Change the Green Online Icon to an Icon reflecting the IM Protocol?

Charliep charliep at gmail.com
Thu Oct 11 03:12:03 EDT 2007 

Kevin:

Sorry for my blunt assessment of your software. The present implementation
of the green / red / clock icons is STUPID. Because of this I will not be
using your software - UNLESS you fix this. Many of your other users
suggested that I should NOT use Pidgin if I don't like it! Thanks, I will
take your advice.

When I finally got to the part where you mentioned that the Protocol Icons
WERE available I almost wanted to take back some of my harsh criticism until
I checked out the implementation of the IM Protocol icons. Until I tried to
turn on the Protocol Icons. All in all, I think my cricism of the
implementation of this particular feature is spot on: STUPID!

1. I have stated why I believe these icons are stupid: They provide no
valuable information that could not be provided otherwise in a more
efficient manner (using less space) and they specifically leave out
information that is valuable to some users (although obviously NOT the
developers).

If you developers think that it is a good idea to have your colored / shaped
icons for the <5% of the population who are color blind that is great, but
you are completely inconsiderate of the user to insist that he be required
to use your icons when you could just as easily allow the user to turn them
off.

For the rest of the world that is NOt colorblind, these icons serve
absolutely NO PURPOSE that could not be accomplished by other means. Don't
believe me? Lets take a look at Trillian - what do they do? They use color
coded frames around the Avatar! along with symbols when the user is away.
Wow, simple brilliant idea.

AND your implementation of the IM Protocol icons is STUPID because you do
not include the status of the user in the IM Protocol Icon - you use one
icon for their IM Protocol status and another for the Online / Offline
status of the user. THIS IS STUPID. NOBODY except PIDGIN in the IM industry
does this!

Why do I get the feeling that you (or somebody on your team) is color blind?

2. It would be a good idea to include settings for these "SHOW" options in
the Pidgin -- Tools -- Preferences menu so that they are easier to find.
Leave them in both places if you like. 

3. There is absolutely NO REASON to NOT provide the user with the option to
REPLACE the generic icons with IM Protocol icons.

> However we're not removing the dot/clock/paper/etc, it's a 
> reliable, consistent status indicator used throughout the UI.

4. Your arbitrary decision to FORCE these STUPID icons on the rest of the
world and your refusal to even allow the user to turn them off is STUPID!

> Skinning results in an inconsistent user interface.  This is bad for
> users and harder to support.  This will never become a feature.

5. This is a STUPID statement. You are not a UI guru. You are a programmer. 

Skinning is GOOD for users because sooner or later somebody with expertise
or just born talent will go and Skin your program and produce a user
interface that is more popular than anything you could have developed on
your own. Skinning allows the input of creativity from non-programmers and
expands the scope and the depth of the Pidgin team. You obviously don't want
help in this area.

Your argument about "harder to support" is total bullshit. Just include a
standard response to emails which reads: "Please confirm that you are using
the standard UI Skin. To check goto Tools -- Preferences -- Skins --
Standard UI. We only provide support for the standard UI Skin."

Wouldn't it be better to provide an easy way for people who ARE UI guru's to
build a Skin that enhances the value of your software?

6. The entire point of my criticism is that the Pidgin team today does not
include a UI guru. But when you have developers making decisions like "We
will always include our stupid icons" and "We will NEVER allow anybody to
skin our product" you immediately turn off ANYBODY who knows ANYTHING about
UI design.

> We do not ignore the wishes of users.  We ask them to provide us a 
> good reason for their desires. If we are convinced something is justified
> ...

7. If you aren't convinced something is justified then you ignore it. Which
is a bad idea. And that is the whole point! Why should ANYBODY try to
convince somebody who INSISTS that their wrong / stupid decision is good /
smart? You damn yourself to eternal mediocrity by refusing to listen to the
masses who want to volunteer - but for your arrogance.

The best software is designed by users who can't program at all but KNOW /
study how the user wants a software to perform. The second best software
applications are designed by people who can think with both halves of their
brains and try to do the same thing. The WORST software programs are
designed by developers who build something for themselves and to hell with
the rest of the world. What is the point to write a book if nobody (or few
people) ever read it? That is why good authors get their books in front of
great editors. Your insistence to blow off people with suggestions in two
areas (Skins / Icons) will prevent you from getting the good editors which
could make your software more popular than ... Skype, MSN, AOL, etc.

RIP



Kevin Stange wrote:
> 
> Charliep wrote:
>> Wow!
>> 
>> Okay, then forget everything complimentary I just said about Pidgin. What
>> a
>> stupid program.
> 
> What interesting logic!  If you don't agree with someone, how exactly
> does that mean that what they produce is stupid?  Perhaps it's not what
> you want, but that doesn't mean it's not what anyone wants, or in fact
> in any way bad.
> 
> Insulting the project is not going to get you anywhere.  We're not going
> to say, "Oh, no, he called us 'stupid,' so we better start doing as he
> says!"  We really don't care for, or about, insults, so don't waste your
> time.
> 
>> 
>> After using Pidgin for a few hours I have discovered the incredible
>> penalty
>> I pay for the stability and ease of installation for this program: It is
>> a
>> memory and CPU resources FAT PIG. It regularly uses around 12% average of
>> my
>> CPU cycles for a Pentium M 1.7 GHz. Miranda and Trillian Pro both average
>> at
>> around ZERO%.
> 
> There are some known resources and performance problems with Pidgin, and
> some that are unknown.  You are encouraged to help us find them so that
> we can fix them.  If you give up and stop using the problem, that
> doesn't help us.  Look for tickets about related issues on our web site
> (http://developer.pidgin.im) and see if you can help us track down the
> circumstances under which Pidgin behaves badly and we'll try to find the
> code responsible.  Alternatively, take the open source mentality to
> heart and start digging through the code to help us out.
> 
>> 
>> I also cannot use a program where the developers burry their heads in the
>> dirt and ignore the wishes and the interests of users.
> 
> We do not ignore the wishes of users.  We ask them to provide us a good
> reason for their desires.  If we are convinced something is justified,
> then we will either implement it or solicit patches for it.
> 
> If a user asks us to make Pidgin support FTP browsing, we will ask that
> user what good that will do in an IM client and to provide a pretty good
> use case for it.  Chances are that they're going to have to come up with
> a very, very good reason for it.
> 
> Even if 300 thousand people ask for pidgin to become an FTP client, it's
> pretty likely we're not going to do it.  When we believe something is a
> bad idea, since we are the ones spending our time writing the code and
> maintaining it, the user better be able to convince the team of
> developers that their idea makes sense.  Blindly accepting all user
> input and doing whatever they tell you results in CRAP and we don't want
> that.
> 
>> 
>> The 'art' of designing a good UI is to LISTEN to your users and to design
>> something that is functional and easy and intuitive to use. If your users
>> ask for Skins then you give them Skins. Eventually one user who knows
>> nothing about programming will develop a great Skin that will become more
>> popular than the original Skin, and then it will become the standard.
> 
> Skinning results in an inconsistent user interface.  This is bad for
> users and harder to support.  This will never become a feature.
> 
> http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/Using%20Pidgin#CanIskinPidgin
> 
> If you want a different UI, libpurple exists so that you can write one,
> and we welcome anyone that wants to do so to provide different types of
> users and platforms with access to multi-protocol IM clients.
> 
>> 
>> After skimming the threads Gary pointed out I am just dumbfounded that
>> the
>> developers can be so pig headed. The present icons without protocol serve
>> NO
>> PURPOSE. They just tell you whether the user is online or away or busy or
>> whatever. This could EASILY be done by the color of the text for the name
>> of
>> the user, or if you really insist to be graphical, the shade of the
>> Avatar
>> or the frame of the Avatar for a particular user.
> 
> Using coloring alone causes accessibility problems for people with
> colorblindness.  For that reason and due to the fact that colorization
> cannot be intuitive, it has been decided that "complex rainbows of
> confusion" (at least as the only mechanism for providing information)
> have no place in Pidgin.
> 
> <snipped rehashing of the same stuff people already complained about>
> 
> We did eventually add protocol icons back, for the record, because while
> we believe you shouldn't need or want to depend on them, some people
> insist that they do.  They're still off by default, but make sure you're
> using a recent version of Pidgin and then go Buddies > Show > Protocol
> Icons.
> 
> However we're not removing the dot/clock/paper/etc, it's a reliable,
> consistent status indicator used throughout the UI.
> 
>> 
>> It is very unfortunate to see that GAIM has fallen into the hands of a
>> bunch
>> of programmers who make design decisions without any regard to the
>> opinions
>> of the users. Pidgins are rats with wings! The choice of this stupid name
>> accurately reflects the present state of this stupid application.
> 
> Pidgins are languages:
> 
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pidgin
> 
> If you still think the name is stupid, that's too bad.  It was changed
> due to necessity and it was chosen because of how well it fits with our
> project, and because it lent itself to a silly cartoon pigeon by way of
> a pun.  The developers are many users are quite fond of the new name.
> It's certainly to be expected that some people are not, but you can't
> please everyone.  You'll go insane if you try, and you'll make a lot
> more people miserable in the process.
> 
> The people developing Pidgin now are in large part the same people that
> were around at the time of the release of Gaim 0.60, the first official
> GTK 2.x and Windows release, so it hasn't fallen anywhere.  The hands
> are just continuing to reevaluate how to provide the best possible IM
> client we can come up with.  If you don't agree, you don't have to use it.
> 
>> 
>> 
>> 
>> Gary Kramlich wrote:
>> Charliep wrote:
>>>>> I have a question about Pidgin: Is there a way to Change the Green
>>>>> Online
>>>>> Icon to an Icon reflecting the IM Protocol?
>> <snip>
>> 
>> Please see the ridiculously long email threads in the archives[1] about
>> this topic as well as trac[2].
>> 
>> [1] http://pidgin.im/pipermail/devel/
>> [2] http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/414
>> 
>>>
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>>>
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