On Fri, 7 May 2004, Mike wrote:
> So far the "best" IM client I've found is GAIM - and the best
> "use-mode" I've found for it is to allow it to pop up a window
> in whatever the currently active frame is. This way I am immediately
> notified and i can either reply/close it, move it elsewhere (mark &
> attach) to have a "long" conversation, or whatever...
> there is 1 problem with this, and 1 "feature" request :)
>
> problem -
> if I'm currently in a full-screened app (99% of the time this
> is an xterm), and an IM pops up, it gets it's own full screen, and
> I can not "un-full-screen" it or "mark-attach" it elsewhere. it would
> be really nice to be able to take a fullscreen window and push it
> into an existing frame.
>
> feature -
> I find that i often hit Win+D (close window binding) about 1/8th
> of a second after i see a message pop in from someone. At this
> point I am powerless, so I have to go to the GAIM window (which is
> often quite a few screens/tabs away), CLICK (I hate this part) on the
> person that just IM'ed me, and ask him/her to please repeat what
> was said. It would be AWESOME if I could mark some apps (through
> the appropriate window info) to react differently to Win+D... what
> I would REALLY like is to unmap the window, but not destroy it, start
> a 3-5 second timer, and then kill the window after the timer runs
> out. If in those 3-5 seconds I hit some other magic key combo, the
> window is mapped back and I read the message i almost lost... any ideas
> on how this can be done?
>
> Mike
I've never been a fan of people responding to questions with alternate
suggestions without actually providing actual answers as well.
So first, I use gaim in ion and it works beautifully. I've found
that letting gaim pop up a window wherever it wants to is a very bad
idea, they get in the way and interrupt me when I'm doing other things,
I did my best to avoid letting it do that even before I started using
ion. My current setup involved kludges and named frames for the buddy
list, various dialogs, and the conversation windows. I have gaim emit a
console beep when I get a message and I know to go check my IM window
then. In the past I have also used the gaimosd plugin (which although it
doesn't currently work should have a working release soon) to display
notifications of my getting IMs on screen. I have all my IMs go into the
same frame as irssi (my irc client) and I have one dedicated frame on
another desktop for my buddy list and one for most of the random dialogs
that gaim pops up.
Second, instead of marking and attaching a client you can simply go to
the frame you want it in and hit Mod1-A (at least by default), it's
attach window, it'll let you attach a window to the current frame by
name.
Third, if you find that you do that often you might best be served by
logging your conversations and then looking at the last log entry when
you realize you've done that, or by turning on the history plugin, which
will insert the last conversation into any new conversations you have.
Now on to the other people's suggestions:
Both bitlbee and centericq are valid suggestions if you are looking to
switch to a text-mode client. Last time I tried them they weren't for me
but that was a while ago.
Tuomo's idea is very interesting. Tuomo does one need to do something
special to get mod_sp to do notifications of that nature or is it
automatic? Also, what sort of notification is it?
I don't want anyone to think I was personally attacking them because I
wasn't. I've just never understood why people don't answer the questions
that are actually asked as well as offering other suggestions.
-Etan
