Hacking Around New Typing Notifications?

[Shreevatsa R]

* Quoting Trip who at 2008-03-29 11:22:12-0400 (Sat) wrote
> I'm very much not a programmer, but am a Kubuntu Linux user who has 
> chosen to use Pidgin IM over Kopete for some of Pidgin's excellent 
> plugins and features.  For example, the scrolling of messages rather 
> than just "appearing" is an excellent usability feature that I don't 
> think I can do without anymore.  Psychic mode alerts me in advance when 
> messages are coming.

Cool, someone else likes the smooth scrolling :)
> 
> But I cannot stand the new typing notification.  It completely breaks 
> how I use IM and makes my life more difficult.  I tend to "stick" IM 
> windows above whatever else I'm doing, and then watch for any new 
> messages to scroll up.  (Please also note that I have tabs disabled; 
> each conversation has its own window)  The scrolling behavior allows 
> enough movement for my eye to catch when a new message comes in, and is 
> probably the largest reason I chose Pidgin IM over any alternative.  
> Since now messages scroll up when a message is being typed, it distracts 
> me from my other tasks when no message has been sent.  Further, when 
> someone does type a message, if it is short, no movement occurs and I 
> often miss the message.

Several users have raised this point, but I do not recall the developers
replying to this.  This I think is a valid objection and would be quite
simply solved by reserving a line at the bottom of the window, where
typing notifications can come and go without causing anything to scroll.
I do not know why this change has not been made.

If you are building Pidgin from source yourself, you can make it work
this way by inserting "#define RESERVE_LINE" in pidgin/gtkconv.c before
compiling.

Regards,