Keep naming schemes consistent

[Proplex]

For the record, in terms of keeping things simple for everyone, including the userbase, I'm proposing the following name scheme that we /highly recommend/ to be used in Tox clients, and other use cases:

Pubkey: Tox ID DHT Node: Tox Node Personal note/status message: Mood message Username: Username

Being clear and consistent among all Tox GUIs will allow for easy transition for a casual user, and will allow us to promote Tox products effectively.

[nurupo]

@Proplex do you realize that public key (what you call Tox ID) doesn't include nospam and checksum?

Also, every client is a DHT node, although calling them clients it's indeed confusing : )

Just for reference, current terminology used inside of toxcore is

Public Key: Public Key or Client ID
Friend Address: public key + nospam + checksum
DHT Node: (it's not used inside of toxcore library)
Status Message: Status Message
Name: Name

If you want more user-friendly names, I would go with renaming: Friend Address --> Tox ID, Public Key --> Fingerprint, DHT Node --> Tox Node.

But note there are several flavors of public keys: public key for 1-on-1 chats, and short-term public keys for groupchats, etc.

Again, for reference, Qt GUI currently uses:

Public Key/Client ID: User ID
Friend Address: Friend Address
DHT Node: DHT Node
Status Message: Status Message
Name: Username

[Proplex]

I think most people understood what I meant by pubkey was the full user ID users exchange between each other to converse. Nitpicking isn't the point here.

"User ID" is too vague. We need to own that string of characters. When people see a user id for Tox, you want them to associate it with Tox, as in "Oh, that's a Tox ID!" rather than "Oh, that's a user ID for Tox". It's shorter, and gets the point across faster.

DHT Nodes should be Tox Nodes because it simply smooths things over for the people who aren't technically inclined. If they tinkered with the settings and saw "DHT Node Settings", and tried Googling it, they be greeted with articles about torrenting, and they won't be able to discern the difference. Naming it Tox Nodes prevents such confusion, and they'll probably leave it alone since it looks confusing and important.

Skype uses the name "Mood message" for personal notes, which is something we should emulate to keep the experience the same.

Obviously "Friend Address" would be labeled as "Your Friend's Tox ID".

[nurupo]

"User ID" is too vague. We need to own that string of characters. When people see a user id for Tox, you want them to associate it with Tox, as in "Oh, that's a Tox ID!" rather than "Oh, that's a user ID for Tox". It's shorter, and gets the point across faster.

User IDs? Don't mind what Qt GUI uses, I just added it for reference, for anyone curious what one of clients use. What i suggested was:

If you want more user-friendly names, I would go with renaming: Friend Address --> Tox ID, Public Key --> Fingerprint, DHT Node --> Tox Node.

[nurupo]

Obviously "Friend Address" would be labeled as "Your Friend's Tox ID".

We are talking about client applications, right? If so, then Friend Address (Tox ID) is actually exclusively your thing, it's the address you give someone to friend you. There is no such thing as Friend's Friend Address ("Your Friend's Tox ID") in UI, you don't know it unless you explicitly ask your friend, since you don't know nospam of your friend, i.e. a client application can't get it through any function calls (well, should not be able to get it through any calls, since it would defeat the whole point of nospam). So yeah, clients can't display friends' Tox IDs, but they still can show public keys of your friends, which are of not much use since you can't use them for friending.

[Proplex]

You are totally missing the point here. You have absolutely no idea what I'm trying to get at.

[nurupo]

I thought you wanted to standardize terms among clients, which is a great idea.

[Proplex]

Yes, exactly, so that the user doesn't need to care what's going on in the background. We can internally reference the user ID strings as the supergiganamepub nospamultramega hashcode key, or whatever technicality you want. But to the user, it's the Tox ID. The Tox ID includes the nospam, etc.

[nurupo]

Yes, that's what I was saying, rename Friend Address to Tox ID. I think you are misunderstanding me.

[stal888]

Mood message

can we not?

[nurupo]

Mood message

can we not?

this

[Proplex]

https://www.google.com/search?q=skype+mood

Just something to think about for the casuals.

[stal888]

I think we should treat the [user]status and the status message as a single unit, and just call it "status".

[nurupo]

So, if we say "your status is 'Away' ", would that mean userstatus is Away or status message contains Away string in it?

[stal888]

The status message would be Away. The userstatus (light) is used to quickly show your willingness to speak.

[nurupo]

Would there be any particular names for shades of willingness to speak, like Online, Away, Busy?

[Proplex]

We are in the process of drafting STS as a result. https://github.com/Tox/STS