Private message integration: Sending to one-way relationship types (differentiate between relationship direction) [#1108520]

In working on the "Send private message to all friends" issue, Berdir suggested that I create this issue as a follow-up.

Currently, we don't have any differentiation between the direction of one-way relationships that are allowed to be reciprocal. For instance, if userA is a "fan" of userB (which doesn't require approval), then both userA and userB will be allowed to send messages to each other. But we may only want to send a message to "fan (Them to You)" but not "fan (You to Them)". So should the direction of one-way relationships be specified in the autocomplete?

There are two possible solutions:

1. Show both "fan (Them to You)" and "fan (You to Them)" in the autocomplete. Then it would be up to the user to determine which fan "direction" they wish to send a private message to.

2. Add a configuration option to one-way messages that allows the site builder to specify which direction should be available in the autocomplete. For instance, there could be two checkbox settings: fan (Them to You)" and "fan (You to Them)".

Additionally, there could be a separate checkbox settings labeled "Hide direction of one-way relationship in autocomplete". If this was selected, then the relationship would just be listed as "Fan" (instead of "Fan (You to Them)". This would be useful when only one direction is intended to be shown in the autocomplete.

Thoughts?

--Ben

Comments

Comment #1

Berdir

German

Switzerland

CreditAttribution: Berdir commented 3 April 2011 at 12:34

2) makes sense to me. 1) is basically also just a subset of 2) (2 does the same except it's configurable).

The naming stuff is not unique to the autocomplete, it's a general problem. Similar to the lower/upper case problem discussed in #1103458: Remove columns from relationship type list, we might also want to think about options to allow to override the "You to them/Them to you" stuff. I think we can figure out that all together in a new issue ("e.g. Revamp relationship name display"). For example, twitter is talking about "Following" and "Followers", not "Followers (You to them)" :)

PS: Yes, I like the word "revamp" :)

Comment #2

BenK CreditAttribution: BenK commented 3 April 2011 at 20:29

Berdir,

You've made all good points here. Yes, let's pursue 2) and I'll gather up all of those items in a separate issue as you suggest.

And actually, you've raised great points about the "You to Them" and "Them to You" stuff. I never liked that terminology because not only is it unclear, but it's also incorrect grammar (since it should be "Him to You" or "Her to You"). Plus, I always thought it looked weird that "fan" was lowercase, but "You to Them" was capitalized right after it.

So I will make the new "revamp" issue and we can brainstorm solutions there! :-)

--Ben

Comment #3

Berdir

German

Switzerland

CreditAttribution: Berdir commented 4 April 2011 at 12:50

Another idea. Doesn't this setting kinda overlap with #1108512: Private message integration: Create permission for each relationship type? Can't we just expose two permissions for one-way relationships? Then this is covered as well.

Comment #4

BenK CreditAttribution: BenK commented 4 April 2011 at 18:22

That's an interesting idea. I suppose there could be two permissions for each one-way relationships. Might be nice to have that with the other permissions.

And then we would just add configuration fields on the relationship type (in a "Private Message integration" vertical tab) to control how each direction is displayed if a user has both permissions (so that the user can tell the difference between directions of the same one-way type)?

--Ben

Comment #5

Berdir

German

Switzerland

CreditAttribution: Berdir commented 4 April 2011 at 18:26

See #1/#2, do you we really need additional settings specific for Privatemsg when we have the ability to define custome names for them to you / you to them?

Comment #6

BenK CreditAttribution: BenK commented 4 April 2011 at 18:30

Oops... I didn't mean Private Message specific settings.... I just meant the ability to define custom names for each direction. That would be on a "Branding" vertical tab or something like that.

--Ben