Okay, lemme know what you think of this. And feel free to do some mockups of it :) BTW, this is for a 2.0 version of Hotline. The first GM will be single-connect. ------------------------------------------------------------- -- THE TOOLBAR -- On the Toolbar, the Chat, News, Files, New User, Open User, and Server Connections (see following) buttons behave like this: Click to open the window (eg, chat) for the last server used. If there is no last server, the option-click behaviour is used. Option-click shows the "Open" window (see description following). If the user clicks and holds the button down for half a second, or drags the mouse out of the button, a popup menu is shown. This popup menu shows the last 10 servers that were used since the program was started. The most recently used is at the top. Following that is a divider, and the users favourite bookmarks (those that are in the "Favourites" folder in the Bookmarks folder). Select a server from the menu to open the window (eg, chat). This menu could also have an "Other..." item which shows the "Open" window. A "Chat & News" button could also be added to the Toolbar, which would open both the Chat and News window for the specified server. Note that there is no Connect button - the popup menu or "Open" window (see following) is used instead. Likewise, there is no disconnect button. Connections are closed transparently, based on closing of windows, idle time etc. -- THE OPEN WINDOW -- The Open window is used for selecting a server, and then opening a window for that server. Which window gets opened depends on how the Open window was invoked. The Open window is resizable and consists of four tabs: Recent, Bookmarks, Tracker, Address. The purpose of these tabs is to provide the user with a way to select (identify) a server. The Recent tab shows a scrolling list with the names of the last 30 servers the user has accessed. This list is saved to disk when the application quits, and restored when next opened. The most recent server is at the top of the list. The Bookmarks tab shows a scrolling list with the names of the servers in the Bookmarks folder, and a text box for entering a password (the user may choose not to save the password with the bookmark). There are also buttons for creating, deleting, and modifying bookmarks. The Tracker tab shows a popup menu, a scrolling list, and two text boxes. The popup menu is used to select a tracker. The server names from the tracker are displayed in the scrolling list. The text boxes are for optionally entering a name and password. The Address tab shows four text boxes: Server Name, Server Address, Login, Password. The user can then directly enter the details of a server. The Server Name text box is used when displaying the server in the Recent list. If not supplied, the address is used. An "Open" button is separate from the tabs. This button dismisses the window and accesses the server specified in the tabs. For example, if the user option-clicks the Chat button on the Toolbar, the Open window is displayed, and the "Open" button is renamed "Open Chat". The user then uses the tabs to select a server, then clicks "Open Chat" (or hits the enter key). WINDOW MANAGEMENT The user needs a way to tell what server a window is from. Thus a 16 pixel or so horizontal bar is added to the bottom of every window. This bar displays the name of the server, possibly the address as well, and could also be color-coded. Clicking on this bar shows a popup menu with Chat, News, Files etc. Choose an item to open it for that server. Unlike the other windows, there is only one Tasks window. Each task displays the name of the server it is from in a line above the task description/status. Note that there is no Tracker window. The Tracker is available from the "Tracker" tab in the "Open" window. There is also no user list window. The user list is attached to the right side of the Chat window, with the buttons above it. Clicking the zoom box causes the list to show/hide (toggle). Only those people who have their chat window open are shown in the list. To help deal with the problem of not enough desktop real estate (aka too many windows), there is yet another window, the Window Manager window. When a user-defined keyboard shortcut is hit, the Window Manager window is shown above all other windows (modal). This window consists of a list with the names of all the other windows, and what server they are from. Double-click a window, the Window Manager window hides, and the specified window comes to the front. For example, the list could look like this: Window Server ------ ------ [] Chat Macline [] Chat OmniMac [] Files Dennys [] Test Folder Dennys [] Tasks n/a The [] is an icon that represents what type of window (chat, news, files). The user can click on the "Window" or "Server" title to sort by that. The Window Manager window could also be used to close and hide windows. A popup menu of windows is also available. This menu is available in the menubar, and via a context menu - command-control-click (configurable) in any window. For example, the menu could look like this: - Macline - Chat News - OmniMac - Chat Files - Ambrosia - Chat News Files Select a window to bring it to the front. Select the server name to bring ALL of that servers windows to the front. THE SERVER CONNECTIONS WINDOW This window, available to administrators, provides information on what each connection to the server is doing. This can be thought of as a Tasks window for the server. For example, the list may look like this: User Address Activity ---- ------- -------- hinks 203.21.125.42 Chatting hinks 203.21.125.42 Downloading file "filename.sit" hinks 203.21.125.42 Downloading file "movie.sit" Phil 1.2.3.4 Listing files Phil 1.2.3.4 Downloading news "Multiconnect" The window has two buttons - Stop and Refresh. To stop a task, click it and then click Stop. To refresh the list of connections, click Refresh. THE MESSAGES WINDOW Users can send messages to each other independent of a server (client-to-client). The private message button on the chat window sends these messages. Keep in mind that this is used in situations where you do not want to use private chat. All messages appear in the Messages window, which consists of a list and text display area. The list shows the names of people who have sent messages (may appear more than once). Click an item in the list to display the message in the text area. To reply to a message, select the message you want, then click the Reply button. Messages stay in the list until you click Delete. Each message has a date/time stamp. ------------------------------------------------------------- ........................................................... /| _ / | | | Adam Hinkley | |_| | CEO/Software Development | _ | O T L I N E | | | |COMMUNICATIONS hinks@netspace.net.au |_| | | http://netspace.net.au/~hinks/ |/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------