[Asterisk-Dev] HEAD - Advanced voicemail behaviour change

[steve at daviesfam.org]

Hi,

With a CVS update I've just been exposed to the new "advanced voicemail" 
stuff for the first time.

Bug 1716, 1483, 156 and perhaps others refer.

I see in the bug tracker this patch (1483) is claimed to be nice and 
backward compatble.  But for me there is a big change in behaviour whilst 
a message is being played back.

Before, whilst a message was playing you could hit end of message 
commands.  Things behaved like Background() - the message stopped 
playing and the command was executed.  So you could hit rapidly 
7-6-7-6-7-6 to delete messages in no time, or whatever.

With the addition of ast_control_streamfile, you are now in a special mode
whilst the message is being played - and a special mode whose keys are
never spoken out I don't think: * and # to skip back and forward in the
message, 0 to pause, 1 to stop playback.  Anything else is ignored and
lost and thrown away and has no effect.  I thought the voicemail app was 
broken and only figured out what was happening by looking at the source 
code.

So you now have to remember to hit a 1 before your command...  1-7-6 to
stop playback, delete and advance to the next message.

But worse - if you are going fast - and hit that 1 BEFORE
ast_control_streamfile starts, it is interpretted (I think) as the main
menu option to go to new/old folder (which takes you back to the 1st
message).  Same if you are slow and hit it after playback is finished.  
So you end up deleting/undeleting the first message, not the current one,
losing your place, etc.

How about if ast_control_streamfile would rather interpret *, 0 and # as 
it does now, but take any other key as a stop-playback and also pass the 
key back for interpretation.  * and # are still overloaded, but at least 
the main commands are available immediately as they were before.

Incidentally, also noticed that on the last message, your end-of-message 
options are read out in a funny order (4, 3, 5, ...).

Also, press * at the end of a message and the help repeats itself - it 
plays the main menu help (including 3 and others), then the message help 
which redescribes 3 and others.

All of which is not to say that I don't like the new features, of course!

Regards,
Steve