Destructive defaults -- Buddy pounces' "recurring"

[Jason James]

When status is set to Do Not Disturb, buddy pounces still pop up. I use DND
a lot, in particular when I am sharing my desktop in a web conference. It
can be embarrassing to have a buddy pounce pop up with 30 people looking at
my desktop.

It seems to me that DND should override the buddy pounce automatically. If
not automatically, at least make it an option.

On Dec 13, 2007 12:08 AM, Shreevatsa R <shreevatsa at cmi.ac.in> wrote:

>
> To create buddy pounces in Pidgin (or finch) that stay, one has to
> remember to tick the "Recurring" option. I think this should be the
> default.
>
> Rationale: Perhaps Buddy Pounces were originally conceived as being for
> one-time use, but I suspect many people use it for setting permanent
> notifications when someone signs on. Even if popularity is not a valid
> argument, I think that the Buddy Pounces feature can be unclear to new
> users, people usually ignore things they don't understand, and silently
> deleting buddy pounces is highly destructive; it can take much more
> effort to recreate an elaborate buddy pounce (perhaps it involved
> choosing from obscure sound files :P) than to delete a no-longer-wanted
> one, and the potential harm from a deleted pounce (missing an important
> event, for some definition of important) is much greater than the
> potential annoyance from an unwanted pounce.
>
> I think the name is confusing too. Multiple people have wondered what
> "recurring" means, and I think if it's made the default, the option to
> turn it off can be called "Delete after event happens", like Adium, or
> "Do this only once" or anything clearer than an ambiguous "Recurring".
>
> While on the topic of making things more clear, the "Pounce only when my
> status is not available" can be very puzzling to some people if the
> "Available" is not somehow typographically distinguished :) [Fixed in
> Pidgin, but not in Finch.]
>
> --
> Shreevatsa R
>
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>



-- 
./jj
http://autumn-evening.blogspot.com
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