Regarding the protocol/status icons...

[Luke Schierer]

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On Jul 21, 2007, at 13:19 EDT, Sean Egan wrote:

> On 7/20/07, James <email_this_guy at yahoo.com> wrote:
>
>> After reading the "uniformity" design guidelines at
>> http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/DesignGuidelines , my
>> question to you is why are you removing something that no user has
>> complained about?
>
> Why do you assume nobody complained about it. I don't think there's
> *anything* in Pidgin that nobody has complained about.
>

Two sets of users complain about it.  One set want the buddy list to  
be narrower.  They do *not* use that default width buddy list you  
included as an attachment.  This set of users is particularly vocal,  
but probably still aren't all that happy with the current (as it  
doesn't save space).  Many of them advocate that the protocol icon  
should be dropped, and the buddy icon placed on the left side.  We  
consistently argue against this.  1)if you are scanning the list for  
a buddy icon, the less busy right side is easier to scan.  2)if the  
old status overlays were placed over a buddy icon, they would either  
obscure the buddy icon, not be particularly noticeable, or both.  3) 
if your buddy list is to be made narrower, it is better the (fairly  
large) buddy icon be cut off than the status overlays.  4)having the  
status overlay on the left makes it more consistent with the small view.

The other set *is* pleased by this change.  A (probably) larger but  
less vocal group has *long* desired us to match the display used by  
adium and some other clients.  These clients do not use the same  
symbols for each status, but the *idea* is the same, they have icons  
per status, not icons per protocol.

luke



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