845818 - tools | join chat does not open tab for server/channel

Status: RESOLVED DUPLICATE of bug 1161162

(Thunderbird :: Instant Messaging, defect)

Description

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

I was totally lost after creating chat account. Joining a channel resulted in no visible changes in the thunderbird UI.  I had zero idea my join was successful. So wasted time fiddling with settings, debug, etc until someone helped me on IRC (via a different chat client)

very confusing

Comment 1

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

I suspect this may have regressed with either bug 740358 or bug 748358.

Comment 2

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

clarification, this is via tools | join chat, not via Go | Chat, as early as TB15.0.1.  In version 14, I don't see join chat on tools menu

It is also confusing that no chat tab appears after first account using "account settings"

Comment 3

[Wayne Mery (:wsmwk)]

(In reply to Florian Quèze [:florian] [:flo] from comment #1)
> I suspect this may have regressed with either bug 740358 or bug 748358.

In context of this bug, and as a new user, despite the rationale given in those bugs, it is a totally foreign concept that joining a channel would not result in a UI change such as new tabs.

Comment 4

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

(In reply to Wayne Mery (:wsmwk) from comment #3)

> In context of this bug, and as a new user, despite the rationale given in
> those bugs, it is a totally foreign concept that joining a channel would not
> result in a UI change such as new tabs.

Right. I think the intended change in these bugs was to not open a tab without an action from the user (ie not open a tab automatically when receiving something from the network).

Comment 5

[:aceman]

Confirming. I also joined a channel and it was nowhere to be seen in TB UI. Only when I found the Chat icon on the main toolbar, a tab with the channel appeared. This was on a recent nightly.

Those linked bug talk about tab reopening after user intentionally closed them. That is fine, those could stay open.

But in this bug the user intentionally wanted to join a chat/room but it did not appear anywhere.

Comment 6

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

It sounds like we should ensure that the chat tab is visible after joining a new chat (i.e. essentially click the chat button after joining). Would that solve the issues?

Comment 7

[ISHIKAWA, Chiaki]

I am a total newbie to IRC.

Unlike e-mail account creation, the current IRC account creation is very spartan to the point of confusing the newbie. (Or rather the lack of information stops the newbie from proceeding.)

If I were to create the chat account creation, adding a line somewhere on the panel where one chooses the chat server/network that says something like
"You can create your IRC account after connecting to the server on the left in the next screen" or something to that effect would be very useful.
(And maybe point to a wiki-like entry such as http://freenode.net/faq.shtml#userregistration
also helps immensely. )

I know it is not TB's or Mozilla's responsibility to educate the user about IRC nitty-gritty details, but I think it would be immensely useful for the total newbie.

Oh, for that matter, I was not even sure what I type into the account entry in the
panel when I choose IRC chat channel before proceeding at all. 
I don't know how we can fix this problem, but again a simple line like the following
will help the newbie immensely: "Just type in your preferred e-mail account where you will
receive registration confirmation, and nickname registration can be done in the next screen or something.")

It is a matter of how much explanation we give to the total newbie but I feel current situation is a total lack of hand-holding. It can use some addition.

Oh well, I am not even sure if what I am describing is the same problem as comment 1.
But I am sure the newbie will be confused at the step(s) which I described and
again get confused  at another step where Wayne explained.

TIA

Comment 8

[:aceman]

Chiaki, the specific servers have different rules regarding the possibility of/mandatory nick registration. So as you want to join to us at server irc.mozilla.org, you do not need any registration (double so a registration on freenode.net). I think TB can't know the rules of the server.
So you just do this in TB:
1. Create a Chat account of type IRC.
2. Input server (irc.mozilla.org)
3. Input any name and a nickname (that will be your ID on the channel)
4. After the account is OK, verify in tools->chat status -> show accounts if the server is connected. Connect if it is not.
5. Now you use Tools -> Join chat and using the account you select a channel (room). It is #maildev for example.
6. THE BUG IS HERE as nothing visible happens after this.
7. You must click the Chat button on the toolbar, or Go -> Chat.

Comment 9

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

(In reply to ISHIKAWA, chiaki from comment #7)

> Oh well, I am not even sure if what I am describing is the same problem as
> comment 1.

I'm pretty sure you are talking about something different.

> But I am sure the newbie will be confused at the step(s) which I described

I'm not a newbie, but I'm confused by what you described. I'm especially not sure of what makes you think that you have to register an IRC account. Registering an account with the IRC server is completely optional in most cases.

Comment 10

[:aceman]

Florian, as he does not know IRC he may have been mislead by the fact that the IRC account creation prefills the chat.freenode.net as the hostname. Why is that? Can that be removed or at least moved into a label under the field as a suggestion/example of server format? (Like the old Seamonkey email creation had).

Comment 11

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

(In reply to :aceman from comment #10)
> Florian, as he does not know IRC he may have been mislead by the fact that
> the IRC account creation prefills the chat.freenode.net as the hostname. Why
> is that?

I think we decided to prefill with freenode as if I remember correctly it's the most popular IRC network these days.

> Can that be removed

Technically yes. I don't think it would be an improvement though.

> or at least moved into a label under the field
> as a suggestion/example of server format?

That would be difficult to do (the username step of the wizard is generated automatically, not written in XUL for each protocol).

The one thing I see that can be confusing is the "Username:" input box. For IRC "nick" or "nickname" would be more appropriate. Again, this is generic for all protocol plugins, but we could display "nick" in gray text when the textbox is empty (we already display "email address" there for the Google Talk case).

Note: This comment is way off topic for this bug, so if we want to continue this discussion, we should file another bug.

Comment 12

[:aceman]

See, in comment 9 even I confused username with alias (I said alias is the nickname), even though there is an explanation in the dialog :(

So yes, showing username and nickname in the same dialog would be great.

Comment 13

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

(In reply to Florian Quèze [:florian] [:flo] from comment #11)

> The one thing I see that can be confusing is the "Username:" input box. For
> IRC "nick" or "nickname" would be more appropriate. Again, this is generic
> for all protocol plugins, but we could display "nick" in gray text when the
> textbox is empty (we already display "email address" there for the Google
> Talk case).

Filed bug 846706 to address this.

Comment 14

[ISHIKAWA, Chiaki]

(In reply to Florian Quèze [:florian] [:flo] from comment #9)
> (In reply to ISHIKAWA, chiaki from comment #7)
> 
> I'm not a newbie, but I'm confused by what you described. I'm especially not
> sure of what makes you think that you have to register an IRC account.
> Registering an account with the IRC server is completely optional in most
> cases.

Basically, :aceman's observation is comment 10 is correct. I saw freenet host name and figured, it must be the one I would use and after googling, I thought it was necessary to register a nickname so that someone can be identified as such for a period of time. 

In reply to Comment 8:
>2. Input server (irc.mozilla.org)
My goodness, it never occurred to me to input this hostname for some reason.

Again, in contrast to the hand-holding available to e-mail account creation,
I think chat account creation can use a little more hand holding : but now I understand that there are different rules for different servers, and so
it may not be as easy as preparing e-mail account creation information in advance for major ISPs, etc.

Anyway, I suppose that major IRC servers must have a server where
wiki/FAQ is prepared for them, and just showing the link when
a particular server (one of the recognized major server) is chosen would be
a great improvement IMHO, but I think this is a different issue from the original comment.

Should I file an Request for Enhancement (RFE) regarding this in bugzilla?

TIA

Comment 15

[Florian Quèze [:florian]]

(In reply to ISHIKAWA, chiaki from comment #14)

> Should I file an Request for Enhancement (RFE) regarding this in bugzilla?

If you think something needs to be improved, yes please.

Comment 16

[aleth [:aleth]]

Given the description, I believe this is now fixed. As per comment 15, suggestions for how to improve the dialog should be filed separately.