{Someone will correct me if I'm wrong (and I won't mind).}
You may be attributing the status to have rigid meanings, but most of them
could be (somewhat inaccurately) described as a "mood".
"Idle" is, also, pretty straight forward. If you mark yourself as "Available",
but you're away from your computer/device for a period of time (can't remember
\what\ period of time), then "Available" defaults to "Idle". The moment you do
something on your computer/device, then "Idle" goes back to "Available".
Some users wish to manually announce to those on their buddy list that they are
"Away" (even if they really aren't). Unlike "Idle", "Away" is a manually
user-selected status.
I've never seen "Extended Away", but it sound like it's the same.
One can still send/receive IM's in "Idle" and/or "Away".
"Invisible" is also manually user-selected, but to everyone who sees you on
their buddy list, you will appear to be "Offline". In "Invisible", you can
still send/receive IM's. (*I recall there used to be one IM service that would
not allow you to send/receive if you set yourself to "Invisible".)
An "Offline Message" is a thing, not a status. If you are \literally\ offline
from a particular IM service, but someone sends you an IM, anyway, most (if not
all) of the IM services will "store" that IM, and it will immediately appear as
soon as you log back into that IM service.
"Offline" is always straight-forward. It's a status you cannot manually
select, except for literally logging out of a particular IM service.
On Fri, 28 Apr 2017 pid...@alexoren.com wrote:
> Can anyone please explain when are the following statuses used and what
> are the differences between them.
> This is related both to the user's status and to the buddies' statuses.
>
> available (this one is pretty straightforward)
>
> idle (what's the difference between it and away?)
> away (what's the difference between it and idle?)
> extended_away (when does away become extended_away?)
>
> invisible (how does Pidgin know if someone is offline or invisible?)
> offline_msg (is this similar to offline?)
> offline
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