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Ticket #414 (closed defect: wontfix)

Opened 3 years ago

Last modified 3 years ago

You dont the See Which Protocol

Reported by:	dancle	Owned by:	lschiere
Milestone:		Component:	pidgin (gtk)
Version:	2.0	Keywords:
Cc:

Description

The beta7.0 is very very bad because you cant see what protocol is talking to you, till beta6.0 was this no problem, but no only crappy green colored, PLEASE FIX IT, or i decidet to change back to the better beta6.0

Attachments

Pidgin Icon List Sample.2.jpg (22.8 kB) - added by Nrbelex 3 years ago.: A sample of the change I'd love to see

Change History

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

If you have the buddy on multiple protocols why do you care which he messaged you on *right now* if you know he has an ICQ account and need to send him a file you can send directly to his ICQ account regardless of what he messaged you on. Similarly, you can message a specific account directly without knowing what account he messaged you from in the first place.

Most IM clients are single protocol, so they don't need to deal with this, and the fact that you don't understand the change doesn't make it bad, it's been explained, you haven't given any real reasons that you need to know while looking at the buddy list, and given that you have been insulting and overwritten pages on the wiki I'm not exactly inclined to give you much attention at the moment.

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

When you right-click on a contact and hit Send File pidgin should probably pick the first available contact for which pidgin supports sending a file and try to use that account. If you want to write and submit a patch for that feel free, it would likely need an added dialog to confirm that sending over that account/protocol is acceptable (in case for some reason it isn't). Similarly for sending a message to an offline account, although we do currently have the Offline Pounce (or whatever it is called) plugin, and I'm not really sure how important this is as I think just about every protocol has or is getting offline message support.

I have absolutely no idea what "i want to interests the different protocols, because not, i dont ne a multimessenger" was even supposed to mean, so feel free to try explaining that again.

Changed 3 years ago by lschiere

status changed from assigned to closed
resolution set to wontfix

Okay, I left this open on the oft chance that you would be sensible and have something constructive to say beyond "I don't like this." It appears you do not, and so I shall now close this.

Offline messages do not really represent a valid reason, if a contact is offline message capable, you can still double click on the offine contact and end up in a conversation window using a protocol that can send offline messages.

File transfer is somewhat more valid, but for this sort of situation, as Sean described, you *can* still reach a specific protocol. You just do not see it at the top level.

That file transfer exists but fails in some circumstances hardly qualifies as a reason to revert this change. Afterall, you *know* what protocol an existing conversation is happening over, by looking at the conversation window (and its menus). Plus, that represents a bug to be fixed, not an inherent aspect of the protocol to justify such a drastic change (back).

Changed 3 years ago by bradwjensen

Well for one, All my friends use the aim protocol to talk, some people computers suck and run slow using other protocols for idk what reason, but when using pidgin - my buds and i have to use MSN for our file transfers to work at all if even then.

I want to be able to click my friends name and start sending stuff, not finding their name then right clicking their name and going to expand then clicking their name again just for that protocol to send one little file..

Having the protocol image on the tabs would make it so all i have to do is open their one name then see on the tab that im sending to aim (when i know i want msn) so i can quickly change it to MSN from the "send to" at the top of the IM box.

You should also fix the file transfers with AIM because I have never been able to send stuff with it, let alone receive files. I haven't said anything about it til now because i can wait, but i've waited forever, and its just a huge hassle to have to use msn so receive file transfers when everyone i know uses aim for chatting..

A ton of people i know would love to use pidgin too, if it wasn't for the impossible file transfers..

If i knew how to make a patch and all that jazz i would totally be spending all my time fixing that important defect.

Changed 3 years ago by lschiere

The thing is, seeing the protocol won't help with *necessarily* having fewer clicks to reach your msn contact. If AIM was the top buddy before, you would still have to right click. That has not changed.

If you want to force msn to always be the top buddy when online, you can do that. The contact priority plugin available in the source does not compile and install by default, but were you to compile it yourself, it would give you precisely the sort of control necessary to be able to just click & send and always have it be MSN when MSN is available.

I'm still not really seeing a reason to put the protocol icon back. I'm seeing *other* issues, where the protocol icon is *at best* only slightly related.

follow-up: ↓ 35 Changed 3 years ago by ffdragon2

I partly agree that it doesn't matter what account I send files to or which one I use to im the other person. There are some reasons I believe it is useful to be able to distinguish between accounts. One of my friends frequently puts her account on 'mobile' status, I try to avoid that account because every time I use that one it costs her money. This normally isn't a problem but it is a hassle if I have to alway try to figure out what account I have open if I leave a window up. Another reason I think the icons are necessary is if there is an eventual release of voice/video for pidgin then some people might prefer one service over another. I guess what I would really like to say is the use of an icon (though mostly unimportant) does have some use to me.

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

Preferring one service over another is not helped at all by the protocol icons, at least not in any meaningful way. Don't leave conversation windows open all over the place if you like knowing what account you are talking to, or if you do check the Send To menu (which is virtually identical to looking at the icon only with text instead of icons and with more information available, especially when they have more than one account on a protocol).

I have no idea how voice/video stuff has any relevance here at all, if you prefer one account/protocol over another you are going to need to check to make sure that you are using the right one regardless of any icons, and icons only help in a small subset of the possible cases and even in those only barely.

in reply to: ↑ 33 Changed 3 years ago by seanegan

Replying to ffdragon2:

One of my friends frequently puts her account on 'mobile' status, I try to avoid that account because every time I use that one it costs her money.

Mobile users have a different icon, a mobile phone. This should not be an issue.

It might take a while to get used to the change, but everyone who has been using it a while has done so already: even those most skeptical at the beginning find this is better.

I almost mentioned this exact issue in homepage post as something *not* to file a bug (much less a gazillion) about, because it's entirely cosmetic and in no way will be changed before 2.0.0. We're right now looking for serious problems within Pidgin's core functionality.

Changed 3 years ago by Nrbelex

I completely understand where Sean and the Pidgin team are coming from... but as a user who's already used to the previous system, I feel as though a feature has been taken away from me. Can there be a compromise by allowing the user to choose how to use the client? In the end shouldn't the goal be for the program to serve the user - not to impose the "identity-oriented" idea on the user? Would it be difficult to add a "Show buddy protocol icon" to the preferences panel? Personally, I use the icons to differentiate between different groups of people I speak to (i.e. I know my Flickr friends are on Gtalk, my college friends are on AIM and my Canadian friends are on MSN). While I also use groups to sort stuff like this, I just find the icons easier to use quickly when scrolling through the list. Hope this clears things up a bit.

Changed 3 years ago by zak

Hello Pidgin-Team!

Of course nobody is dependend on seeing the protocol his friends or colleagues or... are using. But I too think those icons should be reactivated and I also think they should be activated by default for new users. Why is that?

So there are different protocols out there like MSN, Yahoo, AIM, Jabber, ICQ,... Different people have different accounts some only one unique account with MSN or ICQ others several accounts. Are they all equal? No, they differ in functionality (e.g. file-transfer, offline messages, away-messages(!)), legal issues and availability. Of course you as the program designers can decide to merge all these differences and present the user some 'single' instant messaging, and if it would work everything would be perfect.

But in my opinion users should be aware of the fact, that there are those differences I mentioned before. What if ICQ changes its protocol again? All the ICQ users will be not available. Hu, why are those people offline and others not? Perhaps there is discovered a security issue within MSN protocol so you might want to take care when talking to those people. Or you simply do not like the way the messages are logged (are they?) with ICQ or MSN and try to avoid those contacts (but cannot abandon them completely). I think, users should be aware of the different functions the protocols offer, too. But if all protocols are treated as the same, people do not get the idea why they can write offline messages to Fred, but Susi's account is somehow not capable? I am mostly talking about the usual do-not-care user who just wants to write messages. And until know they already are aware of the fact that there exist different protocols and I do not think they should be disenchanted with the idea, that they are all the same. Unfortunately they are not.

And apart from that... tell my why you do not like those different icons? In fact I think it gives the way the contact list looks a more individual appearance, so people recognize at once, that Pidgin is a MULTI-PROTOCOL-messanger which can handle all of Yahoo's, MSN's and so on contacts.

Please do not throw the different protocol icons and the option to handle each one seperate away.

Regards, Zak

Changed 3 years ago by lschiere

We are not currently considering an option because this option would make support and code maintenance significantly more complex. It may be a "simple" thing from a user's point of view, but it is not from ours. There will be no chance of arguing for it to be a preference for at least 1 full release cycle after 2.0.0 final.

Protocol changes and server outages are not really a valid argument. If the protocol changes, you will know it because your account cannot connect. If its a full server outage, again because you cannot connect. If its a partial outage, your friend is just offline for a few hours, and having the protocol icons really won't help you notice that.

Being two persons is perhaps the most tempting argument. Sean and I have come to think that this is not a sufficient argument, that using different profiles (with the -c flag) or setting up appropriate custom states will solve this if users give it a few weeks to adjust. Recall, that you need not have all your accounts in the same state. If you aren't at work, why would you want your work account online at all? And if it is not online, you won't accidentally use it. You could also use contact priorities (that plugin does not compile by default, but is in our source tarball) to effectively force the use of a given protocol when possible. That plugin currently does not have any way to automatically adjust this for status or time, but it could be added.

In short, I think most of the people here are reacting most strongly to the fact of change, and not dispassionately evaluating whether or not this change actually impacts them in any way, much less whether the impact is a net gain or loss. I would be interested to see how many of you still object two weeks from now, I know that across the population of Pidgin developers, the number greatly reduced after we waited awhile when this was introduced as a pure experiment.

Changed 3 years ago by zak

Hi, I don't want to argue with anybody. It is your program and you have to decide what you like best. I just think that it is not good to hide the fact that people use different protocols with different functionality when talking to their buddies. And I personally do care about the protocols and think other people should be aware of this fact, too.

I do not enter any profile information in my MSN account because of privacy issues for example, if there is only one single profile for your idea of a "person" this would be another reason for me not to use Pidgin in the future. Ok perhaps there will be a possibility to get around that, but I want to emphasize again the fact, that the protocols should in my opinion not be handled together because they differ.

But apart from that decision, I really appreciate all your efforts in this program.

Changed 3 years ago by zak

I do not like the license agreements of the big companies. For example you may read on http://www.icq.com/legal/policy.html : "You agree that by posting any material or information anywhere on the ICQ Services and Information you surrender your copyright and any other proprietary right in the posted material or information. You further agree that ICQ Inc. is entitled to use at its own discretion any of the posted material or information in any manner it deems fit, including, but not limited to, publishing the material or distributing it." This is unacceptable for me. With MSN it does not sound that direct but I do not trust them either. (http://tou.live.com/en-us/default.aspx)

in reply to: ↑ 48 Changed 3 years ago by elb

Replying to thor0215:

You have a Buddy both on the Corporate and AIM systems, because you want to talk to them privately outside the corporate im system, it was nice to visually see which IM system you were talking to them on. In general I'm only asking for this to be in the Buddy list, but I can see that many would like something in the chat windows too.

This scenario is already well-solved. In order to choose a specific buddy within a contact (which is the only time where this becomes an issue), you must expand the contact -- expanded contacts already show the protocol icon beside the status icon.

I think most comments on this thread would be well-served by a little more forethought.

Changed 3 years ago by thor0215

It would be easier for novice users to visually see what system they are talking to people on. There are many personal reason for users to want to know what system they are talking to people over. You give a visual clue to what system a buddy is using when you mouse over the buddy in the buddy list.

I'm having a hard time understanding why you give visual cues to people in certain cases, account signup and buddy mouse over, but are unwilling to do this. This has been such a standard for multi-protocol im clients that most users, especially previous Gaim users, will expect this.

I like the new interface, but would like to see the ability to have some sort of visual cue to see what system a specific buddy is on. I use AIM, Gtalk, internal Jabber system, and Groupwise. I have a handful of buddyies that are all the same people, have the same username, but one person prefers this system, another person prefers that system, and sometimes pending the conversation content I will opt to use systems that are more private.

I guess I figure if you can do the mouse over hwo hard is it to add a small protocol icon superscripted after the buddy name. You give visual cues when a AIM account is mobile. Why not always give a good visual cue to users what type of user this is like that.

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

thor0215: If you have buddies who prefer one over the other arrange the contact in that order, that is *exactly* what ordering the contact buddies is for. If you intentionally want to pick one then you need to go look, once you are already spending the effort looking the fact that you need the Send To menu, or the right-click menu, or the tooltip is not a hassle. The fact that under normal use you *don't* need to know is exactly the reason not to have it in the buddy list, because having it there requires you to pay attention to it, even if just long enough to process the icon as 'available', and that's effort, work, and possible confusion we want to avoid. It isn't hard to add the icon where the current mobile icon lives but it isn't useful all the time so it will just take up space and add clutter for no gain. And adding things for no gain is something to be avoided.

ffdragon2: As has been stated numerous times preference of one protocol over another is not a reason to need to see the protocol icon, that's what contact ordering is for, put the buddies you don't want to use at the bottom of the contact, if that isn't enough compile and use the Contact Priority plugin to give those accounts/protocols lower priority, if you need per-contact priority settings add that to the plugin and submit a patch (I'd accept it). As to your specific case why not just tell that person to turn chat off for their gmail account?

follow-up: ↓ 57 Changed 3 years ago by thor0215

OK, I understand you don't want to implement such a feature. I wouldn't be surprised that others will ask for such a feature once this goes into the final version and more people start using it.

I DO understand the reasoning not to care which protocol someone IMs you on, but many geeks do care. I know there are ways that I can handle this individually using different methods.

I do want to stress that I do REALLY REALLY like the new interface, I just thought losing this information would confuse some current users. Time will tell if people really care about it.

Thanks for all you time on this ticket and keep up the good work.

in reply to: ↑ 56 ; follow-ups: ↓ 58 ↓ 59 ↓ 63 Changed 3 years ago by seanegan

Replying to thor0215:

OK, I understand you don't want to implement such a feature. I wouldn't be surprised that others will ask for such a feature once this goes into the final version and more people start using it.

That is inevitable. We will hear complaints about this for weeks from people who decided within 30 seconds that they can't live without protocol icons. Then, after a few weeks, once people have actually *used* it, the complaints will slowly fade out.

This is more than speculation. This is the exact pattern I've seen from everyone, myself included, who was originally opposed to this change.

I do want to stress that I do REALLY REALLY like the new interface, I just thought losing this information would confuse some current users. Time will tell if people really care about it.

Oh the humanity! So brutally, senselessly, confused! :-P

in reply to: ↑ 57 Changed 3 years ago by thor0215

Replying to seanegan:

Replying to thor0215:

OK, I understand you don't want to implement such a feature. I wouldn't be surprised that others will ask for such a feature once this goes into the final version and more people start using it.

That is inevitable. We will hear complaints about this for weeks from people who decided within 30 seconds that they can't live without protocol icons. Then, after a few weeks, once people have actually *used* it, the complaints will slowly fade out. This is more than speculation. This is the exact pattern I've seen from everyone, myself included, who was originally opposed to this change.

I do want to stress that I do REALLY REALLY like the new interface, I just thought losing this information would confuse some current users. Time will tell if people really care about it.

Oh the humanity! So brutally, senselessly, confused! :-P

Sean you are probably right, I should have stuck with my first impression, ooo this look nice!!!, and stopped complaining.

Loving the new look the tango guys helped with, just missing that one thing, but I'll get over it.

in reply to: ↑ 57 Changed 3 years ago by Apewall

Replying to seanegan:

Replying to thor0215:

OK, I understand you don't want to implement such a feature. I wouldn't be surprised that others will ask for such a feature once this goes into the final version and more people start using it.

That is inevitable. We will hear complaints about this for weeks from people who decided within 30 seconds that they can't live without protocol icons. Then, after a few weeks, once people have actually *used* it, the complaints will slowly fade out. This is more than speculation. This is the exact pattern I've seen from everyone, myself included, who was originally opposed to this change.

I do want to stress that I do REALLY REALLY like the new interface, I just thought losing this information would confuse some current users. Time will tell if people really care about it.

Oh the humanity! So brutally, senselessly, confused! :-P

I could understand the removal of the individual protocol icons, but what I fail to see is: Why wouldn't you want to know what protocol you are speaking on?

Just because its not necessary doesn't mean it wasn't helpful, various reasons such as stated, I often enough avoid contacting people over MSN if possible due to its constant errors and slow file transfers.

I don't see how overlaying/integrating the protocol icons with the new status icons would be "bad" in any way, I see it as just a quick and simple way to determine what protocol you're currently speaking on, then you can determine the features available to you on a per chat basis, and know if you need to do anything differently in your usage of Pidgin during that chat.

Most users probably do not care which protocol they are using, but then, why hide it from them?

follow-up: ↓ 61 Changed 3 years ago by deryni

Putting the protocol icon in the buddy list wouldn't help you know what protocol you were having a specific conversation on. So that wouldn't help the case you presented. If you want the protocol icon of the current buddy in the conversation window a plugin could do it without much difficulty.

Integrating the protocol icon into the status icon complicates the status icon, makes it harder to process as there is more happening visually, and keeps the protocols in the forefront of people's minds, which is something we think shouldn't be necessary.

You hide it from people who don't care because if they have to see it they have to think about it or think about ignoring it, the people who want the information can find it anytime they need it in exactly the places that they need it.

I have no problems with the idea of a plugin adding a protocol icon to the conversation window, and could probably even be convinced to include such a plugin in the source (though probably not to build it by default). Feel free to work on and submit one, even better would be to make that icon do something useful when clicked/right-clicked.

in reply to: ↑ 60 Changed 3 years ago by Apewall

Replying to deryni:

Putting the protocol icon in the buddy list wouldn't help you know what protocol you were having a specific conversation on. So that wouldn't help the case you presented. If you want the protocol icon of the current buddy in the conversation window a plugin could do it without much difficulty. Integrating the protocol icon into the status icon complicates the status icon, makes it harder to process as there is more happening visually, and keeps the protocols in the forefront of people's minds, which is something we think shouldn't be necessary. You hide it from people who don't care because if they have to see it they have to think about it or think about ignoring it, the people who want the information can find it anytime they need it in exactly the places that they need it. I have no problems with the idea of a plugin adding a protocol icon to the conversation window, and could probably even be convinced to include such a plugin in the source (though probably not to build it by default). Feel free to work on and submit one, even better would be to make that icon do something useful when clicked/right-clicked.

Yes sorry for my mis clarification, I meant if the protocols were able to be displayed on all of the status icons of your buddies, in conversation windows and the buddy list. I just see this as useful information in general, I preferred the buddy list icons personally as it saves time from right-mousing over buddies to see which protocol(s) they are currently logged into. Perhaps I'm just too used to the old gaim method, but it just feels less visually appealing also having just a list of large blank green icons where they could be doing more work.

Confused by the decision yes. What was the original reason for displaying protocol icons in the first place if the general developer consensus now is they are unnecessary?

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

Why were they originally displayed? I have absolutely no idea, but my guess is that since gaim was originally just an aim client the original status icon was the aim guy, and when other protocols were added their protocol icons were used as status icons. Regardless, pidgin has evolved many times over the course of its lifetime, and the exact goals of the project have only slowly become clear. Also, the state of the 'art' in client and ui design has changed over the years. The pervasiveness of IM has also changed, changing the requirements of the people using IM clients and the people writing them. Things change as a part of the way they work, that's just how things are. Personally, I dislike the green circle, I might get around to changing the icon at some point, you should feel free to do that as well if you have an icon you would prefer instead.

in reply to: ↑ 57 Changed 3 years ago by zak

Replying to seanegan:

That is inevitable. We will hear complaints about this for weeks from people who decided within 30 seconds that they can't live without protocol icons. Then, after a few weeks, once people have actually *used* it, the complaints will slowly fade out.

This might be because people have either given up trying to convince you or they just moved to another client. Unfortunately there is no good alternative in Linux.

I really do not understand, why so many designers of computer software think it is so important to hide every seems-not-to-be-important-detail from the users. With the same argument you could say that a graphics program should save it's files only in one format because users might get confused what jpg, tif... means. Another example is that file extensions are hidden since a long time, and I still hate it.

Perhaps you start a poll later when people, as you say, got used to the new status icons.

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

An application needs to be built for the kind of users it expects to get, development tools (like the Gimp or Photoshop) can expect a certain level of understanding from their users (which hasn't prevented the Gimp from hiding file extensions below an expander in the Save dialog by default). IM applications, by the very nature of the medium, attract and target some of the youngest, least well-versed, least inquisitive, and largely stupidest set of users of any set of applications I can think of. Therefore they need to expect different things from their users and present different things to their users. As an example, no one blames wysiwyg html editors for trying to allow people who don't know html to build web pages by hiding the html, what they are blamed for is generally making it impossible to ever see and work with the html. pidgin hides the protocols from the casual glance to 'protect' the casual user and simplify things for all users, but it makes no effort to paper over all protocol differences, or remove reference to them entirely, that is it allows people who want to know and or need to know (for doing specific actions) to find the information when they need it. Hiding unimportant pieces of information from people who don't need it is good design because it means the people who don't need it don't need to think about it. You don't need to know how your TV, telephone, or car work to use them, but if you ever want to go and find out you can. pidgin is operating under the same principle.

follow-up: ↓ 66 Changed 3 years ago by zak

Ok, then the difference between our opinions is that I do think that people should be aware of the fact that they are using different protocols. On a simple layer users just type messages and see the online status of their friends and in most cases it works - no argument with that. But if someone wants to make specific actions like sending a file or writing offline messages (and there are more differences as I wrote before) the casual user might be confused why it works for some contacts and not for others just because they aren't aware of the different protocols anymore. So in an extreme case someone might even totally forget which protocols he or she is using. But then again you might say, that this is not important...is it?

Me personally I simply do like to see the different icons of the different protocols in my contact list. Just for fun if you want.

in reply to: ↑ 65 ; follow-up: ↓ 67 Changed 3 years ago by elb

Replying to zak:

Ok, then the difference between our opinions is that I do think that people should be aware of the fact that they are using different protocols. On a simple layer users just type messages and see the online status of their friends and in most cases it works - no argument with that. But if someone wants to make specific actions like sending a file or writing offline messages (and there are more differences as I wrote before) the casual user might be confused why it works for some contacts and not for others just because they aren't aware of the different protocols anymore. So in an extreme case someone might even totally forget which protocols he or she is using. But then again you might say, that this is not important...is it?

You are ignoring several responses on this thread (which is admittedly large and somewhat incoherent). The point is, the fact that you have to know which buddy within a contact you need to initiate a file transfer to, is a bug -- Pidgin should say "oh, zak wants to start a file transfer to Ethan, and the IRC buddy he is currently using can't do that, but the second buddy on the contact, which is Jabber, can. I'll use the jabber buddy." Presto, you never had to think about protocol, it was just handled for you. Ditto for offline messages.

The bottom line is that the only good reason I see for you wanting to know the protocol of your buddy at communication time is just that, you wanting to know. We believe that the freedom of not having to know trumps the desire to know, and think that you will come to understand this as we polish off those features which currently make it desirable to understand protocol-ness in the last few places.

in reply to: ↑ 66 Changed 3 years ago by zak

Replying to elb:

Replying to zak:

Ok, then the difference between our opinions is that I do think that people should be aware of the fact that they are using different protocols. On a simple layer users just type messages and see the online status of their friends and in most cases it works - no argument with that. But if someone wants to make specific actions like sending a file or writing offline messages (and there are more differences as I wrote before) the casual user might be confused why it works for some contacts and not for others just because they aren't aware of the different protocols anymore. So in an extreme case someone might even totally forget which protocols he or she is using. But then again you might say, that this is not important...is it?

You are ignoring several responses on this thread (which is admittedly large and somewhat incoherent). The point is, the fact that you have to know which buddy within a contact you need to initiate a file transfer to, is a bug -- Pidgin should say "oh, zak wants to start a file transfer to Ethan, and the IRC buddy he is currently using can't do that, but the second buddy on the contact, which is Jabber, can. I'll use the jabber buddy." Presto, you never had to think about protocol, it was just handled for you. Ditto for offline messages. The bottom line is that the only good reason I see for you wanting to know the protocol of your buddy at communication time is just that, you wanting to know. We believe that the freedom of not having to know trumps the desire to know, and think that you will come to understand this as we polish off those features which currently make it desirable to understand protocol-ness in the last few places.

But most of casual users do not have multiple accounts, so Fred can rightclick on Bob and for some reason there is no option there for sending a file, but with Rita the option is there. Why could he revoke his authorization from his former fellow while this other terrible guy still knows his online-status? Of course you can say that this is not important and these are just details, but for me this is the reason why people should be aware of their protocols. And I frankly do not see the point, why it is so important to hide every little no-need-to-know-things from them.

I think generally sometimes knowing a little bit more helps users to understand things when there occur problems or when they want to do something different.

follow-up: ↓ 72 Changed 3 years ago by deryni

If users don't have multiple accounts then they can't have buddies with different capabilities, so your example sort of falls apart there.

We didn't 'hide' anything, we just moved it so that you only see it when you need to see it and not when you don't (i.e. most of the time). And if we didn't move things that weren't important out of the main interface things would get so immensely complicated and confusing as to be unusable. We moved AIM Capabilities out of the tooltip ages ago for reasons like this, and while that information actually 'can' be useful, virtually no one complained, and at this stage no one does.

When users need to know they can, when they don't we don't force them to. That's a good design principle, it means pidgin can grow with a user who needs it to grow with them and means it can be useful for people who do know about protocols but don't generally care. Seeing the protocol icons all the time forces everyone to know about them, confuses people who don't know and don't care, and doesn't help the people who do know when they need to know because the places they need to know have the information also.

Changed 3 years ago by bradwjensen

People, when is this going to end? So far no one has really came up with a TRULY IMPORTANT reason for why you NEED to see the protocol Right Away.

This is basically a fight over the fast that people are lazy and like the convenience of not having to take more time than needed to find out which protocol they are talking too..

If you really need to know, i guess you can just right click someone with more than one protocol and use the one you want.

I still do think it would be a nice feature to have the protocol icons on the IM Tabs for a quick reference on where u stand with someone but then again It's NOT NEEDED.. So really, all of you should stop arguing and posting comments on this UNLESS you have a REALLY good reason for NEEDING to know the protocol icon right away when you know you can just take one step more to find out the protocol by right clicking on someone and expanding them.

The End. This arguing really does nothing more than wastes the developers time in getting other fixes done..

Changed 3 years ago by thor0215

Last scenario:

Pidgin setup with 3 systems, AIM, GTALK, and Groupwise on your desktop.

3 Buddies all the same Alias, Buddy1. You have overlayed all the Buddy1 contacts onto one, so that Buddy1 (GW) is default, then Buddy1(AIM) and then Buddy1 (GTalk).

You normally want to talk over GW, but in the case that system is down you will talk over AIM or GTALK.

You then boot up your laptop that has the real Groupwise IM client, that starts and kills your Pidgin connection to GW. Shutdown your laptop, go back to your desktop and log out.

Log in and pidgin starts up, but since the connection to GW was disabled when you closed Pidgin, it will not start it automatically. You see Buddy1 in your list, but it is the AIM buddy, not GW. For many users, they would not notice which protocol they are log in with and not notice that it did not log into GW because there is no obvious visual way to tell until you go digging.

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

The fact that protocol icons 'happen' to work for a scenario like that does not in any way make them the right solution for it. This also only happens to work when the protocol in question is the 'top' one. If you replace 'Groupwise IM client' with 'AIM client' then your scenario doesn't do anything because you wouldn't notice *even with protocol icons*. So it is, at absolute best, a weak scenario.

Is the laptop your only system here? If so then the fact that you ignored (or forgot) about the 'you were disconnected' error message isn't pidgin's fault. It it isn't then this isn't an issue.

If you want to always see which accounts are enabled/online in your buddy list window, that's an acceptable thing to want, and there is the Accounts menu for that, there have also been plugins which add protocol icons representing each account to the buddy list, there is also the mystatusbox plugin which adds per-account status selectors to the buddy list, all of which give you the *actual* information you want and not just a more-or-less poor approximation to it.

follow-up: ↓ 76 Changed 3 years ago by Nrbelex

As this dies down I'll make my final case as well. With the new system, it becomes very difficult to realize that an entire protocol is down. You might realize that a friend who is usually online isn't, but you can't do a quick spot-check of your list and notice that all people on that protocol are missing. Now you must try to remember which individual users are on which protocol and check individually... assuming you can remember something like that since we're apparently trying to be weened off the idea of each of our buddies is on particular protocol.

Adding the icon wouldn't necessitate putting a whole new icon next to every buddy. Perhaps a small symbol indicating the protocol could be overlayed on top of the green dot. Something akin to the mockup up top. Now if only coding were as easy as Wiki-Markup-Language... I'd make a plugin for sure...

in reply to: ↑ 74 Changed 3 years ago by Apewall

Replying to Nrbelex:

As this dies down I'll make my final case as well. With the new system, it becomes very difficult to realize that an entire protocol is down. You might realize that a friend who is usually online isn't, but you can't do a quick spot-check of your list and notice that all people on that protocol are missing. Now you must try to remember which individual users are on which protocol and check individually... assuming you can remember something like that since we're apparently trying to be weened off the idea of each of our buddies is on particular protocol. Adding the icon wouldn't necessitate putting a whole new icon next to every buddy. Perhaps a small symbol indicating the protocol could be overlayed on top of the green dot. Something akin to the mockup up top. Now if only coding were as easy as Wiki-Markup-Language... I'd make a plugin for sure...

Nrbelex, this is the EXACT example i was referring to in my statements, I don't see how hiding the icons is "useful" at all, obviously if a user can understand they need to choose different protocol accounts to setup to contact users on different protocols, they will -ALL- understand what the symbol overlayed on the icon means, and why it is there, the feature only lessoned confusion, not created it.

It is easy to state "People will calm down when they are used to it" but the fact remains that the old method was absolutely and positively better, and that users of Pidgin are generally and most likely, probably not the type of people who are ignorant to protocols. Dumbing down features to make Pidgin "easier" is not the direction I think Pidgin users wanted it to go, we tend to like quality, complexity, and configurability, as why we chose Pidgin in the first place.

follow-up: ↓ 80 Changed 3 years ago by deryni

Apewall: The fact that you state that the old method was "absolutely and positively better" does not make it so, and no one (yourself included) has given a reason why it was concretely better yet. So until you are prepared to do so please stop simply asserting it. Thank you. Further, the fact that in order to use an account in pidgin you need to select the protocol in the first place is *not* enough to guarantee that the people using it understand what protocol they are using or even what protocols are. Do you want to know how I know this? I know this because people used to come into #gaim *all the time* and complain about something being broken and when asked what protocol they were using responded with "what?". When then asked if they were using MSN, AIM, ICQ, Yahoo, etc. they responded with "Oh, I don't know, the one with the X image." While that sounds very hard to believe I have seen it *consistently*, furthermore, pidgin users (and IM users in general) are among the least technically sophisticated and saavy users of *any* client base I can think of short of the client base of 'secretaries who use Word'. If you don't believe me on this feel free to sit in #pidgin and #pidgin-win32 for a couple weeks, as well as on these boards, the trackers, and the mailing list and watch the people we see come around.

I *hate* how dumb the people can be, but it is astonishing and pervasive.

And finally, just so that it is out there one last time, there has yet to be presented a case where this change has actually negatively impacted any real usage scenario where that scenario is not as well or better served with other more appropriate changes/mechanisms. The changes and mechanisms I'm talking about do not all exist yet but they will all exist much sooner if people actually need them, and in the end everyone will be better off.

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

Nrbelex: Yes, something like that would be possible, but without a compelling reason to need that information there it is just needless clutter. And as lscheire pointed out your specific case is handled better by the account error dialogs/buttons than by having to notice that you don't see any of one type of icon. Plus, with lots of accounts and lots of buddies you could easily not have a specific protocols icon on screen and still be connected, not to mention have few enough buddies on one account/protocol such that they are all offline at the same time. Both of which would look the same and yet mean very different things.

Changed 3 years ago by Apewall

How has this change "positively" impacted anything, were you actually receiving complaints of people "being confused" by the protocol icons on the buddy list or what?

And your example, if they understand which "image" of the protocol they are using, they will still understand what the image overlayed onto the online icon means.

My reason for stating the old method of being better is because, the new one offers nothing "better", it does not make Pidgin quicker or easier to use, it has no real benefit whatsoever to a user, and the inclusion of icons in the previous versions caused no problem, as I can tell you I've converted many (dumb) users from other protocols to pidgin and they understood immediately what those icons meant, and were not hindered by them at all.

You didn't state on this but i'll give an example, the change of the preference system that was in 1.x.x compared to 2.0.0, The new method is definitely quicker for new users to setup, but its rather bothersome for us older users who no longer have a plethora of options at our disposal conveniently placed and organized in the same location.

In my opinion the new method is not "better", it is "simpler".

in reply to: ↑ 77 ; follow-ups: ↓ 81 ↓ 84 Changed 3 years ago by Nrbelex

Replying to deryni:

...pidgin users (and IM users in general) are among the least technically sophisticated and saavy users of *any* client base I can think of short of the client base of 'secretaries who use Word'....

deryni, I don't think you give the Pidgin user-base enough credit. Sure you have some younger people using Pidgin without much knowledge... but Pidgin is also the only good option for thousands of Linux users out there. I don't think it's fair to say that just because the less capable users aren't going to make use of a feature, that feature should be eliminated for those that appreciate it. It's nice just to know the general trends of what protocols are being used. If someone at college asks me my screen name, I tell them my AIM screen name. The only reason I do that is because I've found most of my college buddies use AIM. If a friend from Canada asks me the same question (and yes, I do have friends in Canada and Europe) I know from trends I've observed on my buddy list that my MSN account is probably the most appropriate to tell them.

Also, why is there a specific AOL icon? What am I supposed to infer about the people with the AOL icon which isn't equally as pertinent about the clients of all the other protocols.

... And by the way, thanks to deryni, Sean and all the others for not closing this bug report and allowing the discussion to continue while keeping a (semi) open mind on the matter ;-)

in reply to: ↑ 80 ; follow-up: ↓ 82 Changed 3 years ago by Apewall

Replying to Nrbelex:

Replying to deryni:

...pidgin users (and IM users in general) are among the least technically sophisticated and saavy users of *any* client base I can think of short of the client base of 'secretaries who use Word'....

deryni, I don't think you give the Pidgin user-base enough credit. Sure you have some younger people using Pidgin without much knowledge... but Pidgin is also the only good option for thousands of Linux users out there. I don't think it's fair to say that just because the less capable users aren't going to make use of a feature, that feature should be eliminated for those that appreciate it. It's nice just to know the general trends of what protocols are being used. If someone at college asks me my screen name, I tell them my AIM screen name. The only reason I do that is because I've found most of my college buddies use AIM. If a friend from Canada asks me the same question (and yes, I do have friends in Canada and Europe) I know from trends I've observed on my buddy list that my MSN account is probably the most appropriate to tell them. Also, why is there a specific AOL icon? What am I supposed to infer about the people with the AOL icon which isn't equally as pertinent about the clients of all the other protocols. ... And by the way, thanks to deryni, Sean and all the others for not closing this bug report and allowing the discussion to continue while keeping a (semi) open mind on the matter ;-)

Users of the actual "AOL" messenger have different features/etc then the normal AIM users. Though I do see your relation to the current topic and this.

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

Apewall: Yes, we were, not directly but they were there. Not to mention the fact that this change significantly cleans up the status icon column, by using just *one* icon to mean available as opposed to one per protocol you are connected with. The new method also means that the pidgin 'branding' is more complete and uniform. Both of these are good things.

The fact that you don't think the new method is better does not make the old method better. Neither does the fact that you aren't aware of the problems we saw with the way things used to be or the added simplicity we have seen people respond to with the new system. I have a doubt that you have dealt with anywhere near the number of users (both smart and dumb) that I have, let alone the total number of users the pidgin team has dealt with, so while you may not have had issues with the protocol icons I can assure you we have seen them.

What preferences did you lose? Can you name one? We went through this discussion about preferences when they changed and you know what we found? Out of all of the preferences that we slashed only a very small handful were even commented on by people, of those mentioned one or two came back and the others were kept possible in better ways. Do you know how many people complain about the preference stuff now? None. I am 100% confident that this recent change will work in *exactly* the same way. Someone will come up with a plugin to give people just the protocol information they need in exactly the place they need it and everyone will be nice and happy about the change. Why? Because nothing important was removed or made difficult.

in reply to: ↑ 80 Changed 3 years ago by lschiere

Apewall: yes, we have had bug reports, complaints, and enhancement requests all basically boiling down to "please remove the protocol icons. They are useless, purposeless, and confusing." I'll go further than Deryni did. I frequently see users who have failed to set up their MSN account because AIM is the default choice, and they don't understand protocols well enough to pick the right item in the drop down *at all*. Other potential users will utterly fail to set up Google Talk because it says "Jabber" in there. The fact of the matter is, no matter how little you might like to recognize it, that many users, even of Linux, do *not* have a strong grasp of what those protocol icons meant.

Similarly, people would complain that there was no way to set up a contact, simply because the protocol icons led them to disregard the "expand" option. So yes, this change *is* aimed at solving issues experienced by real users, issues that I can *not* outline better solutions for with 2 minutes thought.

Changed 3 years ago by elb

Replying to zak:

User A has accounts with MSN, ICQ and Jabber. His buddies are Joe (only MSN), Ted (only ICQ) and Ira (only Jabber). He can send offline message to Ted and Ira, but not to Joe. How does he know?

I have addressed this specific case numerous times during this thread. Pidgin should be able to handle offline messages gracefully on a contact level, as well as buddy level, and this would solve this example. I really wish offline messages would quit coming up, because they're just about the easiest thing to fix in this respect that could possibly be introduced. It also indicates that the proponents of adding protocol icons aren't actually reading the other side of the conversation ... which is discouraging.

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

Nrbelex: The level of knowledge of the pidgin user base has little to do with age, and like I said, it is *astonishing* how lacking in common sense and generally understanding they have. Believe me, I'm not selling them short. I wish I was though. The protocol icons in the buddy list was not a feature. No one has been able to show me how it was in any way that isn't just wrong, coincidental, a bug, or better served in another way. Knowing what account to give someone has nothing to do with seeing icons on your buddy list. If you want a plugin to keep track of the numbers of buddies you have on each protocol that's fine. I support that, but it isn't a reason to have the icons on the buddy list at all times. I can't tell you specifically why there is an AOL icon other than to state that it is a modifier of an account in the same way that the mobile state/icon is. Truth be told I'd be fine removing the AOL icon since as far as I know at this stage of things it conveys very little information. Note that at one point it was very important, it meant that you couldn't IM them first, it meant that they couldn't read your away message, etc. So it really did matter, and you really did need to know. This report did get closed because the original poster was an angry troll who wasn't interested in discussing this, it is a shame that the real discussion had to follow that and not have its own ticket.

Changed 3 years ago by Apewall

Deryni: I didn't say I lost any preferences in the transition, my point was that Pidgin has become more difficult to use for advanced users, and is going in the direction of forcing us to go to great lengths to achieve things that were once readily available. I do not want to see down the road that I'm having to download 50+ plugins to achieve a form of Pidgin that I'm content with.

And as a programmer you should know, that regardless of the change, given enough time there will be no more complaints by users of removed features, them having given up since the developers have no intentions of reverting the feature, and new users unaware that anything was removed.

The adoption of the "Someone else will create a plugin/fix" development model is what leads to the above scenario I stated, where one must go to great lengths to achieve what was once already available features.

To agree with Nrbelex, I'm glad that you'll take the time to discuss this instead of forcing the ticket of this to unchangeable.

Changed 3 years ago by Nrbelex

Replying to deryni:

Nrbelex: The level of knowledge of the pidgin user base has little to do with age, and like I said, it is *astonishing* how lacking in common sense and generally understanding they have. Believe me, I'm not selling them short. I wish I was though. The protocol icons in the buddy list was not a feature.

Has the Pidgin team ever considered making a system for "Advanced Users" and a system for "Beginner Users" vis-a-vis the system in Azureus. Though I'm sure it's a bit complicated and time consuming, this might eliminate the issues you see on a day-to-day basis in the IRC channel or wherever while preserving the ability for advanced users to select options such as this, even if you might not think such an option is important.

follow-ups: ↓ 92 ↓ 99 Changed 3 years ago by deryni

If you didn't lose any preferences, if there wasn't any functional lose, if nothing became harder or impossible because of the prefslash then you have no argument here. So either you did lose something, or you can point to something that changed, or there isn't anything here to look at. I know which of those I think is the case.

pidgin will never become like miranda and require dozens of plugins to even use usefull. That was not, is not, and will not ever be the goal of the project, that being said things that most people will not need, things that are best served by additional functionality and the like *are* well served by plugins.

Yes, and eventually the heat death of the universe will claim us all, that's not the point. I fully welcome real complaints, but those complaints had better have 'real' 'concrete' reasons behind them if they want to be taken seriously. We knew going in to this that people would complain, we discussed this change at length, we spent great effort making sure we didn't remove any functionality by doing this (and in the couple places we might have we intend to make everything work better in the end). We really did think this through carefully and do our best to make sure everyone was served well by the change. I am rather certain we did that and I think that with a little more effort things will get to be much better than they ever could have been before.

The 'someone' in that phrase is as likely to be myself or one of the other developers as it is to be someone else, the large majority of the really useful plugins for pidgin always have been (or at the very least by crazy patch writers).

To state this again, at no point will pidgin ever devolve into requiring plugins to do the basic IM client things, and should any normal features be implemented with plugins those plugins will be written and maintained by us, and distributed with pidgin.

Changed 3 years ago by deryni

Yes, the idea of simple and advanced interfaces and preference dialogs has been suggested a number of times, as has the idea of 'hidden' preferences. The idea of both of those goes rather against some of the core ideas of the pidgin team. In order for a preference to need to exist it really ought to apply to enough cases and enough people that it belongs in the application itself, if a preference does not have that sort of application/appeal then it really doesn't belong in the application and when at all possible should be made possible through the use of things like plugins. As to having a ui that changes, doing that is just asking for support issues as people do things they don't intend to, change things they don't understand, additionally I have seen more than one reputable report that no user ever stays on the 'simple' or 'beginner' setting set when they can hit an 'advanced' button because it makes them feel better about themselves.

in reply to: ↑ 90 Changed 3 years ago by Nrbelex

Replying to deryni:

We really did think this through carefully and do our best to make sure everyone was served well by the change. I am rather certain we did that and I think that with a little more effort things will get to be much better than they ever could have been before. The 'someone' in that phrase is as likely to be myself or one of the other developers as it is to be someone else, the large majority of the really useful plugins for pidgin always have been (or at the very least by crazy patch writers).

Well I've trusted and loved Gaim/Pidgin for the last few years and I trust that in the end, either I'll adjust or some change will be made which will make everyone happy. I'm just about at the point where I'm motivated to learn how to write and submit a plug-in to enable this ability on my own. Is there any good resource to learn how to do so (if at all possible)?

Changed 3 years ago by Apewall

The only method that I think would even remotely work is having two forks of Pidgin for basic and advanced users, but I don't think the Pidgin Developers should have to do this, its just a waste of work. Time would be better spent in my opinion by having all "advanced user features" available from the start, and compiling a documentation that is easy for users to understand when they run into problems.(Though we all know that people tend to go rushing to IRC to ask for an answer rather than the two clicks to the pages of the documentation to receive the same answer.)

My issue is not specifically with this, if a plugin was made available default with pidgin that added the wanted icons to the buddylist/conversation windows I'd use it, be content and go on. But is the goal to create a client that is easy for the dumb user, or to create a full and rich client for the extensive user?

I really think that the current plugins list is probably just a misnamed "advanced users" hideout, as rest assured most users aren't going to delve in there and start looking for features.(Basicly, when you remove features from something and you are going to expect many complaints about it - its probably notable enough to make the addition of a default plugin, which the "newbie" users wont notice, but the rest of us will enjoy and our ideal of Pidgin will remain.)

Changed 3 years ago by Jawrakae

OK, let me first start off by saying that I am right up there in being a huge advocate for GAIM/Pidgin. I've converted and turned on most of the people in the office to using GAIM/Pidgin and loads of friends. I do love my GAIM.

My first thoughts of installing Pidgin beta 7 were immediately drawn to the green blobs that have now replaced the protocol icons and I have to say, I was a bit taken back. Where did my beautiful protocol icons go? They were there before? There must be some sort of setting I overlooked to change it back. After examining every setting carefully, it appears I did not miss something. This was a fundamental display change.

My thoughts then turned to why was this change made? I was quite befuddled. After doing some research and finding this thread and this article http://www.pidgin.im/~seanegan/cgi-bin/pyblosxom.cgi/identity.html I read them thoroughly to try and gain some insight as to how this change now benefits the GAIM community. I'll respond to the sections I feel are most relevant.

"The other approach is the identity-oriented approach. This approach says: "I am one person who happens to have several IM accounts. I have one set of friends, who happen to use different services," assumes you don't care about those details, and abstracts them away."

First off, I agree with the first sentence. However, assuming for me what you think I care about I believe is a mistake - especially when you are removing something I once had. To me, this is the same as putting a new radio in my car, but not showing me what station is playing, where before I could see all the stations that I listen to with my old radio. Your argument is who cares what station you are listening to as long as the radio is playing. I respectfully disagree.

"I, and many (probably most) of the Pidgin developers use Pidgin in this latter way. We're interested in ourself, and in our friends. We typically want to talk to Ethan, rather than start an XMPP conversation with elb@…. Formally, Gaim (as probably all multi-protocol IM clients) has been inconsistant in which approach it took. In some places it was decidedly account based; you could only view logs with specific IM contacts, rather than with whole "people," (i.e. a collection of IM contacts owned by the same person). Other places were more identity-oriented: buddies from all your accounts were merged together into a single list."

Yes, I do want to talk to Ethan, but because I have multiple accounts for Ethan, sometimes I prefer to talk Ethan on one protocol vs. another. Example would be Sametime (business) instead of AIM (personal.) Now rather than have an instant visual queue I have to hover over for the details instead of being able to find the one I want right away. On the other hand, I would love to be able to view the logs by user regardless of the account they are on.

"You, as an identity, have a single status, and a single buddy icon. And in the final push, revealed in tonight's beta release, your friends are represented primarily by their status, not what protocol they happen to use. When I look at my list right now, I see that I'm "Available" with a nifty Duck Hunt buddy icon, and that Mark is away with his Rugrats icon. No longer do I see that Mark happens to be using AIM, which is good because I never cared about that to begin with. Nor must I drop down the Accounts menu to see what all my accounts are, and what status they're in. I don't have to set each one's icon individually either. If I want to be Invisible, I just hit the status selector and choose Invisible."

While you may only need a single status, often times I am at my desk for lunch and don't want to be bothered by my Sametime contacts (they can leave a message), but I want my other contacts to be able to reach me. This is a benefit and feature of account based identity. Furthermore, if accounts didn't matter, we wouldn't need all these protocols to begin with.

"The most common such criticism received from earlier betas is---as also seen in this review---that while setting your status on a single account used to be easy, it's now more difficult."

As much as I hate to agree with a negative review about Pidgin, in this case I concur.

"Of course, when viewed in the light that you, as a Pidgin user, are a single person, it makes total sense that you would have only one status. If your MSN account is away cliff diving, it makes sense that your QQ account would be also. If you're just one person, why should you have to check your AIM list for one person and your IRC list for another? The issue that motivates these complaints is that people who prefer an accounts-oriented approach tend to use a multi-protocol IM client as if they are more than one person."

Same argument repeated here. I do not presume to be more than one person, however I may want to be available on one protocol and not on another. Again, if I am at lunch I don't want my colleagues pestering me, but if my friend wants to ask me to go out for drinks after work while I am having lunch, I want to be available. It only makes 'total sense' if I am some sort of drone and there is only an on and off switch.

"The most common reason (possibly only reason) for I hear supporting the account-oriented approach is: I use AIM at school and Google Talk with parents, and I don't want my parents to know what I'm doing with my friends, or---for older people---I use Sametime at work, and Yahoo! with my friends and I don't want my boss knowing what I'm going with my friends. In both cases, the user isn't a single person, but two people: a straight-laced, wholesome, angel on one account and a drugged up, drunken, vice-crazed sinner on the other :). Even the above review claims this same reasoning for not liking the new identity-oriented status."

In my case, I just don't want to be bothered by some contacts at certain times and available to the rest. Plain and simple. I often need to separate business from personal.

"Additionally, Sadrul's "mystatusbox" plugin can add status boxes for all your accounts, but generally, I think the best way to keep two identities separate is just to run Pidgin twice."

Run Pidgin twice? That is the best suggestion? Isn't that contradictory to exactly what Pidgin is supposed to be? If I wanted to run multiple clients I wouldn't use Pidgin in the first place.

"When you know you need, for example, an AIM account to send a file to, you'll always want to find the person first, and then check the protocol. I can't imagine a situation where someone would want to find the protocol first, and then choose a person randomly from that to send a file to."

This is true, I always do look for the person first, however now you've just added an extra step for me before I find the right protocol. Aren't we supposed to be making things simpler, easier, with less steps to perform the same task?

"So, while some people with dual identities might be turned off by some of the changes between 1.5.0 and 2.0.0, I'm betting that most people are indeed one person, and will appreciate how much easier Pidgin makes multi-protocol instant messaging."

How does this make my life easier again? I could go on further about this but frankly I need a break after this. I would appreciate it as well as many others judging by the popularity of this thread if you would reconsider the changes that were made.

Lastly I would just like to say thanks to all of the developers who have invested a great deal of their time in to making Pidgin. Although I'm sure it is often thankless, rest assured that I speak for many others when I say thanks for your time and effort.

Changed 3 years ago by racooper

For me, it's a comfort level: I'm used to it this way. I moved to Gaim to avoid having to open two different chat clients (AIM and ICQ). Once on Gaim, I added my Yahoo account because it happened to be available in the client. I still avoid using the Yahoo (and AIM) users unless absolutely necessary, especially when my contacts are available on multiple services. I understand the "grouping" concept and the priority order, but I don't like keeping them grouped; I prefer individual entries for most of my contacts, so I can see which services they are available on at a glance. This is the kind of development decision that will have me remain at Beta6 as long as the protocols allow.

The best argument I can make is that I have contacts who log in with multiple protocols, and the same name, on different PCs (in different offices) but leave the accounts active (never set Away or log off). The only way I know where that contact is at any moment is how long he is idle on a particular protocol. A message I send to either of his contacts will be received, but he may not see it for hours if he is in the other office. By checking the idle times in the buddy list, I can tell which protocol to send to where it will be received soonest.

But, as long as changes for the "better" are being made, how about implementing the ICQ "floating contacts" finally? That was the one feature I miss from the ICQ client that never made it into Gaim^h^h^h^hPidgin.

in reply to: ↑ 90 ; follow-up: ↓ 101 Changed 3 years ago by leftyfb

What you don't seem to understand is... you keep saying "give me a good reason why you want this feature". The fact that so many people want it is a good enough reason. Thats why it's called a preference. I PREFER to look at my buddy list and see who is signed on and on WHICH PROTOCOL they are sign on. I do not want to right-click any buddy's to see what protocols they are signed on. I do not want to hover over a buddy to see which protocols they are signed onto. I want to GLANCE/LOOK at my buddy list and QUICKLY see who is signed on and to which protocols. What you don't seem to understand is, right-clicking or hovering over and waiting for a tooltip (I have tooltips disabled.. my PREFERENCE) is not as quick as LOOKING at my buddy list. How about looking at your buddy list and seeing within a few seconds, which protocols 20 of your buddies are signed onto? It would take at least 20 seconds to hover over and each one individually to see which protocols they are signed onto. Even more if i'm going to right-click each.

I love and have always used gaim. I will continue to do so, but never to 2.x since it's been stated that this preference will never make it back into the code. Hopefully enough people will complain about this and hopefully the right developers will understand the difference between a major usabilty preference and meaningless bells and whistles.

Changed 3 years ago by deviousdragen

I'm a new comer to your program, I'm not going to lie. I Downloaded it tonight and found that the protocol icons were hard to navigate. I'm sorry to say but most of my friends have multiple s/n's on different programs, and perfer me to not message them on certain ones. Now, they sign onto certain programs for different reasons, so there is times when glancing over to see which program they are on, is valuable information.

Now, mousing over, is annoying, and right clicking is difficult. I don't want to spend a couple minutes distinguishing what is going on. Streamline is having all the information you need in an easy fashion. Not all the information is present, and it's confusing.

Another thing. My aim client has 200 or more s/n's. My Yahoo, has about 100 (some people of which only talk to me when invisible, and they didn't appear on the buddy list...so I'd never be able to talk to them) Now...If i was to "mouse-over" i'd be there for a long time...

I feel that this feature is important for a multi-protocol client and i am absolutely saddened that it's not as easy as i hoped. I hope that you fix this feature, or make an option in the preferences, so we have the option to view things the way WE want to see it. Maybe i don't want it that simplistic. Remember, one man's simplicity is another man's frustration... (Sara)

in reply to: ↑ 99 ; follow-up: ↓ 103 Changed 3 years ago by seanegan

Replying to leftyfb:

What you don't seem to understand is... you keep saying "give me a good reason why you want this feature". The fact that so many people want it is a good enough reason. Thats why it's called a preference.

You are the hundredth post to this bug. About half of the posts have been by users complaining, and the other half by developers defending. Most of the comments on each side have been responses to earlier comments made by the same person. Very well under half the people to post to this thread are unique complaintants.

Even if, however, you were to assume every post here represented a unique user protesting this feature, you're left with about .003% of total users who have a problem with this. Three out of every hundred thousand users have a problem with it. "So many", when put in perspecitve is an amazingly small minority.

You probably have some valid points in the rest of your report. I stopped reading it here, since we've already declared we want to take this discussion to the mailing list. If you'd like to protest our design further, you may bring it up there.

Changed 3 years ago by Maniac

I'm quite dissapointed at the removal of this feature. I recently switched from trillian to gaim2.0.0 beta5, and then upgraded to pidgin 2.0.0 beta 7 earlier this week. I was hoping it was just overlooked in that version, and that it was re-enabled in pidgin 2.0.0 final. This is one of the main features I looked for when I was choosing a Multi-IM client. The recent removal of this feature (IE dumbing down of the client) has greatly detracted from my experience while using pidgin.

This is not for any particular reason such as file sending or offline IM's. This is for the simple reason that I want to know which protocol I am sending over. If the protocols didn't matter there wouldn't be different protocols.

If an option to enable per-protocol Icons (such as the option trillian has) isn't added as a plugin or built back into the program, I'm probably going to roll back to gaim beta 5 or trillian. It was good while it lasted, but not everyone wants things to be invisible from the user.

Simple != better.

Changed 3 years ago by sohmageek

I have one valid point that just came to me. Impersonation. So lets use a real world situation to this degree. The matrix online used to have AIM as it's chat feature. Someone figured this out and that the only difference between Aim convos and ingame convos was one word and a color (which could be changed anyway.) So... They find out the name of one of the administrators, create a name on AIM with the same name (as the ingame names were a spinoff/part of the @work and had @thematrixonline.com added to them. Message with the same name just minor differences boom! You have yourself impersonation. I have liked the seperation idea, but I see the together idea. It's a great idea, something that I'm actually thinking of suggesting to my grandmother. But... the reason I'm still not liking this idea is reasons stated above, and this could aid in impersonation.

Changed 3 years ago by pgunn

It would be nice to have a plugin that would change the icons appropriately, so that users who want it could enable it would cluttering the baseline code. I personally think it'd be handy because although there's an effort to abstract protocol differences away, as a user I often run into protocol-specific features - if, for instance, file transfer is stable for AIM but not so stable for Yahoo and unavailable for IRC, it can be handy to have that hint available at a moment's notice. Also, from a psychological point of view, any consistent visual cues that distinguish users from each other, even if they're not intrinsically meaningful, speed the process of visual distinction.

Changed 3 years ago by ubernostrum

I've read through Sean's explanation of the "identity" orientation, and I have to say I find it somewhat lacking. To a developer it's easy to think in terms of "I am one person communicating via multiple protocols", and this is probably the most natural position for us (I code for a living, so it makes plenty of sense to me).

For the typical non-developer IM user, however, IM is a social tool at heart, and IM networks are social networks. And in different social networks the same person my play several different roles; though the same physical entity is at the other end of the network connection in all cases, it is not necessarily true (and is in fact rarely true) that the same social entity is at the other end of the conversation. Differentiating the roles a user plays in different social networks is an important activity, and removing that ability, or even throwing up minor obstacles to it, works against the purpose of the network itself.

Developers in this ticket have repeatedly asked for use cases, but Sean himself admits (somewhat distastefully, one feels) in his "identity" explanation that multiple social roles -- and hence multiple "identities" -- for the same person is a common use case. Then he sweeps it under the rug with a jab about that "drugged-up, drunken, vice-crazed sinner" and some general hand-waving in the direction of dialog boxes that the average user won't ever bother to look at, and goes so far as to recommend running two instances of Pidgin if one feels the need to enact multiple "identities". This seems to be poorly reasoned, and if it takes social dynamics -- the bread and butter of a social network like IM -- into account at all, it does so only as an afterthought.

As a longtime user of the client formerly known as Gaim (been with you since the GTK1 days), I'd really appreciate seeing a more open-minded approach to the social side of this issue, and a little less prejudice against the "idiot users"; if you make it too hard for them to do what they want, they'll quickly become someone else's users.

in reply to: ↑ 26 Changed 3 years ago by eddyp

Replying to deryni:

Again, why is that information useful to you there? What does it gain you to have that at hand like that?

Real situation1: I have a friend that because his account has been published in some places is forced to stay on invisible all the time on yahoo. He also has a jabber account, but he uses that seldom.

Why I need that? if he appears to be offline on both accounts, I always try to contact him on yahoo since is possible that he is online.

(if he is connected on jabber, I know I can speak to him no matter what, obviously)

And even when he is online he prefers to be contacted by yahoo since he uses two clients (the jabber one being the gmail web interface whhich does not pop up or notifies him).

Changed 3 years ago by PokSao

I have friends and co-workers that have both sametime and other accounts, sometimes one account will be set to status "away" and another will not for the same person, or they will be logged in with only one account at a time. this lets me know if I can contact them only for business purposes or also for recreation. I can also use it to tell whether specific co-workers are logged in from home (using aol or jabber) or in the office (using sametime) with just a glance at the buddy list. If this could be brought back as an option that is disabled by default it would help me a great deal as well as make many people happy. Thanks

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Ticket #414 (closed defect: wontfix)

You dont the See Which Protocol

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Change History

follow-up: ↓ 107 Changed 3 years ago by deryni

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follow-up: ↓ 57 Changed 3 years ago by thor0215

in reply to: ↑ 56 ; follow-ups: ↓ 58 ↓ 59 ↓ 63 Changed 3 years ago by seanegan

in reply to: ↑ 57 Changed 3 years ago by thor0215

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follow-up: ↓ 61 Changed 3 years ago by deryni

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follow-up: ↓ 66 Changed 3 years ago by zak

in reply to: ↑ 65 ; follow-up: ↓ 67 Changed 3 years ago by elb

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follow-up: ↓ 72 Changed 3 years ago by deryni

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in reply to: ↑ 68 Changed 3 years ago by zak

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