GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 760833
Indicate in UI when you are offline
Last modified: 2019-05-07 16:47:37 UTC
Created attachment 319343 [details] mockup-rev1 When a network is unavailable, Polari should indicate clearly in the UI that you are offline. The attached mockup proposes to overlay a label on top of the chat entry area.
Created attachment 319360 [details] mockup-rev2 Allan proposed to phrase the label more usefully as "Go online to chat."
I'm not sure that a label in the chat entry is the most effective way to communicate the offline state. It's a little subtle and suggests that being offline is mostly about sending messages. One option might be a trusty info bar at the top (and hide the action bar at the bottom). This would: * Grab attention (which is good in this case, because the app is fairly broken when you're offline) * Communicate that the whole app is affected (because it's at the top of the window) * Allow you to show a Network Settings button, or the like, which would help with getting connected
(In reply to Allan Day from comment #2) > One option might be a trusty info bar at the top (and hide the action bar at > the bottom). This would: > > [...] > * Communicate that the whole app is affected (because it's at the top of > the window) Are you suggesting to do that only if the network is completely unavailable? Otherwise it's not necessarily true that the whole app is affected - I'm currently not connected to my work VPN, so no Red Hat network for me; but happily chatting away on GNOME :-) > * Allow you to show a Network Settings button, or the like, which would > help with getting connected As I've been playing with the future (xdg-app) lately: We probably shouldn't assume that we can launch external applications like Settings.
(In reply to Florian Müllner from comment #3) > (In reply to Allan Day from comment #2) > > One option might be a trusty info bar at the top (and hide the action bar at > > the bottom). This would: > > > > [...] > > * Communicate that the whole app is affected (because it's at the top of > > the window) > > Are you suggesting to do that only if the network is completely unavailable? Yes. :)
Created attachment 340890 [details] offline status rev3 in this mockup we put an infobar into the sidebar when network is unavailable. Positioninig it in the sidebar helps indicating that it affects all channels. The infobar is styled red to not be confused with currently selected room and to visibly stand out in the interface. Clicking the banner can force an attempt to reconnect to the channels. Currently when you are offline the entry area becomes insensitive. This mockup adds a 'Go online to chat' label to give the user indication of what to do in order to start typing in the area again.
I implemented a regular info bar in https://gitlab.gnome.org/GNOME/polari/merge_requests/113.