[GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

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Senky
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Re: [GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

Post by Senky »

akbarhashmi wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2018 7:30 pm One drawback I see is for someone looking for previous conversations of a specific topic may find it difficult but then again this is up to the user to choose.
This can be solved by proper search mechanism, but as you already pointed out, this might be out of the scope for one project.

akbarhashmi wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2018 7:30 pm I'm looking into group messaging and hopefully will come up with something.
To help you a little bit with this, keep in mind that there is a specific option to send message to a group, say Administrators or Global moderators. Now what is very interesting here is that old messages sent to Global moderators are not displayed to newly assigned global moderator. I don't know the logic behind it, just observing the behaviour, but somehow this needs to be deal with. Ideally after fully understanding how data are stored.

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hanakin
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Re: [GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

Post by hanakin »

Search overhaul is already on the devs todo list for the new theme or will be once I open the ticket ;) ... so any suggestions related to improving the search capabilities can go into that discussion.
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akbarhashmi
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Re: [GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

Post by akbarhashmi »

Senky wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2018 8:09 pm Now what is very interesting here is that old messages sent to Global moderators are not displayed to newly assigned global moderator.
Yes but sometimes existing group members might not want the newly added user to read older messages. An option to confirm this could be added.
Ideally after fully understanding how data are stored.
Exactly! A few things which will require this understanding
  • Merging multiple instances of the same conversation (in inbox) to one, makes it less messy
  • Migrating older messages. Special cases like:
    • Users no longer in conversation
    • Duplication
  • Forwarding messages to an existing conversation instead of always creating a new one
  • Notification settings might have to change
hanakin wrote: Sun Feb 18, 2018 3:10 am Not to mention messaging groups not sure how that would play out in you example above as any member of said group can respond
I'm sorry but I didn't really understand what you meant.
Are you saying multiple people responding is a problem here?

I realise now that group chat will be more complex than I anticipated. Any other problems I might face here?

Some other trivialities ;)
  • Can we have the new Chat outside the User Control Panel? (stand-alone)
  • Starring messages as important/favourites which can be later viewed (similar to WhatsApp)

Senky
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Re: [GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

Post by Senky »

akbarhashmi wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:44 pm Yes but sometimes existing group members might not want the newly added user to read older messages.
So true. I just don't understand why you can send a message to a group when, in fact, you send it to the concrete people behind the group. I know it's a shortcut for message sender, but still, I would like to hear someone who understands it or even better someone who developed the idea.

akbarhashmi wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:44 pm Can we have the new Chat outside the User Control Panel? (stand-alone)
I am not sure. We didn't want to remake it to be a chat. Just modernize UI. Not something like this extension... But maybe community wants something else than we do, whatever. :D

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akbarhashmi
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Re: [GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

Post by akbarhashmi »

Senky wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 9:02 pm I am not sure. We didn't want to remake it to be a chat. Just modernize UI.
Thanks for clearing that up. I thought it was to be made from scratch. :lol:
Well what about the other functionality I mentioned above, Is that within the scope of this project?

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Re: [GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

Post by Senky »

akbarhashmi wrote: Tue Feb 20, 2018 2:44 pm Starring messages as important/favourites which can be later viewed (similar to WhatsApp)
Yup, why not. Even "mark as unread" is a great feature I use all the time when I want to deal with the message later.

Other than that, I think data storage probably doesn't need to be changed at all. Since main idea is to rewrite UI basically.

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Re: [GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

Post by akbarhashmi »

After some thought, I wanted to discuss the possibility to add a search functionality along with revamping the UI as I'm confident of finishing the UI part earlier than the deadline. (if I don't meddle too much with some of the existing stuff)

I know a search overhaul is already planned as @hanakin pointed out, but I feel a local one is more intuitive to the user than using the global search at the top and would go well with the new UI. Would appreciate any thoughts on this.

If made from scratch, the basic algorithm I thought of after reading about a few simple mechanisms and the current phpbb header mechanism :
  • Limit the query length to prevent possible slowdown/failure
  • Each query is broken into an array of individual words
  • Common words that do not contribute much to a search yet occur very frequently should be removed.
    Example "in","it","a","the"
  • Remaining words are looked-for in the DB tables.
    phpbb_privmessages, Message_subject, message_text
  • Give some sort of score to every field that matches, to sort results in order of importance.
However, if this seems impractical to finish as one combined project, I will submit it as a separate proposal.

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DavidIQ
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Re: [GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

Post by DavidIQ »

I think that's outside the scope of the idea and I don't think you would have enough time to implement both the PM system you're suggesting AND a search backend for it within the time constraints of GSoC.
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Re: [GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

Post by Senky »

Also I am not sure whether PMs require fulltext search you are proposing. Even Messenger has simple string search mechanism implemented only.

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hanakin
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Re: [GSOC 2018] Revamp PM system to chat based

Post by hanakin »

The way search will be overhauled it will allow for that via filters. They way I would invision it you would click a toggle and select pms as filter for the global search the intent is to not clutter the UI with needless search forums. More than one per page is a UI no no
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