[Pidgin] #562: case for old icons: Advantagous heuristics of differentiated protocol icons

[Pidgin]

#562: case for old icons: Advantagous heuristics of differentiated protocol icons
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  Reporter:  Ash           |       Owner:                
      Type:  defect        |      Status:  closed        
  Priority:  minor         |   Milestone:                
 Component:  pidgin (gtk)  |     Version:  2.0           
Resolution:  duplicate     |    Keywords:  icons protocol
   Pending:  0             |  
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Comment (by merwin):

 Replying to [comment:9 elb]:
 > I suggest signing off your other accounts for the time necessary to
 prune that list.
 OK, that does work. Thanks for that tip.
 > It is clear from this, and your next comment, that you don't understand
 this because you are not a programmer.  That is fine, but it does make
 assertions like "it would just be ..." somewhat shady.  Any time there is
 a portion of code which is only exercised ''sometimes'', there is
 disproportionate cost for maintaining that code.  You are sort of correct,
 in that the cost is not ''that'' great, but it is greater than the value
 of the option (which is very nearly nil).
 I'm not a programmer? That will very much disappoint the company that I
 have been working for as a developer for the last several years. They will
 be sad to hear that they have wasted all of that money on me... and will
 probably wonder how I produced so much code for them over the years :)

 > But you assume that the regular developers do have the spare time to
 write such a plugin, apparently without even any idea of how much time
 that would be?  Interesting logic...
 The icons already exist for each contact, they are just stuck in a popup
 instead of being displayed on the contact list. Having it display the
 topmost icon in the contact list itself should be very few lines of code,
 since the logic of displaying the icon is already there.
 I would write the damn plugin myself, but I have no experience in GTK, and
 also have no experience developing for Pidgin. Therefore, there is a huge
 learning curve for me to write the small amount of code.
 My main point in all of this is this: It seems the developers of Pidgin
 are telling users how they should be using IM, instead of letting the
 users dictate what they want in the application. One thing that I know for
 sure is that developers should not be the ones making usability decisions,
 as the average user thinks completely different.

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Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/562#comment:10>
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