Some suggestions on the infopane of conversation

[Etan Reisner]

On Thu, Jun 28, 2007 at 08:11:08AM -0700, Sean Egan wrote:
> On 6/27/07, Ka-Hing Cheung <khc at hxbc.us> wrote:
> > >  * The status icon goes back in the tab.
>
> If this is really a deal-breaker, I'm ok bringing it back, although
> I've come to appreciate it beyond it's original "kill redundancy"
> intention.

Despite my earlier indications that I don't really use it much, I find
myself using it more than I realized I did, mostly in order to glance at
my IM window to see if someone I was having a conversation with has since
gone offline without needing to open the buddy list window or actually
focus my conversation window.

So I think I am still in the bring-the-status-icons-back camp. Plus if we
do this it means we can use that space in the infopane for the protocol
icon/emblem/etc..

<snip>

> > >  * The protocol-icon replaces the status-icon in the infopane.
>
> I'm guessing this was an attempt to kill redundancy. I'm not so
> convinced that redundancy is a huge problem.

As mentioned above we could do this to appease people who want it back
while simultaneously providing extra information and not duplicating
information. All that being said I don't think it really much matters
either way.

> > >  * The status message/chat topic goes to the right of the screenname
> > >    instead of below.
>
> What was the rationale of this change? You seem to still have enough
> room for two lines.

This I don't think I like at all, the visual distinction of the new line
is useful for telling them apart above and beyond the formatting
differences.

> > >  * The tab is displayed even when you have only one tab.
> > >  * You cannot drag-n-drop the infopane for anything.
>
> A few people have mentioned "widget jumping" as the reason they prefer
> always having tabs. Lots of people think it's silly having tabs when
> there's only one conversation window is open. I'm impartial (really!).
> Is "widget jumping" really an issue? I can't honestly imagine it is.

Widget-jumping aside (and yes I do find it annoying but have been tending
to always have more than one window open lately and as such haven't
noticed it much) I've been finding lately that when I close multiple tabs
at once I always use the tab X button instead of the window X button or my
wm:s close_frame binding. Given that the fact that the last tab has no
such button means I need to stop clicking and either move the mouse or
switch to the binding. That's been a tad annoying recently.

Also, given that we are trying to go for visual consistency I think
keeping the tab around does that better than removing it. Not to mention
that this now causes people to need to realize that they can drag and drop
both the tab and the infopane to move conversations around which is
something I imagine mostpeople won't assume by default.

But I'll live with either way this part works when all is said and done, I
just think not making this change will prevent whining that will happen if
we make it, and the benefits to making it aren't particularly apparent or
important.

	-Etan