Hello Robb,
Allow me to amend my suggestions based on your feedback (and add some more)
On 21-08-2016 19:13, Eion Robb wrote:
I think generally the main concept has been that the idea of which
protocol a contact is using is abstracted away, which is why by
default you don't see the protocol icons - "hidden complexity" and
all that.
I claim that there should be a way to "unhide" that complexity for users that
are interested in that information.
One example can be buddies that use different services on different devices
(for example, desktop vs mobile).
Adding a way to show this information (perhaps in a plugin) can be beneficial.
Compare it to the Windows Explorer option (unfortunately set by default) to
hide file extensions. It can hide complexity for some users but it is possible
to override it.
[points #1, #2 and #4 in original email]
This has been achieved in Pidgin by the priority of a buddy within a
merged contact, based on which of their accounts is more active, the
idea being that you can double-click on a contact and be speaking to
the 'most available' buddy - i.e. no thought needed to work out
which buddy to talk to in a contact. Unfortunately the rise of mobile
protocols and protocols that claim that someone is offline when
they're not has complicated issues. That said, if someone messages
you, your replies will always go back on the protocol that they
messaged you on last.
We seem to agree that correctly determining the "most available" buddy is not
always feasible, due to:
a. Services that incorrectly report the user as 'available' even when they are
away (in particular, web interfaces of various platforms, mobile versions, etc)
b. Buddies that set their presence as 'invisible'
c. Protocols that do not have presence indication (e.g., Yahoo 2016)
Therefore, I claim that it is important to allow the user to set up custom
weighting on a per-buddy basis.
[point #3 in original email]
Also, an easier way to switch protocols is to start a conversation
and then use the "Send To" menu to pick the protocol that you want
to use.
I am aware of that option but it is hidden behind a menu. I would like to have a clear
indication that a conversation is with a "multi-protocol" buddy.
[point #4 in original email]
You can also use Ctrl+Up on the keyboard to repeat the last message
if you want to send out multiple messages on different protocols
quickly.
Now that I did not know. Thank you for the information.
Still it is a manual operation that should be easy to automate (possibly in a
plug-in).
[point #5 in original email]
And while we are talking of sending to multiple recipients, there is a plugin
that allows to send a message to all buddies in a group, but I could not find
one to send a message to several selected buddies (either in the same group or
otherwise).
Furthermore, it appears that pidgin does not support multi-selection at all, so
no operation can be performed on an arbitrary collection of buddies.
So I'd like to add another suggestion:
7) Allow multi-selection of buddies for group operations (moving, deleting,
sending messages, etc)
The log viewer (Conversation->View Log) at the moment already
displays all of the various buddy's conversation for a merged
contact in one window.
That is correct. However, when I open a conversation with a user, the latest
messages are displayed in the window (possibly a plugin does that), but only
for that protocol.
I am not sure whether they are pulled from the servers (XEP-0313 etc) or taken
from the logs, but if a buddy is multi-protocol, only one set of messages (from
a single protocol) is displayed.
I would like to see a merged "recap".
[amendment to point #6 in original email]
And speaking of which, given the prevalence of people that use Pidgin on
multiple computers, I would like to offer another suggestion:
8) Support merging of chat histories from different computers, using the
following methods:
a. Manual: exporting, importing and merging (for same-day logs) of chat
history logs, and
b. Automatic: intelligently merging server-side chat histories (such as
XEP-0313) into local logs.
Hope that helps answer your questions.
Cheers, Eion
I still believe that my suggestions have merit.
Your further comments are appreciated.
On 22 August 2016 at 03:28, <pid...@alexoren.com
<mailto:pid...@alexoren.com>> wrote:
Hello,
Pidgin is a great application but, in my humble opinion, there are
several areas for improvement.
Rather than just creating tickets, I wanted to run my ideas by the
community and get your opinions and feedback, and since this mailing
list is the closest thing to a 'community' that I could find, I will
post them here.
The first item I would like to discuss is the way Pidgin handles
buddies on multiple protocols. In no particular order:
* The way Pidgin groups buddies can be improved. Currently there is
insufficient indication on the buddy list that a buddy is grouped
other than hovering and expanding is clunky. My suggestions are:
1) Display /all/ the protocol icons for a grouped buddy, ordered by
protocol status, greying out those on which the buddy is offline.
Clicking on the icon should either display the details/status or
display a protocol-specific menu.
2) Display an 'expand' control near a grouped buddy instead of
having to right-click and chose 'expand'.
* The selection of which protocol to use for a grouped buddy should
be made more flexible. Sometimes buddies always appear offline (by
choice), other times they always appear online even when away from
the logged-in device.
3) Allow overriding of global protocol priorities per grouped buddy.
* The *conversation* is more important than the *medium* (in this
case, the protocol). Buddies sometimes use different protocols on
different devices (computers vs phones for example) and in such
cases conversations started on one protocol are often continued on
another. The motivation for the suggestions below stems from the
realization that we cannot control what protocols our buddies choose
to use.
4) Display /all/ the protocol icons on the conversation window/tab,
ordered by active and status (similar to #1 above).
5) Allow sending a message on all the protocols (raising the chances
that the buddy will receive it faster).
6) Allow for combining the logs from different protocols for a
buddy, either physically (stored in one file) or during display.
Sort entries by time (UTC preferred) and optionally indicate
protocol.
Your thoughts are appreciated.
Thank you, Alex.
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