Hi
I've just updated my old gaim 1.5 to 2.0 and I'm very disapointed to see that some good features have been removed:
- All accounts now have the same status and "auto-login" option have disapeared. But the reason why I choosed gaim before was exactly that I was able to have multiple accounts with different behaviors. The MyStatusBox plugin is a good option but it takes a big amount of space in my buddy list window ! The account window was more convenient to use.
- The shortcut icons in the IM window were quite convenient but the disappeared. I don't see any good reason why I should now go through the menu to send a file or to block a buddy.
- I don't see anymore the little cross in the buddy icons saying that I'm not in someone's list. Again I don't see any good reasons why this feature has been removed !
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Anonymous
-
2007-03-14
This would be a good list to add to the Extended Preferences (Features) list..
Accounts by default all use the global status, that is correct, but you can now create any arbitrarily complex status with any account in any status, and save it for use later. Play with the New and Saved dialogs and you'll see. (Something which was impossible in 1.5.0.)
Auto-login is not gone. It has in fact become much closer to what most people want. gaim will start up in the status it was in when you quit gaim last, if you don't want that they you can pick a status for gaim to start up in in the preferences. (Both of which were impossible in 1.5.0.)
The buttons in the IM windows were removed because they took up a large amount of space and were rarely used, if you have an action that you use that frequently and don't want to use the menu item then set up keyboard shortcuts to the menu items and use those. (Which is likely faster for most actions anyway.)
That icon was removed from the buddy list because it was decided that it wasn't important enough, the information is still in the tooltip if you need it. It conveys no actually useful information, and certainly not anything useful enough to warrant being constantly displayed in the buddy list. If you find yourself caring that much about whether someone has you in their buddy list perhaps you should think about why you care so much and find a way to not need that sort of validation so badly.
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>If you find yourself caring that much about whether someone has you in their buddy list >perhaps you should think about why you care so much and find a way to not need that sort >of validation so badly.
This is not an answer ! Perhaps this icon is not important enough but I don't see why something "not important enough" should be removed. Sounds strange to me !
At least if it is not important "at all" I would understand but you agreed, using this term, that it might be useful in some cases.
Did gaim developpers receive complaints about this icon urging that it should be removed as soon as possible ?
If no then they should not try to do too much psychology about their users and leave this kind of features that might be useful.
I have a pratical example, in case you need one: once one of my e-friends had a bug with his Msn and I got removed from his user-list but he didn't know it. With the cross icon I immediatly found that there was a problem and we were able to solve it quite immediatly. Without this icon, I would have never noticed the bug and he neither (for him not connected contacts and removed contacts are all the same: they do not show in his list).
About the complex status: yes it is very useful and well done but easier way to do should not be removed in case people don't need such a complex behavior. I don't see why both ways cannot be kept together !
About keyboard shortcuts: this not as quick and useful as an icon, and I don't see how to create a keyboard shortcut in gaim's menu. Users should have the choice to put them or not depending on if they find them useful or not.
Why gaim developers want to decide everything for us ?
Comme on we are not childs and we can manage having more options !!
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Yes, knowing whether someone has you in their buddy list can be a useful piece of information, but it is in no way important enough to be shown on the main buddy list screen. Which is why it was removed but left in the tooltip.
No, we didn't receive complaints about it, but then again we didn't receive complaints about the fact that there wasn't a global status either, or really any about not having a global buddy icon. Running gaim development based only on the things we hear complaints about is not a model that makes any sense. And attempting to figure out what the users want is exactly what we should be doing, since that's the only way we can make a better IM client.
If your friend would never have noticed you weren't on his list then clearly your being on his list isn't very important. Because as soon as he needed to find you he would have seen that you were offline and checked with you about it later/some other way. So I don't buy this as a real reason.
What "simpler way" to control multiple accounts status are you thinking of? The way that didn't let you save complicated statuses? The way that required you to go into the Tools->Accounts menu once for each account? People really like saying the 1.5.0 status method was easier but are never really able to explain exactly what about it was so much easier.
Keyboard shortcuts are much quicker than an icon when you are already using the keyboard, which in an IM application is most of the time. Or so is the theory. If you want icons write a plugin to add them back, you can do it, we didn't stop you.
And experience tells me that most gaim users are in fact rather like children, in the way they ask for help, in the way they respond to comments, in the things they want their IM clients to do, in the things they want their IM clients not to do, etc. When you have the years of IM user support that I (and the other gaim developers do) you can then tell us what IM users by and large do and do not want and do and do not think/feel. Until then, please don't assume what you want/think/feel is what everyone else does.
(Did you know that until we got rid of the Send button many IM users didn't know you could send messages by hitting Enter?)
To create a shortcut in gaim, hover over the menu item and push the key. Done.
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Anonymous
-
2007-03-18
haha, I seriously did not notice that the send button had been removed until you mentioned it. Now I can't even think what the last version that had it would be.
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Gosh, I wouldn't have thought lost features, particularly this one,
would have been so inflammatory.
I liked the SEND button because very often I either
(a) send just a URL or some other bit copied from somewhere else
and pasted into the conversation window, or
(b) type in a bunch of stuff, then go back over it with the mouse,
select sections of text, and tweak them with the Bold, Italic,
Underline, or other buttons. Once I've switched from entering text
to modifying the text with the mouse, I liked being able to send
with the SEND button rather than going back to the keyboard immediately.
Not something to get worked up over.
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I can't speak for datallah, but I'm pretty sure I'm right when I say neither of us is getting worked up here. When people claim that things that were removed were important to them it is important for us to know why they think so. As to your two use cases: Yes, when one is already using the mouse continuing to do so is useful, which is why the right-click menu has Send as the very first menu item. Is that not convenient enough? Do you really think the Send button is necessary?
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Also, thanks for the clear replies in this thread. They were very useful, with the added benefit that I learned some of the cool things and smart thinking behind changes to Gaim that I hadn't even realized (of course, it's been awhile since I used 1.5 ;) ).
Anyways, just wanted to say Thanks Etan.
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Etan thanks for your reply. I have still some comments. I agree that developing gaim is not only a matter of answering to complaints but when you remove some features and receive complaints from users using them, then maybe you should take them into account rather than trying to convince them why they don't really need them :-) Personnaly I'm not a child like most of gaim users (as you say) and I know what features are useful for me or not...
- What do I mean by a much simplier way to control multiple accounts: being able to manage the status of each account separately without the need to create a new saved status for each possibilities. If I have N accounts and 2 different status (connect, disconnect), the number of saved status that I need to handle every combinaisons is 2^N !! I think that both ways are useful and you didn't manage to convince me that it is not a good idea to keep them together.
Why not handle "unsaved" miscenaleus status and offer the possibility to save them if needed ?
- About the shortcut buttons, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would really appreciate that you keep somewhere an option in order to activate them or not. It does not cost you a lot and you will make some users happy !!
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Hi
I've just updated my old gaim 1.5 to 2.0 and I'm very disapointed to see that some good features have been removed:
- All accounts now have the same status and "auto-login" option have disapeared. But the reason why I choosed gaim before was exactly that I was able to have multiple accounts with different behaviors. The MyStatusBox plugin is a good option but it takes a big amount of space in my buddy list window ! The account window was more convenient to use.
- The shortcut icons in the IM window were quite convenient but the disappeared. I don't see any good reason why I should now go through the menu to send a file or to block a buddy.
- I don't see anymore the little cross in the buddy icons saying that I'm not in someone's list. Again I don't see any good reasons why this feature has been removed !
This would be a good list to add to the Extended Preferences (Features) list..
http://sourceforge.net/projects/gaim-extprefs/
I'm not saying these definitely would be added, but it could be looked at..
Almost nothing of value has been removed.
Accounts by default all use the global status, that is correct, but you can now create any arbitrarily complex status with any account in any status, and save it for use later. Play with the New and Saved dialogs and you'll see. (Something which was impossible in 1.5.0.)
Auto-login is not gone. It has in fact become much closer to what most people want. gaim will start up in the status it was in when you quit gaim last, if you don't want that they you can pick a status for gaim to start up in in the preferences. (Both of which were impossible in 1.5.0.)
The buttons in the IM windows were removed because they took up a large amount of space and were rarely used, if you have an action that you use that frequently and don't want to use the menu item then set up keyboard shortcuts to the menu items and use those. (Which is likely faster for most actions anyway.)
That icon was removed from the buddy list because it was decided that it wasn't important enough, the information is still in the tooltip if you need it. It conveys no actually useful information, and certainly not anything useful enough to warrant being constantly displayed in the buddy list. If you find yourself caring that much about whether someone has you in their buddy list perhaps you should think about why you care so much and find a way to not need that sort of validation so badly.
>If you find yourself caring that much about whether someone has you in their buddy list >perhaps you should think about why you care so much and find a way to not need that sort >of validation so badly.
This is not an answer ! Perhaps this icon is not important enough but I don't see why something "not important enough" should be removed. Sounds strange to me !
At least if it is not important "at all" I would understand but you agreed, using this term, that it might be useful in some cases.
Did gaim developpers receive complaints about this icon urging that it should be removed as soon as possible ?
If no then they should not try to do too much psychology about their users and leave this kind of features that might be useful.
I have a pratical example, in case you need one: once one of my e-friends had a bug with his Msn and I got removed from his user-list but he didn't know it. With the cross icon I immediatly found that there was a problem and we were able to solve it quite immediatly. Without this icon, I would have never noticed the bug and he neither (for him not connected contacts and removed contacts are all the same: they do not show in his list).
About the complex status: yes it is very useful and well done but easier way to do should not be removed in case people don't need such a complex behavior. I don't see why both ways cannot be kept together !
About keyboard shortcuts: this not as quick and useful as an icon, and I don't see how to create a keyboard shortcut in gaim's menu. Users should have the choice to put them or not depending on if they find them useful or not.
Why gaim developers want to decide everything for us ?
Comme on we are not childs and we can manage having more options !!
Yes, knowing whether someone has you in their buddy list can be a useful piece of information, but it is in no way important enough to be shown on the main buddy list screen. Which is why it was removed but left in the tooltip.
No, we didn't receive complaints about it, but then again we didn't receive complaints about the fact that there wasn't a global status either, or really any about not having a global buddy icon. Running gaim development based only on the things we hear complaints about is not a model that makes any sense. And attempting to figure out what the users want is exactly what we should be doing, since that's the only way we can make a better IM client.
If your friend would never have noticed you weren't on his list then clearly your being on his list isn't very important. Because as soon as he needed to find you he would have seen that you were offline and checked with you about it later/some other way. So I don't buy this as a real reason.
What "simpler way" to control multiple accounts status are you thinking of? The way that didn't let you save complicated statuses? The way that required you to go into the Tools->Accounts menu once for each account? People really like saying the 1.5.0 status method was easier but are never really able to explain exactly what about it was so much easier.
Keyboard shortcuts are much quicker than an icon when you are already using the keyboard, which in an IM application is most of the time. Or so is the theory. If you want icons write a plugin to add them back, you can do it, we didn't stop you.
And experience tells me that most gaim users are in fact rather like children, in the way they ask for help, in the way they respond to comments, in the things they want their IM clients to do, in the things they want their IM clients not to do, etc. When you have the years of IM user support that I (and the other gaim developers do) you can then tell us what IM users by and large do and do not want and do and do not think/feel. Until then, please don't assume what you want/think/feel is what everyone else does.
(Did you know that until we got rid of the Send button many IM users didn't know you could send messages by hitting Enter?)
To create a shortcut in gaim, hover over the menu item and push the key. Done.
haha, I seriously did not notice that the send button had been removed until you mentioned it. Now I can't even think what the last version that had it would be.
I really miss the SEND button. I missed it as soon as I installed v2.0.
Why on earth do you miss the Send button?
Why were you using it and what about the new UI doesn't fulfill that need?
Gosh, I wouldn't have thought lost features, particularly this one,
would have been so inflammatory.
I liked the SEND button because very often I either
(a) send just a URL or some other bit copied from somewhere else
and pasted into the conversation window, or
(b) type in a bunch of stuff, then go back over it with the mouse,
select sections of text, and tweak them with the Bold, Italic,
Underline, or other buttons. Once I've switched from entering text
to modifying the text with the mouse, I liked being able to send
with the SEND button rather than going back to the keyboard immediately.
Not something to get worked up over.
I can't speak for datallah, but I'm pretty sure I'm right when I say neither of us is getting worked up here. When people claim that things that were removed were important to them it is important for us to know why they think so. As to your two use cases: Yes, when one is already using the mouse continuing to do so is useful, which is why the right-click menu has Send as the very first menu item. Is that not convenient enough? Do you really think the Send button is necessary?
"(...) the right-click menu has Send as the very first menu item. Is that not convenient enough? Do you really think the Send button is necessary?"
Oh. Oops. I didn't think to look on the right-click menu. Sorry.
Never mind! :-)
That's a great little tip. Thank you!
Also, thanks for the clear replies in this thread. They were very useful, with the added benefit that I learned some of the cool things and smart thinking behind changes to Gaim that I hadn't even realized (of course, it's been awhile since I used 1.5 ;) ).
Anyways, just wanted to say Thanks Etan.
Etan thanks for your reply. I have still some comments. I agree that developing gaim is not only a matter of answering to complaints but when you remove some features and receive complaints from users using them, then maybe you should take them into account rather than trying to convince them why they don't really need them :-) Personnaly I'm not a child like most of gaim users (as you say) and I know what features are useful for me or not...
- What do I mean by a much simplier way to control multiple accounts: being able to manage the status of each account separately without the need to create a new saved status for each possibilities. If I have N accounts and 2 different status (connect, disconnect), the number of saved status that I need to handle every combinaisons is 2^N !! I think that both ways are useful and you didn't manage to convince me that it is not a good idea to keep them together.
Why not handle "unsaved" miscenaleus status and offer the possibility to save them if needed ?
- About the shortcut buttons, I'm sure I'm not the only one who would really appreciate that you keep somewhere an option in order to activate them or not. It does not cost you a lot and you will make some users happy !!
"and you will make some users happy !!"
In the past, they made it pretty clear that this software is about *them*, not about users. Which is pretty atypical, but that's the way it is.