Pidgin Refresh

[Shlomi Fish]

Hi Steven,

On Sat, 27 Oct 2012 14:47:11 +0200
Steven Ferreira <steven.ferreira91 at gmail.com> wrote:

> Hi Pidgin Project,
> 
> I'm a big fan of the Pidgin project but also of the elementary project too.

What is the "elementary" project? This returns nothing:

https://www.google.com/search?q=elementary%20instant%20messaging

> Pidgin needs some kind of refresh because it's slowly losing all their main
> users.

Citation needed. Right now it seems this mailing list is active with user
questions and people appear to be actively using it. I have switched from
Kopete to Pidgin a while ago, and I didn't look back - Pidgin is simply so much
better.

> It should be rewritten and learn of his mistakes and perhaps follow new
> design guidelines.

Rewritten? Why? What is so wrong with the old codebase that requires a write?
And what are those new design guidelines that you speak about, and why are they
superior? I happen to like Pidgin's user-interface, and many people like it too.

For why complete rewrites are a bad idea, see:

* http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000069.html

* http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/fog0000000348.html

> The importance of Pidgin will become smaller and smaller.

We have a saying in Hebrew that after the destruction of the first temple,
prophecy was taken away from prophets and given to fools.

> On Windows nearly all users use Windows live Messenger, Skype and there
> will be so many other im clients in the Windows 8 appstore, so there is no
> need for Pidgin.

Well, Mainland Chinese users are primarily using
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tencent_QQ , and Pidgin fills the need for an
open-source client.

> On the linux platform we also have a lot of im clients like Skype, Emesene
> and even Empathy (which is very GNOME integrated), ...

Skype is proprietary and 32-bit only and is now owned by Microsoft (so its
future on Linux is uncertain). Emesene and Empathy are open-source as well, and
competition is welcome. Personally, I didn't like Empathy too much - Pidgin is
equally as fast, and much more usable, stable, and feature-rich.  

> 
> As Pidgin uses GTK as a toolkit it should only concentrate on the Linux
> platform. 

Why? Lots of people are using Pidgin on Windows and/or Mac OS X.

> It should use GTK3 and even follow a completely new design
> concept.

I suppose one can port Pidgin to Gtk+ 3. It does not mean it should run only on
Linux though, because Gtk+ 3 is available on Windows and Mac OS X.

> I'm talking about the elementary design concept, it has no menu-bar and the
> most apps are all simple to use.

Please no. I appreciate that desktop applications have a menu bar (including
Pidgin) and this is one of the reasons I hate Google Chrome/Chromium:

http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/46078.html

Regarding simplicity, see what I wrote:

http://shlomif-tech.livejournal.com/64318.html

> 
> At first Pidgin would start as a community project and later even as an
> official elementary project if it respects all the elementary guidelines.

Pidgin is already a community project.

> 
> Why i'm telling this ? Actually many GNOME distributions don't use Pidgin.
> Elementary is looking for volunteers to create a new im Client.
> They already started a provisional im client project called
> Graham<https://launchpad.net/graham>
> .

Well, GNOME have blessed Empathy as their official client (unfortunately if you
ask me).

> 
> Features of this im client would be :
> 
> - Single window for the contacts and conversation
> - Conversation Themes
> - Super simple Interface
> - No Menu-bar
> - Using telepathy tubes
> - ...

Sounds really bad.

> 
> There are some of elementary mockups floating around like this
> one<http://bassultra.deviantart.com/art/A-chat-app-293571950?q=gallery%3Abassultra%2F38618756&qo=23>
> .
> 
> I think actually there aren't a lot of elementary developers with an "im
> client developing experience" so please help elementary by contributing to
> Graham.
> Another possibility is to modify pidgin but for doing that it has to follow
> the elementary standards like no menu-bar, the gui should be very simple to
> use and it should be written as much as possible in Vala.
> 
> Please help the elementary project on creating an amazing im client which
> would be a serious competitor for Empathy.

We have one already and it's called Pidgin.

Regards,

	Shlomi Fish

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Shlomi Fish       http://www.shlomifish.org/
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