#3310 NORM FutureF: Need a design for per-activity chat (was: Groups: when you are sharing an activity in a group, there is a chat for the group)

[Zarro Boogs per Child]

#3310: Need a design for per-activity chat
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  Reporter:  kimquirk          |       Owner:  Eben          
      Type:  task              |      Status:  new           
  Priority:  normal            |   Milestone:  FutureFeatures
 Component:  interface-design  |     Version:                
Resolution:                    |    Keywords:  collaboration 
  Verified:  0                 |    Blocking:                
 Blockedby:                    |  
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Comment(by Eben):

 I wanted to state our current design direction, for the record.  We're
 leaning towards focusing efforts solely on per-activity chat (with the
 assumption that a "nebulous group chat" will be covered by an actual chat
 activity, once we add groups, which is independent for the purposes of
 this ticket).

 We'd like to integrate the chat with the presence indication in the Frame,
 which manifests itself as the people list. I've included a really rough
 mockup of what this could look like, rendering the bubbles (boxes) in the
 XO color and positioning them relative to the position of the XO within
 the Frame. Of note, this is designed to be a non-persistent chat
 interface; there is no scrollback buffer, and anything missed will never
 be seen. There are a number of questions to be asked, such as:

  1. Does the chat appear 1-1 along with the Frame, or is there a way to
 make it stick as visible above the activity even when the Frame is hidden?
 We do have that unused button next to the Frame, which could be useful...
  2. How do we handle long messages (and do we impose a hard cap)?  Can we
 have a fixed limit on the width of the message by default, and then expand
 the window to show the full message on rollover?
  3. If we have a way to make the chat a persistent overlay, can we make
 the window event-transparent, so that it doesn't get in the way of
 interacting with the activity beneath?
  4. How do you create a message?  Do you have to invoke the frame and
 click on your own buddy to get an input field? Is there a shortcut?  Is
 there a "reply" button within the other bubbles so it's easy to respond?
  5. Do we add a module to the control panel for setting things like a) the
 default width for messages before expansion b) how long the messages
 appear for ?

 Also of note, this visual approach opens up the door to future
 groups/neighborhood chat implementations which place colored bubbles
 within those views directly, which could be rather fun.

 Feedback is appreciated!  I'm working on pulling together some better
 examples to post to the Designs section of the wiki.  Since the underlying
 framework is already there, it might be possible to have a volunteer hack
 this into existence in the not too distant future.

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Ticket URL: <http://dev.laptop.org/ticket/3310#comment:10>
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