[Asterisk-Dev] HEAD - Advanced voicemail behaviour change

[John Todd]

At 11:46 PM +0200 5/31/04, steve at daviesfam.org wrote:
>
>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

I'll agree with Steve on pretty much all points.  I really like the 
new features, but we need to have more control within the message, 
and we're no longer backwards-compatible, nor do we have 
"anticipated" behavior.

I would like to (somehow) retain the ability to delete a message with 
7-6 without prefixing a "1" on to the front of that sequence.

Unless someone mentions otherwise in the next hour or two, I'll open 
a new ticket on this topic, since the old feature request is 
closed/resolved.

(I'd also like to see a "skip" function on the date playback, so I 
can get right to the message, but that's me.)

JT