Virtual XMPP group chat
XMPP activity and mood as means for mingling, dating, and other purposes.
Aquarium, Kerstboom, and Wereldkaart
Mr. Ralph Meijer has created an HTML software which composes a dynamic image of a map, a tree, and also of an aquarium, which appearance is based on mood.
Jabber Wereldkaart
This is the jabber presence world map. The bulbs represent someone's presence.
If your mouse is over one of the lights you should be able to see to whom the bulb belongs and it's presence details.
Jabber Kerstboom
This is the Jabber Christmas Tree. The lights represent someone's presence: they are on when someone's presence is 'online', 'chat' or 'away' and off otherwise.
If your mouse is over one of the lights you should be able to see to whom the light belongs and it's presence details.
Jabber Aquarium
This is the Jabber Fish Tank. The colours of the fish represent someone's presence. With thanks to ressu, who came up with the idea and the background image.
If your mouse is over one of the fish you should be able to see to whom the fish belongs and it's presence details.
Coccinella
The idea of an aquarium was proposed for chat software Coccinella.
This project involves the creation of an interface for kids to Coccinella. You need to create a new roster style, the fishy roster style, with an aquarium containing fishes that represents the contacts (like ralphm's Jabber Aquarium). The fishes need to be be animated with User Mood. For example, when a contact is happy, the fish will swim quickly in the aquarium with a smile on his face. The graphics will be done in 2D, but when time allows, they can be made in 3D.
Potential
While this could indeed be very nice and useful for kids, it could also be made for adults.
For instance, if we focus on a group chat roster instead of a private roster, and change the Fish Tank to a dance floor or a playground, or any other theme.
This would encourage strangers to actively engage with other strangers.
An animated group chat
An animated diagonal environment which could be a big house or a "country club" which includes a house, garden, a swimming pool, a patio, a pergola, a parlor with a fireplace, a buffet, and even an office or work station.
The software would monitor and record the activity of a group chat.
- For occupants whos activity is "napping", "thinking", or mood is "relaxing", a representation of them in the pergola be displayed.
- When an occupants is idle for a long time, then a representation of that occupant would be sitting or sleeping on a chair in front of the swimming pool.
- Occupants who are engaging with one another, either by explicitly mentioning alias, or by commenting to a message, both or more of the occupants be represennted in a group of two or more people, speaking together with one another, either by standing, walking or sitting on the garden or parlor.
- Occupants who have status of "visitor" will be represented with figures waiting behind a fence.
- Upon a kick, a representation of a moderator would give a yellow ticket to an occupant who is subjected to the action.
- Upon a ban, a representation of a moderator would give a red ticket to an occupant who is subjected to the action, and the moderator would also mark that occupant in a book.
- An occupant whos mood is "sick", be represented on a bed, and if another occupant communicates with the occupant who is marked as "sick", then the other occupant would be seen caring or nursing the occupant who is marked as "sick".
- Occupants that are engaging with a WebXDC software, be grouped together around it.
It could be a house, yet, if there are only two showers and three occupants who set their activity to "showering", then one would be represented as a figure which would be seen as waiting for the shower room to be made available, or that occupant would go to the garden and start the hose, which could make some to laugh.
Themes
Possible themes.
- Ancient
- Business club
- Fancy garden (e.g. Japanese or of wedding)
- Market
- Persian
- Restaurant
- Temple
Features
Additional features could be an arbitrary creation of figures.
When an occupant write "Arrr..." a pirate figure would appear for a few seconds near to the figure which is attributed to the given occupant.
Design
XHTML
- Associate items and places
Python
- Monitor group chat activity
- Store information
ECMAScript
- Retrieve information
- Adjust location of items and activities
- Relocate figures
- Animate figures
Pygame
This interface can be built with PyGame and also HTML (e.g. JabberCard and Movim).
Realization
An illustration to demonstrate this concept.
Three occupants are displayed in a virtual kitchen; one is cooking, another is doing a chore, and another one is chatting.
Those three occupants are displayed in the same virtual room, because they converse with each other at that moment.
The reason that they appear inside a kitchen, is because the common shared place of their currently published activities (chores and cooking) is a kitchen.
Illustration courtesy of Hundred Rabbits (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0).
Conclusion
Adding an animated representation of activities and moods for group chats, can increase engagement and subsequently result in interesting and helpful negotiations over XMPP.