RE: [JDEV] Contact Methods

["Thomas Charron" <tcharron@nermail.ups.com>]

> From: owner-jdev@jabber.org On Behalf Of Chase Phillips
> Subject: [JDEV] Contact Methods
> I am interested in that there are multiple ways to contact one person
> (services to that person) and jabber servers/transports can be used in
> each one of those contact "methods".  I would like to see inside the
> messaging window individual options to contact through various ways
> (Direct->Jabber, Direct->ICQ, Direct->Pager, etc).  Does this conflict
> with the Simple Client idea, or, since this information is sent in a
> roster retrieve and interpreted only by the Jabber Server, will this add
> to the Simple Client, making it more powerful?

	No reason a client couldn't do this.  As a matter of fact, we could have an
'alternate address' list as part of the users status information, and have
the transport have a 'fallback' option.

> If we can centralize each contact method to one roster entry, instead of
> having multiple roster entries for each, reaching a person would become
> much more intuitive (and our rosters would be much more simpler).  Any
> ideas?  Advance apologies if this has already been hashed out.

	I like the idea myself..  ;-P  But it shouldn't be required, but an
optional implementation within the client.  Perhaps a <ext></ext> field that
states that this address is an alternate for another, such as:

  <roster>
    <group name="main">jenny</group>
    <group name="main">545212@ICQ<ext><Alternate
number=1/>jenny</ext></group>
    <group name="friends">user@jabber.server.com</group>
    <group name="system">olduser</group>
  </roster>

	Idea's?  Comments?  There could also be information stored in status, so
when a person adds a user, it would be able to parse out additional
addresses for this person and automagically add them as alternates.  This
would also NOT break clients who didn't support alternate addy's, as the
data is stored in <ext>, so they'll just look like normal roster entries to
dumber clients..  Might get ugly with 20 people with 3 alternate's, though..

	Perhaps something like this instead?

  <roster>
    <group name="main">jenny<ext><Alternate
number=1/>545212@ICQ</ext></group>
    <group name="friends">user@jabber.server.com</group>
    <group name="system">olduser</group>
  </roster>

	This MIGHT be a better way, as dumber clients would now only have one
entry, without the alternate contact methods..