[Pidgin] #3061: Font Controls Inconsistent and Unclear + Proposal for Revision

[Pidgin]

#3061: Font Controls Inconsistent and Unclear + Proposal for Revision
---------------------------+------------------------------------------------
  Reporter:  irv           |       Owner:       
      Type:  defect        |      Status:  new  
  Priority:  minor         |   Milestone:       
 Component:  pidgin (gtk)  |     Version:  2.1.1
Resolution:                |    Keywords:       
   Pending:  1             |  
---------------------------+------------------------------------------------
Changes (by irv):

  * pending:  1 => 0

Comment:

 Replying to [comment:2 deryni]:

 I appreciate the feedback.  Really!

 > The 'Use font from theme' and 'Conversation font' preferences are indeed
 badly named, badly placed, and unfortunately complex. I'll explain this as
 best I can in a separate post.
 >
 > The 'Default Formatting' preference on the other hand is rather clear,
 the explanatory text in the text area is there for a reason and as it
 explains the way you see your text there is the way it will be sent out.
 If you set no font preferences in the dialog you will in fact send no
 formatting on outgoing messages, if you are seeing something else (and I
 have to ask how you determined that you are) I would suggest that you did
 in fact set font preferences at one point and that hitting the Font->Reset
 Formatting toolbar item might be a good idea.

 This issue came up for me using the Aero theme but not liking the light
 grey text.  I set the foreground and background text color this way, but a
 buddy on Meebo said she couldn't see any text.  I then changed the text
 color to white by changing the GTK theme file (unnecessarily tricky, if
 you ask me and is what really inspired this ticket).  I later used Meebo
 to find out that Georgia (or whatever the conversation font is) is still
 transmitted even if "font face" is unchecked in the Font drop-down list.
 This might be a separate bug, but it makes sense to me to include it in
 this issue, because the effect for the user is still confusion on setting
 the font formatting.

 >
 > The GTK+ Theme Control plugin controls the default font used in the
 conversation history area when a message does not specify a font of its
 own, it is only and exactly the 'font' gtkrc setting applied only to the
 history area. The name and explanation of the plugin was designed to make
 it clear what it was setting, as was the fact that the plugin allows you
 to write the settings to a file which can be examined.

 Sorry, I don't understand this.  I think it makes sense to combine all
 font settings into one pane.  The fact that they're spanned onto plugins
 is taxing on the user.  I shouldn't have to even understand how GTK themes
 work to set formatting preferences in Pidgin.

 >
 > The Font dropdown is just for that buddy and only until reset, which is
 exactly how it works in every other application anyone will ever have
 used. Both other IM applications and word processors work exactly this
 way. I find it unlikely that this will have confused anyone and, in fact,
 can not recall ever hearing anyone express confusion about it.

 This is kind of an enhancement, that is true.  For my buddy with Meebo, it
 might be helpful to set formatting preferences just for that buddy.  In
 retrospect, this point seems quite minor and not worth including compared
 to my other points.

 >
 > The Conversation Colors plugin could likely stand to be made a little
 more clear, and were I to have my way we would likely just drop it
 altogether as I personally don't like it much and have seen it cause a
 number of font, color, etc. annoyances for a number of people.
 >
 > Pidgin level preferences to override or control or manipulate GTK+ theme
 settings are incredibly unlikely to make it into pidgin as they are in
 general really not a good idea. The only reason the  GTK+ Theme Control
 plugin exists is because the GTK+ theme documentation is generally lacking
 and the only reason I wrote it at all was because I was going to include
 the ability to write the settings out to a file in the hopes of people
 being able to see the file and copy/understand it. I will strongly argue
 against any addition of random GTK+ theme setting controls into pidgin
 (and have done so on more than one occasion).

 Again, I don't think users care to learn anything about GTK+ theme
 settings.  I think users are more inclined to set preferences for the
 specific application; i.e., Pidgin.  I don't even use another GTK app.

 >
 > Similarly, message level formatting options do not belong in pidgin as
 preferences, if these were to happen at all they would be done at the
 gtkrc level via gtkimhtml (the text rendering widget we currently use)
 setting up the right GTK+ properties/settings or by our moving to a more
 feature complete text rendering widget (like the GTK+ port of WebKit) and
 the use of message styles/themes there.

 Sorry, I don't understand the implications of this for the user.  Most of
 my issues are with the interface and not with the mechanisms.

 >
 > I hope I didn't come across sounding too harsh, that was not my intent,
 I only wanted to indicate that I feel your proposal makes the pidgin font
 settings more complicated, harder to understand and work out correctly,
 and makes it more difficult to work correctly with GTK+ and GTK+ themes
 rather than unifying the (potentially conflicting) font configuration
 interfaces that currently exists.

 I believe controls that make sense to go together should be combined in
 the interface, even if some effect GTK+ themes and others Pidgin itself
 behind the scenes.

 >
 > Both suggestions on how to make the existing options more readily clear
 and/or ways to simplify the settings we currently are more than welcome.

 I hope my feedback is useful.  I spent a lot of time writing it, so I hope
 it wasn't totally in vain.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/3061#comment:4>
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