Pidgin 2.1 UI Ideas (with mockups!)

[Steven Brown]

> On the protocol icon, how about adding a down arrow to indicate that it has a
> menu?
Yeah, sounds good.  And the arrow should only appear if there are 
multiple contacts under that buddy.  By the same rationale, the Send To 
menu doesn't need to appear when there are not - it probably just 
confuses people.

>> My idea for replacing the Send To menu was to have an arrow appear to
>> the left when you hover over the infopane, and then, clicking it would
>> bring up a full-width dropdown with everyone else's infopane as well.
I'm not sure I fully understand this.  A dropdown with full infopane for 
every contact that there is a conversation open with _in addition_ to 
the Send To menu for that buddy?  Is there a description of this 
somewhere I can read?  :)

>> I think it's in a pretty good place in the right-click menu now,
>> though. We can't get rid of the "Send To" menu, though, as the
>> infopane is optional.
Oh good point.  Maybe move the right click from the infopane to the 
current tab?  Or... I wonder how many people hide the infopane....  I 
bet they are all advanced users, and wouldn't complain if "show buddy 
details" was on by default and ctrl-h ("hide") toggled display of it, 
for example.

The problem with both of these (the hover arrow and the right-click 
menu), I find, is that neither function as an at-a-glance indicator of 
the current protocol.  I think this is important enough for first-class 
position on the infopane.