[Pidgin] #14942: Recognize absence of the '#' prefix when joining IRC channel

[Pidgin]

#14942: Recognize absence of the '#' prefix when joining IRC channel
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+
 Reporter:  FelixAkk                                                               |        Owner:  elb
     Type:  enhancement                                                            |       Status:  new
Milestone:                                                                         |    Component:  IRC
  Version:  2.10.1                                                                 |   Resolution:     
 Keywords:  irc, join, dialog, error, user input, interpretation, no such channel  |  
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------+

Comment(by elb):

 The error message in question is poor.  I'll have to look to see how it is
 generated to see how hard that is to "fix".

 Blindly prefixing # to channels which are entered incorrectly by the user
 is not a good solution.  For one thing, channels can start with characters
 other than #.  (That's why it has the # -- if every channel had a #, it
 wouldn't have to.)  The channel you request, without the #, really does
 not exist.  However, despite the fact that the message is *correct*, I
 tend to agree that this particular error is unhelpful for users who don't
 understand that the # is important.

 I would be more inclined to disallow completing the dialog unless the
 channel began with a channel marker, but unfortunately we don't
 necessarily know what those are.  The standard describes only # and &, but
 I know of at least one network which uses *, and other networks may use
 other characters.

-- 
Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/14942#comment:1>
Pidgin <http://pidgin.im>
Pidgin