Inconsistent behavior when closing buddy list

[Sean Egan]

On 6/25/07, Casey Harkins <caseyharkins at gmail.com> wrote:
> There are currently two different behaviors when closing the buddy list:
>   hide the buddy list if the tray icon is visible, otherwise exit
> pidgin. If the tray icon is turned off entirely or turned on entirely,
> this isn't a huge problem. I am concerned with the inconsistency when
> the tray icon is set to display only when there is an unread message.
> Sometimes closing the buddy list will exit, other times it will hide.

I would merely argue that this is a bug; when "Show" is set to "only
on new message," closing the blist should always exit Pidgin,
regardless of whether the icon is showing or not.

As for which button triggers this behvior, I'm not too picky. It
*seems* like "Close" is the more natural button, as that's what
actually happens to the window, and some people (not me) feel very
strongly about it
(http://www.lockergnome.com/nexus/lordkat/2007/05/04/pidgin-20-review/).

On the other hand, I certainly see the logic behind minimize being the
button that does this all. You don't really want to get rid of the
window, just hide it. I remember looking up with Daniel when we first
merged the plugin into Pidgin proper, and Microsoft guidelines say
that 'hide to tray' should use the minimize button.

Personally, I configure my window manager not to have "Minimize"
buttons, and so I wouldn't be able to "hide to tray," if we made this
change. I don't use that method, anyway, preferring to use "Only on
new messages," instead.

I think that when we first merged it, I really wanted to remove all
the functionality that bug considers "abusive," but saw backlash
(which I understand). I suspect I at least suggested that "only on new
messages" be the default, which the submitter recommends, but that was
shot down. My memory may be faulty.

Anyway, I think that, as several significant distros, including Fedora
and Ubuntu had gone out of their way to load the plugin in order to
enable this "abusive" behavior, clearly people must want it, even on
Linux.

If we do it, we should make sure it gets into 2.1.0 so that these
complaints will drown out anything about the infopane.

In summary, I don't think we need a new option for "minimize to system
tray," but it may be worthwhile to move the functionality to the
minimize button. It may also be worthwhile to change the default
behavior of the notification icon to "only on new messages," but
again, I'm not sure. It is worth noting, though, that we can much more
easily get away with changing a default preference than changing
behaviors outright. We may even consider making separate defaults for
Windows and Linux, but I doubt that's a good idea.

While I don't doubt that these recommendations would be good, I can't
help but think that the only people they really make happy are pesky
'usability experts' ;)

-s.