Feature:Chat
Contents
Summary
67P's chat functionality is based on the IRC protocol (used via Sockethub), but enhances it with input/output app components, which enable rich-snippet rendering and other features. Let's call these components satellites, for lack of a better codename atm. (Feel free to brainstorm names on this wiki page. Would be great to have sth where people say "dude, just write a X for 67P". Kind of like DuckDuckGo spices for example.)
Chat is the main user interface for channels, which act as the scopes for all other features as well. Channels can be local or global (local is a channel on a server, global is the server/org/IRC server namespace).
Features
Satellites
| Name | Description |
|---|---|
| Code Snippet | When pasting a multi-line text, it offers to convert it into a rendered, potentially code-highlighted rich snippet |
| Map | When pasting geo coordinates, or a maps URL (e.g. GMaps or OSM), it renders a small map with a pin and possibly popup on click, as well as a link to a big version of the map in a new window/tab/app |
| Incoming notification | Every incoming notification (e.g. a Travis build) is given a notification type (hardcoded), which in turn is associated with a rich-snippet template and data. |
| Channel link | When a #channelname is detected, it renders a link to that channel. Even better, if the user is using channels with the same name in multiple spaces, it should open a menu to select which one to open. |
| Time zones | When other users are using different time zones, show their local time as well. Either next to the normal timestamp, or highlight the timestamp to indicate that it's not the other person's time zone and show their time on hover or similar. |
| Username mention | When a person's own username is detected in another person's message, it is highlighted and a notification is triggered, if the app is not in the foreground (optionally with audio sound). |
| Word-list mention | Same as username mentions, but not enabled by default (i.e. empty word list in the beginning). Users can configure their own word list per channel. |
| Image | When an image URL is detected, it renders the image inline (either inline, if nothing else surrounds the url, or as a second line) |
| Tweet | When a link to a tweet is detected, the tweet is fetched an rendered with a rich snippet in a new line |
| GitHub/Bitbucket | When pasting a link to a Github repository, it renders the basic information about that repository (name, description, language, ...). |
| Website link | When a generic URL is detected (and not handled by another satellite), it tries to fetch the title of the linked Web page or document and add that as a second line |
| Emoji | When emoji syntax is detected, it renders an emoji image. When starting to type emoji syntax, it shows an auto-complete menu, similar to GitHub comment form fields. |
| Voting | "Everyone in favor of [x]?" triggers a yes/not poll. Responding with +1 or -1 (or using the vote input that then writes a +1 for you) counts up votes in a widget that stays in view until the poll is closed. If the majority hasn't responded in x amount of time, it sends them reminders to vote. |
| Correct/replace previous line | When an s/word/word pattern is detected, it applies the replacement to the previous line of that user (only as rendering in the Web UI). A discreet highlighting is added to the word to indicate it was replaced, and when hovering (or similar), you can see the details of the replacement. |
Hint: all of this is backwards-compatible to plain IRC, meaning that if something is too long or for other reasons not possible to render nicely in a line of chat, it needs to be posted somewhere and linked to. The Web Client can fetch extra information from that resource, while the plain chat can use minimal messages that don't pollute the UI for plain-old-IRC-client users (let's call these programs POICs from now on. :))
Offline notifications for mentions
When you're not connected to 67P on any device, it will send notifications for username mentions in channels. Configurable methods:
- Email — Sent by Sockethub. Could even use the actual person's email address and SMTP account for sending a direct email person-to-person with the message content.
- W3C Push API / Service workers — As soon as possible
- None (maybe "weekend mode" or sth)
Channel logs / history replay
Channel logs live in either the user's personal remote storage (for personal usage on public servers), or in the organization's common remote storage. A Sockethub butler daemon will publish the logs to the storage servers, while they can be retrieved from the Web Client (for replay) directly via remoteStorage.js. Also, the Web client may want to publish/read read-status for messages/message ranges to/from the storage.
NickServ integration
This should belong to the setup flow/UX for public channels, in case the server has NickServ running.
When starting the app/prototype for the first time and/or setting up a public subspace/server, 67P will guide you through the process of either creating a reserved username or configuring an existing one.
Most of this could actually be a satellite, being triggered by NickServ messages and writing the right ones back. It might make sense to make storing the password optional.
Create channels on the fly
As opposed to having to create new channels before being able to join them, it's possible to just join channels on the fly via the normal syntax and then configure them once you're in it. IRC got that right, but not possible on e.g. Grove. On pro, that needs to be limited to admins optionally (but maybe not in the first version).
Feature ideas for later™
- GUI for NickServ / username management on public servers
- Real-time translation to user's language (with hover-to-see-source or sth)
- History replay for normal IRC clients; could include a link to open complete history in browser (like Grove does)
Technical implementation
- Channel management via ChanServ? (manage Freenode chans as well e.g.)
- Ember Components/Pods
