459761 - Connecting to a network not in the "known" list is not intuitive

Status: RESOLVED FIXED

(Other Applications :: ChatZilla, defect)

Description

[Glen Mailer]

Was toying with adding this as an RFE, but its cropping up often enough that I think it can fall into the category of a real bug.

Basically, the support channel is getting inundated with IRC newbies unable to discover the simple syntax (thats actually the same as most other major IRC clients) required to connect to a network that isnt already in our list. (some also come in to ask how to connect to freenode, but I think we can safely assume they're better off not getting there).

The "best" way to remedy this is to add something into the GUI for it - a menu + dialog combo seems most apt.

I'm proposing a two-stage approach.

To begin with we just offer a very basic dialog that allows the user to enter the network address (and perhaps a port) a la Rob Marshall's attach dialog plugin: http://chatzilla.rdmsoft.com/plugins/#attachdialog http://glasnost.us/images/c0841910_cz-attachdialog.jpg - Silver suggested some form of "search box style greytext" providing an example of what to type - this dialog can pretty much just be an interface to /attach

The end product from this bug should probably be something more along the lines of the Join Channel dialog, by including the list of currently known networks, perhaps along with an interface for customising the list (ie bug 239080).


Other suggestions for this bug mentioned in the channel include mentioning searchIRC in the [HELLO] message, and having the attach dialog open the join channel dialog once the network is connected (perhaps with a checkbox to disable the behaviour?).
We could also make the note in the #chatzilla topic about reading the FAQ to find out how to connect blink via support for the ANSI codes. :)

Comment 1

[Glen Mailer]

Attachment: Add a note to the output from /networks about connecting to other networks

so, here's an idea.

Comment 2

[James Ross]

Attachment: Network and server support for Join Channel dialog

Note: I am aware there's a FIXME in channels.js:function joinChannel().

Comment 3

[James Ross]

Comment on attachment 427588 [details] [diff] [review]
Network and server support for Join Channel dialog

There's still a FIXME in here but I'd like a general review on the code if possible.

Comment 4

[Samuel Sieb]

Comment on attachment 427588 [details] [diff] [review]
Network and server support for Join Channel dialog

Sorry for the long delay.

What is the FIXME for?

Also, there's a spot where "Sort by user count, decending" should be "descending" (not a line you changed, but it's in the diff).

Comment 5

[Tony Mechelynck [:tonymec]]

(In reply to Samuel Sieb from comment #4)
> Comment on attachment 427588 [details] [diff] [review]
> Network and server support for Join Channel dialog
> 
> Sorry for the long delay.
> 
> What is the FIXME for?
> 
> Also, there's a spot where "Sort by user count, decending" should be
> "descending" (not a line you changed, but it's in the diff).

xul/contents/channels.js line 169/157; also, the same typo is repeated lower down together with another one: xul/contents/channels.js line 320/373, is:
// Users default to decending, others accending.
should be:
// Users default to descending, others ascending.

Comment 6

[James Ross]

Attachment: Updated for spelling and bug fixes

What I'm committing; includes fixes for spelling, removed FIXME (could not work out why I'd put it in), and some performance + documentation fixes for tree-utils.js (feel free to review them).

Comment 7

[James Ross]

http://hg.mozilla.org/chatzilla/rev/9db30170af5a