to flash for a short period, about 15-20 seconds, then it stops. A systray icon might help, though then the users will be complaining about the icon being hidden by windows. (lol)
Ah… could be. I think i was seeing it stopping flashing for others. Personally i tweak that settings to flash forever (with Tweak UI). As about systray icon. If Spark is in constant use it wont be hidden by windows Personally it has never happened to me so far
I would really like to see a convenient skinning method like in Winamp where you can just download a new skin and activate it from within the settings. I know it’s nothing functional, but Spark already seems to do most of the stuff I’d like to see it do.
Oh yeah. One other thing… This could probably be implemented in either Spark or Openfire, but I’ve noticed something about the way LDAP is handled. It’s a great feature to be able to create a distribution group in Active Directory, turn it on, and have it immediately accesible in everyone’s client. However, there’s no good way that I’ve found for an end user to move people around on their roster after that’s been done. We have one large distribution group for all chat users, but I’d like to split it up in my client so that it’s more organized. However, instead of moving, it just replicates it. I understand that you can’t just override LDAP and go moving stuff around in Active Directory through a Jabber client. However, surely there’s a way for the client to be able to notice that you moved something out of the LDAP group into a custom group so that it can just hide the one from the LDAP group.
The same goes for removing users from an LDAP-populated roster. There are people in there that I will never chat with and are cluttering everything up. I’d like to be able to at least hide them, but I can’t.
That may all be better handled on the server end, though. I don’t know…
Oh! I’ve got one, and it should be easy…
How about the ability to order by online status? Each contact group is automatically ordered alphabetically, but it would be nice to have other ordering options like available/away status, time online, or whatever you can come up with. Basically, I’d like to send all the idle people in each group down to the bottom of the list for that group.
AlanS17 wrote:
The same goes for removing users from an LDAP-populated roster. There are people in there that I will never chat with and are cluttering everything up. I’d like to be able to at least hide them, but I can’t.
LDAP/AD is a corporate/enterprise feature. And in corporate network users shouldnt be doing what they want If someone will never chat with someone, then they shouldnt be seeing each other at all. So groups must be adjusted by admins, not by users themselves.
AlanS17 wrote:
How about the ability to order by online status? Each contact group is automatically ordered alphabetically, but it would be nice to have other ordering options like available/away status, time online, or whatever you can come up with. Basically, I’d like to send all the idle people in each group down to the bottom of the list for that group.
Actually it is ordering by presence status now, and simple alphabetical ordering is what i’m asking for Well, now it only puts offline users to the bottom of the group. And then it sorts alphabetically everyone else (available, away, etc.). Away is still an online presence. So it seems logical. And changing available and away status could be very frequent (more than going offline or online). So you roster could be “dancing” all the time But it is a legal feature request. Just keeping in mind current behavior and my request, we should name it correctly.
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(Current) - Sort online users
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Sort all users (mine request)
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Group by presences (your request)
Right now in my company we are using Pidgin (formely Gaim). In 2006 I tested Gaim and Spark (unsure of version), and we decided Gaim was a better program. Now with Pidgin it is still very good, but there are some issues with losting account settings.
If we were to switch to Spark (which I do want), we would HAVE TO have the docking ability. The benefit to docking the IM buddy list is other windows will not overlap it, and it stick to the side of the screen. Also it needs to remember the position, from my short testing the the lastest version, it starts in the middle of the screen.
Another feature we need to have is the removal of the task window. There is no need for a task window (while buddy list is up) plus the Spark icon in the task bar.
Sometimes users like a very skinny (in width) buddy list. Right now it will not get smaller because of the icons ( add buddy, join conf room, view downloads, broadcast, … also the gateway icons) Maybe a way in options to only show certain icons, or put them on separte lines so a user can make the buddy list smaller.
Something else I like about Pidgin vs Spark is the tab chat placement. With Pidgin I can move the tabs all around, top, bottom, left or right.
I really hope these features get added to Spark, then we can dump Pidgin. Not that Pidgin is bad or anything, but they seem to update a lot and normal users will not go to a website and download, then install a new version.
YES!!
Right now Spark is using 68M, while Pidgin is only using 24M .
modulok wrote:
from my short testing the the lastest version, it starts in the middle of the screen.
probably you have moved Spark roster window out of screen bounds a bit, so next time it starts in the middle. Try moving it just a bit and you will see that it is saving its position after restart.
you are right, my bad…still want it dockable
also while thinking some more, can there be a plugin on openfire for spark preferences? I think that would be great for sysadmins who want to have a policy for all users.
Okay, so, i’ve moved this issue into 2.6.1: SPARK-971
Offering a bit of personalization would increase the adoption rate. It’s a comfort feature that I think people would appreciate.
Take a user’s desktop for example. Even in most corporate environments, people can leave files on their desktop as they see fit. And they can define their own directory structure inside My Documents. So why would a personalized user list be such a stretch?
Okay, so, i looked over your request, it seems like it will heavily change Spark, i’m probably missing some points in a retrospect but essentially i’m not sure all users would prefer going from the current spark status to a skinny dockable application.
In terms of moving the tabs around, this is probably what you’re looking for: SPARK-724 (moved it into 2.6.1)
In terms of the icons that may be making Spark wider than what it should be, take a look at: SPARK-998
Thanks.