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ManuD #1
Member since Nov 2013 · 3 posts
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Subject: SUBJECT in a regulat chat between 2 (or more) people
Hi,
As described in the XMPP protocol http://xmpp.org/rfcs/rfc3922.html#im  (4.1.6) we should be able to send a SUBJECT that should be displayed by on XMPP client... But we tested many XMPP clients (Cisco Jabber, Pigin, Jitsi, SafetyJabber...) and it seems that the SUBJECT attribute is ignored by all of them ?

As we are using today Microsoft Lync our clients are using the SUBJECT feature, and as we are considering to switch to XMPP (in fact Cisco Jabber but the client could be anything else) this feature seems not be really used in a XMPP "world" ?

The only way to create a chat with a SUBJECT seems in a Group chat, and unfortunatly with Cisco Jabber we need so send propertiary attributes to display a SUBJECT...

Regards
Emmanuel
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Alex #2
Member since Feb 2003 · 4449 posts · Location: Germany
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XMPP has different message types. There is headline, chat, groupchat and normal.
In theory you could use the subject for any of these message types. But for chat messages we have never used the subject in the last years in XMPP. This is the reason why you can probably not find a chat client which uses subjects on chat messages.

For messages of type normal the subject feature is present in most chat clients. I have attached a screenshot of Psi as an example.
  • Messages of type normal are similar like email messages
  • Messages of type groupchat are used in conferences
  • Messages of type headline are used for notifications
  • Messages of type chat are used for chat conversations, not very common to have a subject there.
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ManuD #3
Member since Nov 2013 · 3 posts
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Thanks a lot ALEX for this quick answer.

As I'm a Microsoft Lync user I disagree with your assert "Messages of type chat are used for chat conversations, not very common to have a subject there."    :-D

I feel very comfortable to have 4 or more simultaneous chat with different people (in some cases same people in 2 or more chat) and the best way to distinguish between the chat Windows is to set a subject (in the title of the Window in Lync).

As I understood my problem resides on the client itself, the protocol is "subject agnostic" as it's only a XML tag populated / managed or not by the client itself.
So that I need to develop my own client   :-O

Same with HEADLINES messages, my Cisco Jabber client doesn't take care about.. I expected the client to display my HEADLINE message as a "popup message without possibility to anwser" (for example).

Regards
Emmanuel
This post was edited 2 times, last on 2013-11-26, 22:28 by Alex.
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Alex #4
Member since Feb 2003 · 4449 posts · Location: Germany
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yes the problems reside in the clients, not in the protocol. In XMPP we also have threads for message. They are exactly for the use case you describe here:

Quote by ManuD:
I feel very comfortable to have 4 or more simultaneous chat with different people (in some cases same people in 2 or more chat) and the best way to distinguish between the chat Windows is to set a subject (in the title of the Window in Lync).
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Alex #5
Member since Feb 2003 · 4449 posts · Location: Germany
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In reply to post #3
Quote by ManuD:
As I understood my problem resides on the client itself, the protocol is "subject agnostic" as it's only a XML tag populated / managed or not by the client itself.
So that I need to develop my own client   :-O

right, download our MatriX library and start hacking on it ;-)
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ManuD #6
Member since Nov 2013 · 3 posts
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Thanks a lot for your quick answer, we will try to write our own "light" client using your Library.
==>
One of my colleague is currently using / evaluating your Library in order to write an XMPP Bot but as we need more flexible behaviour from a client perspective we think about writting our own "light" XMPP client... Very boring as our needs seems so obvious !

As far as I understood the THREAD is just for "grouping" conversations but don't handle our main need "be able to define a subject" !

Many XMPP message sample in the different XEP documents contain the "Subject" tag... very confusing...

First need:
- Client : developping a custom light client logged on a specific resource
- Server/Bot : sending a message (really a HEADLINE message type) to a user who met specific "presence" flag ==> quite easy...
- Client : be able to have a technical ack about message delivery ==> in fact our client will send back to the bot a technical ACK.
- Client : retrieve SUBJECT tag and Body, open a popup window with this content (contains HTTP URL)

Regards
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Alex #7
Member since Feb 2003 · 4449 posts · Location: Germany
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message threads are described here, you could use them as subjects as well.
http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0201.html

XMPP and MatriX are both totally flexible and extensible. So nearly everything is possible.
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