gxsaurav Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 (edited) You can also read this on my Blog. I was talking to a friend of mine today who recently completed his MBA from I2IT Pune. He was telling me that he & his college & hostel roommates used to share videos, songs, documents & even chat on the college LAN. I saw the LAN Chat application he was using which was quite crappy & something came into my mind. The P2P protocol is already there in Vista inbuilt, & usable in the form of Windows Meeting space which can work through the Internet, so why not have a similar communication system for LAN. This can really help students in colleges with fast LAN connections or Organizations in saving Internet bandwidth costs. Since this chatting client will work on LAN only mean the bandwidth used will be internal & local, & always available without interfering or slowing down the real Internet Pipeline in the Institute. This is more like Yahoo Messenger made for LAN with many features omitted as they will not be required in LAN. Presenting Windows Shorthand, a LAN Communication Application. Once started, it will automatically scan for other computers on the LAN provided they also have Windows Shorthand installed. Then it will display a list of all the available clients in an easy to see & manage friend list which can be sorted with groups etc much like what we have today with Yahoo Messenger. The menu bar is invisible but can be seen by pressing the Alt key. It does not need Internet at all. This is how the startup screen looks like. Each & every computer on the LAN has a specific IP which in most cases is Static. Windows Shorthand will give the ability to each user to set a small profile for himself in Shorthand like a Nick Name & some details which will be saved in a XML file connected to the users Local IP address, now when someone else finds this user they will see his nick name & not the IP address or the computer name on the LAN. To chat they just have to double click & start talking.The user can set a status message for himself. There is a handy search field below the messenger list using which you can search for a particular user in a long friend list. This is how the Messenger List looks like. Once you are chatting, this is how the Chat Window will look like. Users can transfer files, do voice or video chat or video conferencing & even have something what I call "Media Share", which is more like Yahoo Messenger's Photo Share just that it will show Video, Audio & Images. That chatting font can be set in options as shown by the Gear Icon in the toolbar. You can also use common emoticons from the emoticon drop down menu. It doesn't need plethora of features as this is not supposed to replace any Internet chat client such as Google Talk or Windows Live Messenger. It is simply made for college students & organizations to communicate on LAN. This concept is made using Microsoft Blend, Photoshop & Icon Workshop. Depending on the feedback here I will design the layout & UI for the media share part too. Edited April 10, 2008 by gxsaurav Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/ Share on other sites More sharing options...
Smethead Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Seems nice, but what about users on Windows XP or Mac? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589324555 Share on other sites More sharing options...
TheElite Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Not bad. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589324567 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolution Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 To search for files, do you have to go through each user or does the search also work for files along with nicknames? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589324589 Share on other sites More sharing options...
.tony Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 XP doesn't have the P2P protocol so I doubt it. Nice work, could be useful for some people. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589324591 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berserk87 Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 i had been looking for an application like this for a long time...and came up with nothing. my dad used to unplug my brother and I 's internet at night, but he would leave the router still connected, so my and my brother could communicate by putting text files in my brothers shared folder :p Seems nice, but what about users on Windows XP or Mac? f*** them! Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589324596 Share on other sites More sharing options...
goji Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 f*** them! Why don't you tell us how you really feel about non Vista users? ;) Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589324608 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Evolution Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 i had been looking for an application like this for a long time...and came up with nothing.my dad used to unplug my brother and I 's internet at night, but he would leave the router still connected, so my and my brother could communicate by putting text files in my brothers shared folder :p f*** them! Talking face to face was too much for you ;) ? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589324625 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxsaurav Posted April 9, 2008 Author Share Posted April 9, 2008 I don't know about Mac OS X's protocol so can't say about that. On Windows XP, winchat works, so this along with .net 3.5 runtime should also work in Windows XP. I am not a programmer but a UI designer, so if some programmer is willing to contribute this project I would gladly provide the required XAML & Microsoft Blend resources Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589324629 Share on other sites More sharing options...
The2 Posted April 9, 2008 Share Posted April 9, 2008 Hm.. search box? not needed... why just not start typing like in skype contact list? i had been looking for an application like this for a long time...and came up with nothing.my dad used to unplug my brother and I 's internet at night, but he would leave the router still connected, so my and my brother could communicate by putting text files in my brothers shared folder tongue.gif there is an application called BORG chat, check it out. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589324648 Share on other sites More sharing options...
HappyAndyK Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 (edited) Nice Concept ! Thanx :) Edited April 10, 2008 by HappyAndyK Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589325164 Share on other sites More sharing options...
daniel_rh Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 Nice! keep up the good work Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589325175 Share on other sites More sharing options...
redeemed Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 Nice work, as always! Keep 'em coming! Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589325197 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxsaurav Posted April 10, 2008 Author Share Posted April 10, 2008 The search field is there just to search for users, not there shared files due to security reasons. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589325373 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Berserk87 Posted April 10, 2008 Share Posted April 10, 2008 Why don't you tell us how you really feel about non Vista users? ;) i was jk :p Talking face to face was too much for you ;) ? huh? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589325380 Share on other sites More sharing options...
sundayx Veteran Posted April 10, 2008 Veteran Share Posted April 10, 2008 Why is it called shorthand? Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589325390 Share on other sites More sharing options...
Antaris Veteran Posted April 10, 2008 Veteran Share Posted April 10, 2008 You have all the technologies required in .NET3.0/WCF. And as WCF is available for XP (via .NET3.0), it should work on that OS too. Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589325495 Share on other sites More sharing options...
gxsaurav Posted April 10, 2008 Author Share Posted April 10, 2008 Why is it called shorthand? Just a name which came in my mind when I was thinking about this :D A fellow MVP Praveen Srivastava offered me to work with him to make this concept into a real application for enterprise etc.We can use WCF for communicating (this ensures that even if there are proxies etc, we can configure communication easily), WF(a workflow for adding friends), maybe Cardspace for authentication and LINQ for querying. The interface will be made in WPF, as usual Link to comment https://www.neowin.net/forum/topic/630633-concept-ui-windows-shorthand/#findComment-589325543 Share on other sites More sharing options...
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