Lists out differences between protocols

compulim commented 5 years ago

(request from @krishna0209)

Feature Request

As we start planning to support different protocols, we should consider their differences and how Web Chat could adapt:

File upload
- We only support uploading a single file at a time
- We don't support text message piggybacked to the file upload activity
- Since Direct Line do not report attachment sizes, we use channel data to keep attachment sizes. This is an optional feature
- Some services may support asynchorous file scanning for uploaded files, so the UI can block download before the scanning complete
Server timestamp
- All outgoing activities are server-timestamped, so we can maintain a correct order of transcript
Outgoing activities acknowledgements
- All outgoing activities are ACK after they are received/being processed by the bot. This is equivalent "read receipt" (email) or "double blue ticks" (WhatsApp)
Channel data (per-activity in-band storage)
- We keep a client activity ID in channel data for "read receipt"
Heartbeat
- User idle or typing indicator
- Browser is active
Notification of app switching
- Connection is frozen, no incoming or outgoing is expected
- Connection is killed and should reconnect on next opportunity
- Push notification for frozen connection
Queueing up of messages that failed to send
- Is the protocol queuing up the failed messages?
- How to retry? Is it by resending the whole activity?
Connectivity
- Is the connection already established before sending to Web Chat?
- Who is responsible to call the connect() function
Retry
- On retry, should the protocol send a new bubble or just retrying the existing one?
  - Retrying existing one: the UI can color the bubble when they are successfully sent
User ID and conversation ID
- Today, some parts of Web Chat requires knowledge of user ID
- Can we remove that part from Web Chat?
Adapter should have a way to send extra information to customization component of Web Chat
- For example, sending a customized avatar image from adapter to Web Chat
Update activity
- Activity with same ID will be replaced, including timestamp
- Timestamp change will affect the order of message and is by design
Acknowledging activities
- Currently, the acknowledgement is used for pausing scroll, e.g. the developer set "pause scroll after 3 activities"
- If the protocol supports conversation history, we might want to tell the adapter we have acknowledged up to which activities

Added from #2506:

Disconnects (online/offline)
Update/Edit messages

[Enhancement]

corinagum commented 5 years ago

re-adding the customer tags since this is coming directly from a customer.

microsoft / BotFramework-WebChat

Lists out differences between protocols #2490

Feature Request