Hi Alex, A lot of interesting ideas there. 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. 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.
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. 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. 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. There's also a SQLite logging plugin already available that you can use to store all messages in a SQLite db instead of as HTML files. https://github.com/EionRobb/pidgin-sqlite-log Hope that helps answer your questions. Cheers, Eion On 22 August 2016 at 03:28, <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. > > 6a) Allow using a DB (SQLite?) rather than XML files for storing logs > > > Your thoughts are appreciated. > > Thank you, > Alex. > > _______________________________________________ > Support@pidgin.im mailing list > Want to unsubscribe? Use this link: > https://pidgin.im/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/support
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