[Pidgin] #4986: automatic chat input field resizing should be optional, regression from 2.3

[Pidgin]

#4986: automatic chat input field resizing should be optional, regression from 2.3
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  Reporter:  swbrown       |       Owner:                   
      Type:  enhancement   |      Status:  closed           
  Priority:  minor         |   Milestone:                   
 Component:  pidgin (gtk)  |     Version:  2.4.0            
Resolution:  wontfix       |    Keywords:  chat input resize
   Pending:  0             |  
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Comment (by ConnorBehan):

 This is unbelievable. I tried adding my support to this sensible ticket,
 hoping all of us would cumulatively hold some sway over the developers
 (there are now three times as many posts below my first post as there are
 above).

 I tried discussing this in IRC but the biggest promise I could get was elb
 saying that we might get manual resizing back if people are still
 complaining about this in three years (I was later blocked from #pidgin).
 This "wontfix" position has me even more worried now.

 I tried letting it rest. Clearly many people replying to this ticket are
 much better at articulating their opinions than me. I had made my position
 known and there was no point belaboring it.

 So we're only making it worse by complaining? Then what should we do...
 NOT complain? We are in a no win situation here.

 If we had kept our mouths shut, respected your so called wisdom and
 refrained from getting involved... would you have really said "We will
 bring back auto-resizing because it looks like the users are considerate
 enough to deserve our attention." Absolutely not, you would not even know
 that people hated the auto-resizing if this were the case.

 Now lets say most people kept their mouth shut but maybe 10 people or so
 posted well thought out constructive criticism on these forums. Then you
 would say we are a "vocal minority." I heard those exact words used on
 IRC. According to Ethan Blanton, some people did request an intelligent
 text box that you didn't have to resize. I'm not sure how many people
 requested this but something tells me it wasn't a majority either. If you
 really require a majority vote to revert a feature you are looking at over
 a million users.

 Ok so getting the majority of Pidgin users to voice their opinions is not
 realistic, so we did the next best thing. We got a good one hundred people
 to respond to this ticket. It may not be a million but we did our best.
 Now what are you telling us? That our attitudes are so ungrateful that you
 are losing interest in reverting the feature?

 What if by some miracle, hundreds of people HAD replied to this forum but
 had kept their cool and discussed the matter logically for these two
 months without getting impatient? Then you would say  what seanegan
 already said... that users were just repeating "the same tired old
 points."

 So if we complain, we lose, if we don't complain, we lose. Is there any
 way we can bow down to you and earn enough of your respect for you to
 consider this tiny code change? Of course not, there is no way to convince
 the developers that manual resizing is better. Their vision of what Pidgin
 should be is non-negotiable and every response to this ticket (the kind
 ones and the not-so-kind ones) has only reinforced that they are the ones
 in charge and that there is absolutely nothing we can do.

 Gaim has always been very special to me. It was only the second open
 source application I ever used (after Firefox) and played a huge role
 introducing me to the world of GNU/Linux and other free software. Perhaps
 I am just afraid of change, and could eventually get used to auto-
 resizing. But now I am going to send one of your questions back down this
 two way street. I am not going to be open minded about auto-resizing
 because YOUR attitudes have not convinced me to change my lifestyle this
 way.

 Alas, there is no way to restore manual resizing to the main branch of the
 program we used to love. Sure there are probably thousands of us who would
 be happier with manual resizing, and sure we helped make Pidgin what it is
 today, but the developers don't work for us, they work for themselves. We
 are just a bad case of FSUES.

 I would rather let the user decide what features go into a program.
 Naturally there are limits to this... we don't want Pidgin to be a text
 editor, a web browser, an newsreader and an email client but we DO want
 manual resizing. Refusing to add our much requested feature isn't wrong...
 the developers have every right to develop the program how they see fit
 without giving a damn about anyone else... but it isn't what I would do.

 For many of us this was the last straw. Other users will probably leave in
 the future, when they update to the newest version of Pidgin or when they
 get offended by poor UI choice after poor UI choice, but for me this is
 the last straw. Life is full of disappointments that cannot be changed but
 luckily this is one of the rare cases where a completely desirable
 solution is in my reach... and I intend to take advantage of it.

 Unless the Pidgin developers bring back manual resizing among other things
 and change their entire philosophy in general, you can rest assured that I
 will maintain Funpidgin for the rest of my life.  Even if I never learn
 enough programming to add advanced improvements, I will make sure the
 simple changes I have already made are matched with each new version of
 Pidgin. Even if all of my work is made available in plugin form (like
 nodashi's manualsize), I will still make sure Funpidgin is distributed
 WITH these plugins. Even if I am the only one using Funpidgin, I will keep
 it updated because Pidgin has had a profound effect on my life and I am
 not about to let it go.

 So that is my last rant on the issue. Future posts to this ticket will
 only be to alert people of new releases of Funpidgin and such.

 In case anyone doesn't know, Funpidgin 2.4.1 is
 [http://funpidgin.sourceforge.net|out]. Look for "Entry area manual
 sizing" in the plugins list!

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/4986#comment:264>
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