Alias option changes Google Contact

[Paul Aurich]

And Gary Quiring spoke on 01/04/2011 05:43 AM, saying:
> I have contacts where the name is very long.  So I like to abbreviate the
> name in Pidgin so it just shows a first name on occasion or a nickname. But
> when I assign an alias in Pidgin it actually steps on the first and last
> names in my Google Contacts.  I don't feel Pidgin should be updating my
> contacts in the Google cloud. 

Pidgin (really libpurple's jabber prpl) sets the 'name' attribute for this
entry in the XMPP account's roster, which is treated as an authortative
set-by-the-user alias (which is what it's intended for).  It just so
happens that (unfortunately to more than one Pidgin user) Google Talk links
this to the Google Contact entry.

This has been reported before to the bug tracker, and the issue may still
be open (or might have been closed as "cantfix", I can't remember and
didn't look).

You can work around it by right-clicking on the buddy, choose "Expand", and
set the alias on the Contact (the fairly thin row at the top, instead of
the buddy).  This should set the contact-only alias, and has priority over
the buddy's alias.  At least, I think that's what I just confirmed happens
via testing and code inspection :)

Let me know if that didn't make sense...
~Paul

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