[Pidgin] #3801: Change status for various accounts

[Pidgin]

#3801: Change status for various accounts
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  Reporter:  neok          |       Owner:  lschiere
      Type:  enhancement   |      Status:  closed  
  Priority:  minor         |   Milestone:          
 Component:  unclassified  |     Version:  2.2.2   
Resolution:  invalid       |    Keywords:  status  
   Pending:  0             |  
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Comment (by deryni):

 pidgin does restore the previous status when you restart pidgin, so I'm
 not sure why you mentioned that.

 Again, the New... dialog is to set a new *global* status, which global
 status can have per-account exceptions. pidgin has *no* built in interface
 for on-the-fly setting of the status of a single account. The sooner you
 understand the distinction between adding an exception to a global status
 and changing the status of a single account the faster you will understand
 what the pidgin interface was designed for.

 Your 20% and 80% numbers are amazingly off judging by the number of people
 who have complained about the lack of per-protocol status change support
 since we removed it, by far the lion's share of people have appreciated
 the much simpler global status system than have even commented on the fact
 that the per-account control was removed (let alone complained about it or
 asked for it back). So please don't confuse what *you* want (and maybe
 what your handful of friends want) with what *everyone* wants, ok?

 The mystatusbox plugin is exactly the feature you want presented in a
 perfectly consistent interface, the fact that that interface is huge is
 unfortunate. In sim can you set a custom message in a custom status per-
 account? Can you set up a global status with per-account exceptions? How
 do you tell multiple accounts on the same protocol apart at a glance in
 that status icon bar? How many accounts can you fit across the bottom of
 your buddy list window? What happens if you have more accounts than that?
 Where do the extra icons go? Did you ignore the fact that the status
 selector in pidgin lists global statuses (the stock ones, cached ones, and
 saved ones, sim only seems to have stock ones in your screenshot)?

 The list of accounts in the New dialog likely should be what grows as the
 dialog grows, as opposed to the message area, that is a good suggestion,
 please file a ticket asking for that specifically. Thank you.

 The fact that a second dialog is needed for the per-account controls in
 the New... dialog is unfortunate but unavoidable. GTK+ does not provide us
 with a way to embed a dropdown and a text entry area cleanly into the
 account list, nor would that be a particularly friendly interface even if
 we could. Do you have suggestions as to how better to present the user
 with the ability to pick the status type and message for the per-account
 exception? If so, I would love to hear it.

 One more time, since you appear not to have understood this yet. pidgin
 *only* has statuses that effect *every* "enabled" account. pidgin however
 lets these "globally effective" statuses have *per-account exceptions*
 (which are the "custom statuses" you keep referring to from sim). These
 are two very different models of status management, with the pidgin model
 being significantly more powerful since it allows you to set up and save
 arbitrarily complex configurations of statuses and messages.

 Again, pidgin has a significantly more complicated and powerful status
 system then just about every other IM client I have ever heard of, but
 that complexity and power means the interface has to be a little bit
 different. The fact that it is different is not a problem in-and-of-
 itself, the fact that it is not "one click to set a per-account custom
 status" is only a problem for you (and the small handful of people who
 need that ability) and you and that handful of people can easily write a
 plugin to allow you to do that (or you can use the mystatusbox plugin
 which is already written and gives you that control). I have seen no
 indications from you (other than your continued inability to understand
 what a global status with exceptions means) that there is in fact a
 targettable problem with the pidgin interface. I'm sure it could be made
 better but I can't figure out how and you aren't helping.

-- 
Ticket URL: <https://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/3801#comment:19>
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