Jabber to the masses = Easy client!

[JabberNeedAEasyClient]

Hi all, if the Free Software and Open Source is only for Geek's, Freaks, not are useful!
Why Jabber is ignored by "all" Internet users!?

I have's bad experience of invite MSN contacts to Jabber. First all common people not have interest to the Digital Freedom, Free Software, Privacy, etc. only use and know MSN Messenger, ok.. BUT, i have inteligent friends, and invite to experiece results:
Aproximate %80 have confussion in the Pidgin "Add account", and answer "How to create jabber account?!" Pidgin have duplicate and false offline contact's problem, etc., jabber.org server problem's with Gajim, ... also PSi not is a good client to common users, is very very minimalist :(.

The solution = Easy Client for Jabber, with theme style of "MSN" program.
If not, why Firefox are popular ;)?

The Free Software community, have a very easy and cool client for fucking MSN, named "Emesene" and is multiplaform. Writed in Python/GTK http://www.emesene.org/screenshots.html

I post in the Emesene forum, in searching of voluntaries to port this client to Jabber/XMPP protocol.

UNITE
I need help, and support for this project!

Contact me:
troyano@jabber.org

[Dunnowhat]

Well, you can have a look at http://dev.jabbim.cz/jabbim. The developers intend to create an easy-to-use jabber client. There should be a link for the English version at the bottom of that page.

[JabberNeedAEasyClient]

Ohh, look good :)

Thanks

[Lastwebpage]

I don't know where you come from, but here in Germany some ISP offer free and more or less easy to use jabber clients, too.
And maybe this one helps too:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jabber_client_software

But in general, I must admit, some clients are not really "user friendly" (maybe on some points the jabber protocol on his own, too) especially if the user use a MSN-, Yahoo-,ICQ-, -Client before.

[noccy]

That kind of sounds like Gajim (http://www.gajim.org/screenshots.php?lang=en) to me :) Written in python and resembles MSN :) And it's a pretty decent client too.

Cheers,
Chris

[JabberNeedAEasyClient]

Hey all, i censored in Emesene Forum:

http://emesene.org/smf/index.php/topic,1154.0.html

...

I try the Jabbim, is better that Gajim, but not have translations :(

[sander]

You can also try Coccinella: http://coccinella.im/

[r0botz]

I think the OP means the registration process. Clients like Pidgin that I got my friends to switch from MSN, AIM, & Yahoo from say is much better and simply easier to use. But the registration process for a @jabber.org ID was hard for them, I'll admit it was confusing at first. If we could have a simple web based registration along with client side would be really good. Something similar to how the proprietary IMing networks do, password, check if the user ID is available, name, etc... Of course email address, and name is optional, but this is where I think people appreciate the privacy aspect of Jabber.

[noccy]

I think the OP means the registration process. Clients like Pidgin that I got my friends to switch from MSN, AIM, & Yahoo from say is much better and simply easier to use. But the registration process for a @jabber.org ID was hard for them, I'll admit it was confusing at first. If we could have a simple web based registration along with client side would be really good. Something similar to how the proprietary IMing networks do, password, check if the user ID is available, name, etc... Of course email address, and name is optional, but this is where I think people appreciate the privacy aspect of Jabber.

I would believe that the original poster is requesting a client with a familiar look-and-feel. Something that looks and feels like MSN Messenger (which is actually pretty nicely laid out with it's login screen in the contact list, and pretty much everything layed out in there).

I can partially agree with you that the registration process can be somewhat quirky. I say partially, since it's very much depending on the client. The account registration process in Pandion is in my opinion very nicely made. Other clients simply have a checkbox with a text such as "Register new account", which is a bit more diffuse.

I am working on an online community (it's not gojabber.info, that's just a project of mine to help spread the gospel of safe and open instant messaging;) that is tightly integrated with a Jabber server. As you register an account on the community, the respective Jabber account is created for you automatically. So registering as johndoe at the site will give you the jid johndoe@thesite.tld.

For the process of simplifying registration, how about using a server side script to perform the registration (by connecting to the server and sending the registration request)? Make this portable enough and it can be dropped almost anywhere to allow for account registration. Keep in mind tho that there is a backside to it as well; If you register your account via a "evil" website, that does indeed register the account but also save your password and use your account for malicious purposes (or associates it with your e-mail account and attempts to log in -- most people honestly have the same password to their e-mail as they do to most websites and other online services), you are pretty much screwed.

[Lastwebpage]

The settings, yes, some clients, like Miranda, have about 50 jabber settings,
and some other dialogs like privacy list and service discovery are not designed for newbies.
I know ICQ and MSN users who never open the settings dialog after the "first time setup".

But the MSN registration (or ICQ, AIM,...) is easier than jabber registration?
I enter Username, Password, Loginserver and push "Register", that's all.
No complicated website which want's tons of informations like MSN or ICQ.
Maybe except for the last part, the loginserver, the registration is very easy, in my client. In other clients, like PSI , I must first create a profile, but this is not really difficult too.

Okay, I must admit one thing, when the registration fails on the MSN or ICQ site you will get an accurate messagetext, sometimes the messages, if something goes wrong, are not useful.

[noccy]

But the MSN registration (or ICQ, AIM,...) is easier than jabber registration?
I enter Username, Password, Loginserver and push "Register", that's all.

There's also the matter of consistency. The registration is performed differently in different clients. And ofc. the entire process of picking a server out of the hundreds of available servers :)

[Lastwebpage]

And ofc. the entire process of picking a server out of the hundreds of available servers

Yes, fully agree, I guess this part is one of the most annoying thing in the the jabber network in general. For different reasons, not only for the registration.

[zeller]

And ofc. the entire process of picking a server out of the hundreds of available servers :)

That's what jabber.org is for. I always tell people to use that if they don't have specific reasons why they'd need a different server.

[Lastwebpage]

That's an interesting answer.

What's better for new users, I don't know ?
-Start the jabber experience with one of the "big" servers, like jaim.at, chrome.pl or njs.netlab.cz
-Or start the experience with a "small" server, like jabber.org, and may have some menu entries grayed out and/or some things not work

[zeller]

I'm not quite sure I understand. What makes a server big vs. small? I thought jabber.org had the most users of a publically available server? Is that incorrect?

[florian]

Jabber.org has 300k registered users, and is the biggest jabber server.

However, I wouldn't recommend using it. As it is well known, it is suffering several problems with many users trying their new jabber scripts.

As I'm biased, I will tell you: Use im.flosoft.biz (http://im.flosoft.biz) .

[zeller]

I know they're having problems, but it's nice to be able to tell new users that when they use jabber they should use jabber.org. It makes it easier for them to remember.

Edit: I was going to say something about it would be nice if there were a web page users could use that would select a jabber server for them, based on factors such as location and features needed, and then when browsing im.flosoft.biz, I saw the post about it being listed first in Adium (http://im.flosoft.biz/2008/01/08/flosoft-im-server-adium/). So I looked it up, and it turns out those numbers are distance, so the lower the number the closer it is, and the closer it is the higher it is listed.

[Lastwebpage]

"big"=> server with a lot of services and transports
"small" => server with only a few services and transports

sorry for this misunderstanding.

@zeller,
I know this kind of lists. (here is another good example: http://www.jabberes.org/servers/ ) I can remember that there is or was a list like this somewhere on jabber.org. But how "count" availability?
Since some months I use njs.netlab.cz, but this is my 8-10th server, all servers before had availability problems or I miss some service.
A new user who use ICQ before never think about this problem, sure, this kind of servers sometimes are not availability too, but normally the "out of order" period is very short. And another part of the game are this server change on his own. Perhaps the user knows other servers and perhaps a friend tell him a stable server, he create a new account on it and be surprised that no friends are online any longer, because he don't know that he must send an auth request again, or he know this but give up after the 3-5 server change, because it's too annoying.

Some things on the server side are not design for new users too.

Peter

[zeller]

Thanks for the clarification, Lastwebpage. I tend to find that most users who start a jabber account are (or end up using) a multi-protocol client (such as Pidgin or Adium) as there are few Jabber only clients, so IM transports aren't an issue. Hence why a simple server like jabber.org is fine. And every client I have used allows you to have multiple jabber accounts, so even if you do migrate to a new server, you can still connect to your old account.

[noccy]

I seriously believe that the big "splash" will come when XMPP is integrated with communities and usergroups on the internet, such as what we see today with Facebook. Facebook has over 30 million users only in the US. If we say for the sake of the argument, that they decide to provide XMPP federation, and that every user is assigned their own JID this would make people aware of Jabber. They would know that by downloading one of the available open source clients they could communicate with any one of their friends (@facebook.com) but also reach out to (the imaginary) johndoe@myspace.com and foobar@sportscarforum.tld.

By connecting a community to the actual domain, the trouble of picking the server is all of a sudden removed. Heck, we could perhaps even expect to see plugins for vBulletin and phpBB that allows the users to create accounts on their favorite forums :)

On a sidenote, I've been thinking about adding a registration feature at GoJabber. The idea is that selecting a provider in the list would give you the option to register an account (which would be done by sending the registration packet from the server as a reaction to the user filling in the form with his desired username and password). This would allow for a very simple registration wizard where the user first selects the server, then provides his desired account details, and finally selects a client to download. What are your thoughts on this?

Also, on another sidenote, how about a XEP regarding "autoconfiguration"? If I create the account johndoe@server.com, and the server supports this autoconfiguration feature, I could simply click a link (such as xmpp:autoconf:johndoe@server.com/abcd1234), which would provide the client with the login credentials assigned to this "temporary token" (abcd1234). Similar to a user-specific one-time DHCP request. This could be carried out by an external HTTP request for a XML document or fragment, or performed after connecting to the server. Thoughts here? :)

Cheers,
Chris

[AJxn]

Yes, fully agree, I guess this part is one of the most annoying thing in the the jabber network in general. For different reasons, not only for the registration.
Annoying? This is the STRENGTH of jabber. You seldom start to use ICQ or GTalk without some friends telling you about it. Same with Jabber. So the server selection is not that large of a problem. MSN is a different creature, as it is "forced" upon each MS Windows user.

Since MSN, ICQ etc is "garden service", they don't has any need for adding which server to use.

To make this easier for beginners, there are jabber server sites with web interfaces to their server, like jabber.se, which helps with this. Still, beginner usally don't find this website unless someone tell them about it, and then they also can help with selecting server to use.

[ChaseIM]

With my client for my IM network the server IP is hardcoded into the program so its the only server that can be used with the client. Also the client is the only client that can be used on the server. That way like AIM and MSN people don't have to mess around with figuring out what IP to put in and which server to use and all that stuff. Should be very user friendly but since its only in Beta time will tell just how user friendly it is.

[Falconix]

a client which is not so active at the moment but which is quite easy to use, and soon opensourced. Is Pandion.

http://www.pandion.be

[AJxn]

With my client for my IM network the server IP is hardcoded into the program so its the only server that can be used with the client. Also the client is the only client that can be used on the server. That way like AIM and MSN people don't have to mess around with figuring out what IP to put in and which server to use and all that stuff. Should be very user friendly but since its only in Beta time will tell just how user friendly it is.

So how do they manage email? Have to remember an email-address?

Jabber works like that, just add an "email"-address to use. No need to enter an server address (or IP? Which horror setup of an server have you used?) to connect. Actually, you don't need to set up POP/IMAP or SMTP-servers to get it going. And there are web based clients too.

So the mechanisms to use are not that hard, but you might want to make the user interface better for registering in the clients. But the problem, as I see it, is to get people to the service and software in the first place.