I'd like to preface this message with a statement -- I may be considered a gaim heretic for the contents of this message, but I do not wish to give off this idea. I'm just brainstorming enhancements here.
Has anyone here played with Gabber (gnome jabber client)? I must say, despite the uselessness of jabber due to the relatively nonexistent userbase, the client is awesome. It features a UI that just blows gaim away. Personally, I'd like to see gaim have a UI that good, and I think it's possible, but not right now. I've been hacking away at gaim for the last few days, and I think that gaim needs some major restructuring. The TOC/OSCAR interfaces need to be separated cleanly from the UI, perhaps via some sort of event loop or callback system. That way the UI can be replaced completely. I'm personally looking into the feasibility of such a task, but I want to know what everyone else thinks. Give me some feedback -- does anyone else agree with me?
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I've also looked at Gabber and EveryBuddy, and I must say I much prefer gaim's UI. (I'm also biased.)
That said, Rob and I (and Jim and a couple other people) have talked about the feasibility of removing the UI from gaim, much like you're talking about (and like how X-Chat and Licq have done, if I understand correctly). Basically, all of us have decided that it's possible, but way too much work for our time.
Right now, everything in gaim is very tightly tied together (at least, the major components. Things like the plugins and the preferences are much more loosely tied in). Gaim never had a design goal of having a UI that wasn't tied to the networking code. It's made integrating libfaim a much bigger struggle than it probably needed to be. And it's going to make what you want to have happen extremely difficult. Sorry.
As a side note (?), Rob has been planning on changing the UI considerably. If there's anything you'd like to see removed, added, or changed for the next release, let either one of us know and we'll work on it (better yet, send a patch).
If you would like to refer to this comment somewhere else in this project, copy and paste the following link:
I'd like to preface this message with a statement -- I may be considered a gaim heretic for the contents of this message, but I do not wish to give off this idea. I'm just brainstorming enhancements here.
Has anyone here played with Gabber (gnome jabber client)? I must say, despite the uselessness of jabber due to the relatively nonexistent userbase, the client is awesome. It features a UI that just blows gaim away. Personally, I'd like to see gaim have a UI that good, and I think it's possible, but not right now. I've been hacking away at gaim for the last few days, and I think that gaim needs some major restructuring. The TOC/OSCAR interfaces need to be separated cleanly from the UI, perhaps via some sort of event loop or callback system. That way the UI can be replaced completely. I'm personally looking into the feasibility of such a task, but I want to know what everyone else thinks. Give me some feedback -- does anyone else agree with me?
I've also looked at Gabber and EveryBuddy, and I must say I much prefer gaim's UI. (I'm also biased.)
That said, Rob and I (and Jim and a couple other people) have talked about the feasibility of removing the UI from gaim, much like you're talking about (and like how X-Chat and Licq have done, if I understand correctly). Basically, all of us have decided that it's possible, but way too much work for our time.
Right now, everything in gaim is very tightly tied together (at least, the major components. Things like the plugins and the preferences are much more loosely tied in). Gaim never had a design goal of having a UI that wasn't tied to the networking code. It's made integrating libfaim a much bigger struggle than it probably needed to be. And it's going to make what you want to have happen extremely difficult. Sorry.
As a side note (?), Rob has been planning on changing the UI considerably. If there's anything you'd like to see removed, added, or changed for the next release, let either one of us know and we'll work on it (better yet, send a patch).