Every day I grow more and more convinced that all desktop software is designed by fucking idiots. This goes for both commercial and Free software.
Today’s outrage: every IM client ever written. The designers of the first web browsers figured out early on that one of the most important things their users would need was a way to see where they had been. Thus, the “history” feature was born. And it was good.
Over a decade later, the nitwits who write instant messaging clients still haven’t figured out this basic feature. Supposing you had a conversation with someone earlier in the day, and you want to recall what was said. If you’re in luck, they are still online, and you can just click on their name and go to the log. If not, you’ll have to click “show offline users” and root through all your many offline contacts. But – uh oh – what if you haven’t added them to your buddy list yet? Then you’re screwed, and you’re reduced to searching through the logs on your hard disk, if you can find them, in whatever obscure format the client keeps them in.
It doesn’t take many brain cells to realize that a “people I recently spoke to” list should be one of the most basic, essential features of an IM client. But not one of the many, many clients I have used has had this basic feature.
Sometimes I feel like the one-eyed man in the valley of the blind. Why is software so stupid?
This might have something to do with the fact that much IM’ing is C-sex or talking to people your monogamous partner wouldn’t wanting you to talk to so being able to track one’s movements might not be the most desireable trait or the most asked for.
Not that I have that problem -just thinking…
yahoo IM archives your recent chats regardless of whether someone is on your list or not
I tried out an AIM client for Palm (I have a Treo650 smartphone) which was missing this feature. Best of all, after you exit a convo to go somewhere else (eg another application), when you return, there is no concept of tabs/windows/etc. to allow you back into the chat you just left.
Instead you’re left perusing your buddy list finding them and reopening it, where it gives you the past log. Problem is, if someone IMs you out of the blue, the only indication you have is a “1 waiting” (or 2 waiting, etc.) next to their screenname in the buddy list. If you have most of your buddy groups collapsed, you’d never see it. If it’s someone not on your buddy list, you’re SOL.
Luckily this was developed by someone on treocentral.com forums so I told him to go implement that and come back. I haven’t checked to see if he did yet.
I’m fairly certain that there is a GAIM plugin which does exactly what you mentioned. I agree that in general there is plenty of room for improvement as far as IM client design goes. For instance, it would be very useful if a client would track a friend’s on-line status and graph it on demand (mostly useful for talking to new people the schedules of whom one is not yet familiar with.)
” track a friend’s on-line status and graph it on demand”
That would be really, really cool!
Hey… why don’t YOU develop it? 😉
This was actually one of the proposals I wrote for Google’s “summer of code” contest (with GAIM as the named sponsor, in this case.) Obviously, it did not win. This is one of the several semi-interesting ideas I’ve had regarding improvements to IM clients, but I don’t find any of them interesting enough to actually code just for kicks.
All about GAIM logs…
Not in GAIM.
In your Buddy List, click “Buddies” and then “Show User Logs”. type in the name of the person (if they’re in your list, it will help you autocomplete) and select the messenger service. It brings up their logs.
GAIM stores its logs in TXT or HTML format (depending on what you’ve chosen. TXT is the default, I believe). It stores them in the GAIM program files directory, under “logs” and then the messenger service, (ex. “AIM”) and then the user name (ex. “XOznard”) and then under the user name (ex. “Avdi”) and then the file names are done like so (ex. 01-07-06_202700.htm for a conversation started on Jan 7, 2006 at 8:27:00 pm). When viewing the files in the built in GAIM viewer, it ignores the first 2 lines of text (it’s info on the chat and then a blank line if it’s an autogenerated log [i.e. you didn’t take a different log and stick it in there {like I do sometimes}]).
And if you’re bitching about it so much… there’s lots of Free/Open Source messengers out there. Fix it yourself. 😉
How do I know so much about GAIM logs you might be asking? Because I work with them so much because I do my RPs via IM. I’ve done a LOT of fucking around with logs and getting GAIM to read them and figuring out the formats and the naming conventions, etc…
Re: All about GAIM logs…
Yes, I know. I’m using GAIM. And it has the exact problem I’m talking about.
Say someone IMs me out of the blue. Or say someone I know IMs me using a new ICQ number (this is what actually triggered the post). Since I’m used to talking to them, I don’t think about adding them to my buddy list; after all, as far as I’m concerned they are already there. OR, I add the new number, but neglect to give them a memorable alias. Then I realize later on after I’ve closed the chat, that I need to reference something in it. And I have no fucking clue what UID it was logged under, because I wasn’t paying attention. The only possible way to find it is to locate the log directory (easy in *NIX, harder in Windows) and do a recursive find by date and time.
There is just no excuse, when we have had browser histories for ages of internet time, to not include a “recent conversations” history in an IM client. If I had time, I would add the feature myself. But I’m disgusted by all the useless gewgaws that these hackers add without adding basic usability features.
Re: All about GAIM logs…
Yeah, I’m not so crazy how it logs ICQ only by UID number. (I also don’t like how it only uses the UID number for “so and so added you to their list. do you want to add them?”. It’s like, “do you think i know people’s uid numbers by heart?” Why can’t they read the aliases people give themselves in ICQ?) But then again, I have so few people who use ICQ (you’re about the only one these days that IMs me using it) that it really isn’t a problem for me.
If you want the feature, suggest it to the designers or do it yourself. 😉
And are you sure Trillian doesn’t have this feature? It has a recent URLs feature.
Re: All about GAIM logs…
Trillian has something that may be what you’re talking about. “Activity history.”
I pull it up and it has the most recent IM conversations, by date, with the first line or so of the conversation.
Re: All about GAIM logs…
It sounds like they’ve worked on their interface since I last used it.
Thanks for the info. I may have to check it out again.
addendum
…that is, if you have “log all chats” enabled, it does the logs like that. But I figured you already had that.
Hmm,…
If I recall the old ICQ recalled such and would log history if you chose. It also was the only Messenger software that let you pick ANY name you wanted because it used a GUID for identity, thus you never got the dangerous situation that you do with MSN. (I created an hotmail account for MSNMessenger and it turned out that it had been owned before. Do you know what it’s like to get threatening messages from Arabs just a couple of weeks after 9-11 because they think you’re their old friend and you’re not. And they believe your denials are lies. Yeah…thanks M$
Then again, ICQ was Israeli developed and hence it did not follow a lot of the models the others did. Of course, AOL bought ICQ (mainly for the fact that ICQ had 1 million users, AOL Messenger had 300,000 and MSN about 30,000 at the time.)
*shrug*
What’s my point, I do not know…