User:TheDJ/Qui

A screenshot that shows Qui being used in Firefox.

A closer example of the menu

Qui is a script and system that helps you keep track of the online/offline status of you and your friends. It is meant to help you and your friends edit and communicate on Wikipedia more efficiently. It is, however, NOT a chat or instant messaging tool.

Qui is being developed by TheDJ and is usable, but not fully finished yet. It should be tested and working with Internet Explorer, Safari, Firefox and Opera. The HTML, CSS and underlying code will probably still see major changes in the coming weeks, but the basic idea behind it will probably change very little.

Installation

To install Qui, including all future updates:

1. Copy the text below and paste it into the bottom of your skin script file:

importScript('User:TheDJ/qui.js');

1. Save the new vector.js page (your skin script file), and
2. Completely refresh your browser by bypassing your cache.
3. Done! After a while you should start seeing a sort of dot in the top right corner of Wikipedia pages. This is Qui. Move your mouse over the dot to open the menu.

You may wish to re-configure some of the default settings of Qui, or to create your own customized skin.

FAQ

• Q: How do I add a friend?
• A: Simply visit their userpage, open the Qui-menu and choose "Add <User>"

• Q: How do I remove a friend?
• A: Open the Qui-menu, hit "Show Qui friends" and click the D link after the name of the friend that you wish to delete. Alternatively, you can visit the userpage of your friend, open the Qui-menu and select "Remove <User>"

• Q: Why do I need to hit "Show my friends"; could Qui not show them to me always?
• A: Every time we show the lists of friends, Qui needs to request 2 pages per QuiFriend from the Wikipedia servers. One for the status of your QuiFriend and one for his or her last contribution. Now since we are here to make an encyclopedia and not to be a supercool buddy list system, in order to make it as easy as possible on the servers, we should avoid making these requests too often. Therefore, you need to specifically request Qui to pull that information.

• Q: But what about my own status; is that not also on the page? That status is loaded on every time I open a Wikipedia page, isn't it?
• A: Actually, no it is not. Once your own status is downloaded (once a day), it is kept in a cookie for easy access by the browser. Whenever you change your status through Qui, the cookie is updated.

• Q: What about my privacy and the privacy of my friends?
• A: Well, you should already know that if you are logged in, then everything you do is basically public. However, Qui was designed with some concern over privacy in mind. For instance, it has a "Qui watches me" entry that takes you to Special:Whatlinkshere/User:Example/QuiWatchers and this page should mention all the people that have you on their QuiFriends-list. This system is, of course, not foolproof; however, someone evading it would probably be heavily frowned upon.

• Q: I thought Wikipedia was WP:NOT MySpace ?
• A: It isn't. Qui therefore is not intended to replace IRC/ICQ/MSN/AIM. Use it within limits. Do not bounce on- and offline every single hour and do not create QuiFriends-lists of 300 users, either. This might be considered excessive use that does not fall within the limits of WP:NOT and you might be blocked over it.

• Q: What about people who do not have Qui? Can they still find my status?
• A: Of course. The easiest way is to add the template {{Statustop}} your userpage. You can also use {{UserStatus}}, or a copy of either one of those with your own icons of course.

• Q: I want to add/customize a few user status messages.
• A: There are currently 4 valid statuses for users: online, busy, sleep, offline. It is possible to add more status messages, but like stated before, Qui is not the buddylist or an instant message system. There would have to be a very good reason to add such a new status. Some skinning options through CSS styling will be made possible in the future most likely. If you have any good ideas please leave them on the talkpage.

• Q: What pages does Qui use?
• A: /Status to keep your status, /QuiFriends to keep all your friends and it uses the page /QuiWatchers on the QuiFriends list of other users so that you can find who has added you to their QuiFriends list.

• Q: Why does Qui look so ugly in Internet Explorer ?
• A: IE does not support the PNG images that we load. We normally have a hack to fix that in Wikipedia, but in this specific case it does not work. One more reason not to use Internet Explorer.

• Q: Is there an alternative ?
• A: Well you can try using User:Hersfold/StatusTemplate, which does something similar but has no friends list. Another alternative is Misza13's statuschanger. This last script is, however, NOT compatible with Qui.

This user uses Qui to display their status and work with other users.

• Q: Is there a cool userbox to advertise that I use Qui ?
• A: Indeed there is. Laptopdude created this very fine userbox. Use it by including the text below on your userpage:

  {{User:Laptopdude/Userboxes/Qui}}
  

• Q: Why is it called Qui ?
• A: It refers to the Latin qui, which basically means: who. As such, it is the first part of the question that I intended to answer when I made this tool: Who is online ?

Documentation and support

There isn't any so far.