From: Sean E. <sea...@bi...> - 2005-03-09 17:19:47
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On Wed, 2005-03-09 at 15:24 +1300, Jason G. Ellison wrote: > I threw this together yesterday and did some quick spell check today, it's > rough but should get the point across. I look forward to the discussion. Hey, Jason! The current design about status and accounts and stuff aims for simple elegance in both UI and functionality. You're aware of this. I'm a huge fan of the concept that "these are all the accounts I use, but there's only one of me. I'm I'm actually away, or idle, or on the phone, then all my accounts should show that" and so I'm not a huge fan of this account group idea. As you state, the same thing can be accomplished with multiple instances of Gaim (with the appropriate -c flags set), and I think that would actually provide a more comfortable experience all around: not only is it easier to understand that a Gaim instance represents a single person rather than an amalgamation of sets of aggregated accounts (amalgamate and aggregate are fun words), but the UI for using it would also be simpler. Your UI, which is obviously just a mockup to present your ideas, nothing you intended to be set in stone, also seems more complicated than it is currently. It has some good ideas in it (I like showing the buddy icon in the account list, for instance, but overall it feels very Windowsy and I'm not sure why. I think it's because the dialogs look like they use explicit positioning a la Windows resource files. Anyway, I'm not convinced that the confusion added by the notion of account grouping isn't outweighed by its benefits, especially when the same effect can be accomplished (better, I think) by multiple instances of Gaim. I am concerned that my idea may be too limiting for a lot of people, however, and I'm glad to see so many people coming up with ideas. I'm sure that with the feedback these designs generate, we'll be able to find the best compromise between "power" and simplicity. Does anyone else have any opinions about Jason's mockups? -s. |