BuddyPress.org

Excellent point. Not all is lost but I will take this opportunity to provide some feedback to @jjj and @apeatling re 1.2 in it’s current state

1. I get the use of the Twitter @ metaphor and adding “mentions” to the filters. Cool. BUT, it introduces a potential UI snag for users. Throughout 1.2 you make nice use of Display Name which users will become accustomed to and identify with. Now, you are identifying users by their user name as well (mixing metaphors, so to speak) as in ->

John Doe

and

@jdoe

Given people’s tendencies to use whacky usernames, thee is a big risk of confusion when both start popping up around the site. Not sure what the solution is but I think it’s not a trivial point, imho.

2. Now that the wire has disappeared and along comes the concept of “Send Public Message” (I get it) let’s look at what vehicle we’re making use of and what it may mean to users. As it currently stands in 1.2, to “Send Public Message” you click that button on someone’s profile and you are taken to your own Status Update field with an @username filled in.

a. the cursor is highlighted just before the @username not after (don’t forget to include a space) – this will only cause people to write the pubic message and push the @username to the end of the message. clunky

b. You’ll probably need to include a @mentions on each person’s profile page otherwise, you’ll never be able to easily see the public message to @username you just wrote. The key point being, you want this to show up on THEIR profile.

c. Probably worth considering including a notification to @username of said public message via email (make optional)

d. Q: Will these @’s be co-mingled in your own status updates and, thus create confusion. Maybe that doesn’t matter and i am overthinking it.On the activity stream, it says John Doe posted an update, when he really sent @username a public message. In Twitter when @ leads a message as 1st character, it has different context than everywhere else in the Tweet. Perhaps -> John Doe sent @username a public message ? or something.

I know I am getting fine grained here but theses (excellent) feature adds need to be over the top intuitive when introduced or they will breed unintended usages.

The usage of @ may have been a twitter hack, but it came from using it as a way to acknowledge or direct a comment at a user when a threaded option wasn’t available. We use it even here in these very forums quite often, because we can’t directly reply to one another.

Deprecated code, the wire, and the status update components are totally removed from the BuddyPress 1.2 core and will be available in a separate BuddyPress Backwards Compatibility plugin. If you desire to use those components, or are using a custom theme that uses old function names or loops, you will be required to install and activate this additional plugin to continue to use your old code.

This was done for three reasons:

1. Reduce the amount of legacy code in the core that is just hanging around not being used

2. Not give new comers 2 (or more) ways to do the same one thing

3. Influence plugin and theme developers to upgrade their code to be compatible with BuddyPress 1.2 sooner rather than later

More detailed instructions and details will come as the 1.2 launch comes closer, but this is the best way to make sure everyone is happy.

@mikepratt

I think you bring up some good points about how @’ing someone, where it appears, and how you’re told someone @’ed you can start to be a run around. It’s possible that it could start to be a lot of back and forth, and if you’re not familiar with the concept of what it means or how it works, then there could be more of a learning curve than just typing in a box and hitting send.

Personally, I think sending a public message to someone and having it also updating your current status could be confusing, especially since writing a new blog post, or commenting on an activity stream item don’t update your current status. And if your new status contains an @reply, the link under your username in your profile gets stripped. Twitter has also partly trained me now that clicking on someones @name doesn’t bring me to their profile, it just sets up a reply to that person right away. I also think @replies should work in activity stream comments, instead of just the status update.

The username thing is hard to get around. The problem comes from peoples display names being editable and dynamic. You could, if you were really concerned about the display of things, filter the output of the activity stream item and use a little PHP creativity to replace the username with the display name. I’ve done this already to get rid of the · on a client site, because their activity stream links are setup differently and the ·s don’t make sense where they are.

This is quite a confusing implementation, and I think the usability could (and should, before it’s released), be hugely improved.

After looking at the current way posting a public message on a users profile works, here’s some suggestions of how I think it could be improved:

* User clicks ‘Send Public Message’, and a textarea with ‘@username’ pre added is inserted into the top of the current profiles’ activity stream – signifying to the user, this is where the message will end up

* The comment is typed, and when completed it is posted via Ajax, we could simply post it and refresh their activity stream

* The users status is NOT updated, instead an activity item in their stream shows the message they sent (or a short quote), with the ability to comment on it.

We simply need to focus on what the user is trying to achieve, and make that as simple and intuitive as possible. Facebook does this very well.

I guarantee you the @ thing will confuse 80-90% of my users.

Also, try it on testbp.org – it has been working really well and I receive @messages all the time, each with an active reply stream.

This is never going to work like a message posting wall, it’s simply not how an activity stream works. If that’s what you want/need then stick with the old wire. Please give this new functionality a chance though, it works quite well if you take time to use it in an active environment.

When you send a private message you see their name in a button beside the textarea. When you send a public message you get a textarea pre-populated with @username. I think if you instead got a textarea with their name in a button beside the textarea… just like a private message… that would be more consistent. It would also be less prone to user error. For instance, I can envision someone wanting to public message “Jim Smith” clicking the button and seeing “@unibomber” in the textarea and thinking… what the?! And then deleting the offending weird text. It sounds ridiculous… but sit down with some non-computer savvy users and you will be amazed :o)

That said… it sounds like you’re aware of that and will be putting some thought into it in future releases. So that’s great.

I guess the question is… if we your don’t rely on the @ shorthand… how would someone make mention of someone else without using the “Public Message” button? Could there be some kind of auto-complete text box for targeting your comments? Or would the @ shorthand simply remain as-is and be considered a “power user” feature.

Just thinking out loud :o)

@andy Ok. I understand the model now and it’s good to see the username issue resolution on the horizon somewhere. A couple of thoughts:

1. Given that many activities on the stream get their own verbs “posted an update” “posted a comment” “uploaded a picture” (ok, dreaming!) it might help to tweak the verbiage here to “posted a public message to @username” since I’m not really updating anything. Posting an update smacks of status updates

2. @r-a-y’s point is key, a person needs to go see where all the public messages to them live so they can reply.

Confession: I really dislike Twitter a great deal. Can you tell?

@Michael I hear ya, but let’s be honest (and you know I am a BP fanboy) BP is basically a set of tools to let us create our own niche Facebooks. I won’t beat this dead horse anymore, but along with @David, I will have major user confusion when I start forcing them to pay attention to real names as well as usernames.

I’m with ya though

Probably though autocomplete, or accepting display names somehow.