Why pressure featuers you like your self?

[Kevin Stange]

mail at millerm.com wrote:
>> There were numerous flaws and faults in the previous behavior which, at
> the >very least, we should fix in this process.
> 
> What were the flaws and the faults? To me, it was absolutely perfect. I
> understand your argument about making Pidgin better, but the new behavior
> made it only worse for me, and many others. The reason I stopped using
> other IM clients was because they didn't offer a user-resizable input
> area. The reason I abandoned every other IM client I ever tried was, yes,
> for this one feature.
> 
> I don't expect Pidgin to bend to my, or anyone's, wishes. However, to me a
> reversion to the old behavior makes the most sense. I absolutely abhor
> with a passion with which I cannot even quantify any change that:
> 
> 1) Resizes anything on my screen without my permission, including, indeed,
> input text areas.

The previous behavior contained auto-resizing features as well, you just 
had your input area too big to notice, but automatically adjusting 
spaces to fit things better is not an unreasonable thing to do in order 
to ensure more efficient use of space.

> 
> 2) Takes away a feature that was, largely, the very reason I was using the
> IM client in the first place.

If that was the only reason you were using Pidgin, I will not be upset 
if you go find another client.

> 
> 3) Ignores the wishes of largely 50% of the user base or more.

You've made this number up.  Prove you didn't.

> 
> Why does this new feature bite the big 'un:
> 
> 1) I frequently type quite large instant messages to a wide variety of
> people. My boss. My girlfriend. A variety of friends. Just looking over my
> logs, my average message takes up about seven lines. Why do I want to
> scroll to see and check what I am typing? Why should I have to when it
> worked perfectly before?

Hey, this is actually a useful statement, but it's a rehashing of the 
one already made in the OTHER thread where there was lots of 
constructive discussion.

> 
> 2) I don't want stuff flying all over my screen. If I wanted that, I'd
> turn Compiz on, or play Quake. I want things to be where I put them only.

Flying?  I don't think we've had any flying since the flying buddies 
thing got fixed.  Everything stays were it is, we just don't let you 
change the size manually.  This exaggeration makes me seriously consider 
ignoring everything else you have to say.

> 3) In the situations where I do want a miniscule text window, unintuitive
> behavior, and text flying all over my screen, even under the old client
> (well, similar), I could just shrink my text input window. This is why the
> old way makes the most sense.

I'm ignoring this "point" because you're not saying anything.

> 
> 4) The window looks very unbalanced with a bunch of text on top and a
> little that I can not read easily or check in the bottom. The aesthetics
> of it alone are terrible.

This is ridiculous.  I rarely enter more than one or two lines of text, 
why would I need to have an even amount of space used for the input 
area?  Widgets that are much larger than they need to be to hold their 
contents don't serve any balancing purpose.  They just waste space.  If 
there is some reason you need to fill that widget with more stuff than I 
do that's a valid argument, but this is not.

> 
> 5) And, the most important reason to change it back is that it's what I,
> and many other users, prefer.

That's not a statement that carries any weight.  I'm sure there are 
plenty of other users that prefer it this way who simply haven't 
bothered to say how great it is because they're happy.

Regardless, we're looking for real usage case explanations to explain 
why there is a need for behavior like the previous and we will consider 
those arguments as we look to adjust our changes to be more useful to a 
larger set of use cases.

> 
> I'd be willing to donate as much money as it will take to get this feature
> reverted. What's the going price? That's a serious offer, by the way.
> 

I don't know if I speak for everyone in this project, but I believe 
strongly in not taking "bribes" to change the features of Pidgin.  If 
you want to pay a developer to implement something specific as a bounty, 
that's fine, but that should be no guarantee that it will be accepted 
into Pidgin, and no donation should ever be earmarked to be contingent 
upon a specific change.

That is a slippery slope that would tarnish my opinion of Pidgin and 
goes against everything I believe open source should stand for.

Kevin

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