[Pidgin] #8400: Alias/IM account relationship

[Pidgin]

#8400: Alias/IM account relationship
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 Reporter:  sfsdfd  |           Owner:  lschiere    
     Type:  defect  |          Status:  pending     
Milestone:          |       Component:  unclassified
  Version:  2.5.4   |      Resolution:              
 Keywords:          |   Launchpad_bug:              
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Changes (by deryni):

  * status:  new => pending


Comment:

 Your usages of 'alias' and 'account' are entirely non-obvious to me. What
 exactly are you using them to mean? In pidgin-speak an 'account' is what
 you set up locally to connect to a service, so you add an XMPP/AIM/MSN
 account to pidgin and an 'alias' is a label applied to an account, a buddy
 (the items you add to your buddy list which represent your friends), or a
 contact (merged grouping of buddies) that is separate from the actual
 account or buddy username.

 Given that I have no idea how any what it means for
  1. an 'alias' to contain an 'account'
  2. an 'alias' to be expanded
  3. an "IM account" to "exist within an alias"

 Assuming when you say "When an alias that contains a single account isn't
 expanded, renaming the alias automatically renames the account." you mean
 "When you right-click on a collapsed contact and select Alias you alias
 the buddy that is being displayed rather than the contact itself" then
 that is acting as intended. Contacts are intended to be transparent unless
 you look for them, which means that setting an alias on the contact breaks
 that (especially since, for some protocols, aliases can be stored on the
 server when set on a buddy but cannot when set on a contact).

 Assuming when you say "When an alias is expanded, renaming the single
 account automatically renames the alias" you mean "When right-clicking and
 selecting Alias on a buddy in an expanded contact the displayed alias for
 the collapsed contact displays the buddy alias" then that is also working
 as intended, for the same reason as above. Contacts are transparent.

 Assuming when you say "When some profile settings are lost, Pidgin
 restores the entire list of IM accounts, but the alias information is
 completely lost" you mean "when you start pidgin without the locally
 stored configuration/etc. information that only the buddy names (and not
 aliases) are pulled from the server" then that is once again working as it
 should be (assuming the account in question is not on a protocol which can
 store aliases on the server, offhand I think we only do this for AIM at
 the moment).

 I'm going to copy your last entry since it is long but I am going to talk
 about it now. Many protocols do not in fact allow you to have the same
 buddy on the buddy list more than once, so it is not in fact common for
 that to happen. On what protocol are you getting buddy authorization
 requests for a buddy that you already have on the buddy list (under the
 account that is receiving the request)? On XMPP, which is the main
 protocol that I know of that supports a buddy being on the buddy list
 multiple times that should not happen (at least not when the buddy is
 actually on the buddy list as opposed to just on the locally stored list).
 Automatically assuming that an incoming request from a given buddy on a
 second account is the same buddy as the existing buddy entry for a first
 account is not a reasonable thing to do as it has a decently high
 potential to be wrong or at least not what the user wants.

 I'd go into further detail on some of this but this post is already very
 long. If I misunderstood you please clarify your points. If I missed
 something please explain again. If you didn't understand something I said
 ask for clarification. And finally, if you have specific action sequences
 that you think are confusing or could use fixing please explain them
 specifically and explain what you think could be done to make them
 clearer/work better.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/8400#comment:1>
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