One thing I don't like about Pidgin Beta 2.0.0beta7 already is that each user isn't differentiated by the client they're using. You need to expand the user to see if they're on msn/aim/jabber/etc.
Before, you could create "user folders" and drag multiple identities into that folder. this seems to be a step backward.
anyone know if this is an option you can change somewhere?
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Can someone elaborate on this "user folders" / "contacts?"
I've been using gaim since version 1.2 or something like that. I have convinced half-dozen of my friends to switch to gaim/pidgin as their primary IM software.
but I never knew about this functionality.
Thanks in advance.
Harv
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While I completely agree the "identity" approach in principle, my daily usage of pidgin is a lot less protocol-agnostic than I would like.
For example, a friend of mine, who I've convinced to use pidgin, usually uses his yahoo protocol as his primary IM just because most of his friends are on there.
However, when it comes to file transfer, I usually specifically pick his ICQ protocol as first priority, and MSN as my 2nd choice. These are from my experiences of using pidgin/gaims, as I find that for one reason or another, file transfer in ICQ is by far the fastest when it works. MSN and the way it handles http proxies means it has the most reliable file transfer mechanism.
In other word, while I don't really care which protocol I am using when I am *chatting*, there is definite a protocol preferences when it comes to file transfer.
The comment I want to make is that right now, it's not very easy to have such protocol preference remembered in the current GUI design.
What do you think of it?
Harv
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There is no good way to have pidgin remember 'always IM this buddy in the contact' and 'always send files to this buddy in the contact'. That being said, since file transfer is usually a more deliberate action then IM anyway, the fact that you can right-click the contact, navigate down to the correct buddy submenu and hit Send File directly on that buddy is not too much of a hardship, likewise if you already have a conversation window open you can simply switch the Send To menu and then drop the file into the window to have it send to the right person.
Also, the previous UI didn't make this any easier per-se it just meant that if you had the buddies not in a contact you could tell which to send the file to by the icon and not by the name/alias. Which is realy a very minor difference and contacts being awesome really wasn't something to be encouraged.
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Right now, my preference is to actually open up the IM windows to that specific protocol, and drag the file from my GUI file manager to that IM windows
(oppose to click on "transfer file" and navigate through the file system.
I guess my only "request" or "wish list" is that there is a small icon of sort on the IM dialog box indicate the actual protocol is being used.
Harv
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This is easily doable from a plugin, and in fact there is even a built-in tray location for plugins to add per-conversation icons for things like this (the typing indicator is in that space currently). That would be the way a feature like this should work.
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1 & 2) Are you sure that pidgin doesn't distinguish between hiptop and mobile? If so I wonder if that was intentional. But this has little to nothing to do with the main point of this post.
3) The protocol that a buddy is using is unimportant information in virtually all cases, so it was removed to clean up the interface and fit into the DesignGuideline of Uniformity (http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/DesignGuidelines).
4) While the icons themselves are in fact larger the size of the buddy list rows has not changed, as you can see in your screenshot quite clearly, because the windows are the same height and show the same number of buddies, and the rows all line up, so this isn't really an issue.
The per-protocol icons were intentionally removed from the buddy list because that is information that is extraneous under virtually all circumstances and the information is still available and as pidgin gets better should be less and less needed.
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What about the protocol icons did you find useful? What about having them on the buddy list had use to you? Keeping in mind that they are still in the tooltip and that contacts and group sorting/ordering has not changed at all.
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1 & 2> yes I'm sure. I was comparing the same person on a hiptop. This is something that shouldn't have been left out as it is important. IMing someone on a hiptop is usually okay while messaging them on a cellphone isn't always cool.
3> well this is important to me and I'm sure to alot of other people.
4> you seem to be right on this. no real issue here even if the height was a little off.
anyway looks like i will just stick with an older version of gaim for as long as possible. the new changes seem like downgrades to me. your mention of "cleaning up the interface" by removing "unimportant information" is something I disagree with and I believe alot of others will find this annoying as well. I think it would be nicer if the developers just put in an option to either "merge user protocols" or "show independent protocols". No real benefit to the way it is now IMO :T
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I just asked and was told that yes the mobile and hiptop icons were consolidated, but I am unsure if that will be staying. I'll mention it to the icon guy and see if he can come up with something, if he does and it is acceptable it will likely be added back.
When it is useful to you? Under what circumstances? For what purpose? And never assume about other people unless you've dealt with them for ages. I have and I'm still loathe to assume to much about them.
You are free to stay with whatever version of gaim/pidgin you want no one ever forces you to upgrade. You are free to disagree with our design decisions all you like but unless you can convince us that a decision we made was wrong for some real reason we are unlikely to reconsider, especially when virtually everyone gets used to the new icons in less than a couple of hours and there have only been about 10 people who have complained about the new icons more than 'oh, this is different'.
An option for the icons is not going to happen because options have costs and this would be a much greater cost than we care to have nor have we yet been given a good reason that the icons are needed. I've seen exactly one idea come close, and that was as easily doable with aliases as with icons.
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I for one like the new status icons. I think it's much easier just to see who's available at any given time. That being said, I have both a question and a comment. Question: why is the AOL triangle still on the right side for my buddies that are actually logged on for AOL (how is this different than the other protocol differentiations that have been removed)? Comment: having the mobile icon on the right side is a little deceptive because my friends currently mobile are still listed as available on the left (which they ostensibly are but chatting on a mobile isn't exactly the same as at a computer). It would be nice if you made the mobile icon their status icon instead of whatever you're calling the icons on the right, just as a more immediate visual cue. Overall, I think the icons are a large improvement, guys. Great work.
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AOL is a modifier to the standard on the protocol, it is a distinction that is at least somewhat worth noting (though I wouldn't cry if it was removed) and someone on a mobile device is available when the mobile device has them as available, and should be 'away' when set as away on the device.
The status icon is used to represent the status, 'mobile' isn't a status, 'AOL' isn't a status, 'MSN' isn't a status, 'Available' is a status, 'Away' is a status, see the distinction?
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I miss these icons because I don't group my contacts. (My preference) and some friends use multiple clients/protocols at the same time as well, but prefer certain ones... so I could quickly tell which protocol to use for them by seeing their icon.
Now everyone is just an 'online' or 'away' ugly green blob. If you really don't wish to include such functionality as part of the default interface (due to icon copyright reasons or who knows why), then it should at least be available in some sort of theme option, which currently seem limited to smileys.
Hell, while the right-click send is okay-ish, I still miss the 'send' button as well.
But from what I've read, both changes seem to be yet more open-source-project decisions based on "we know better than our users". Sadly, such decisions are all too common. I'm sure you lot think your thoughts on the matter(s) are better, but what is wrong with the _choice_ on either issue?
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The choice is there thanks to these guys making Pidgin open source. Since you feel so strongly about those missing items/new behavior, write code/themes to get Pidgin the way you want it. If you don't have the skills to do it, then find other like-minded people and raise a cash bounty for some developer to write the code for you. Then you can offer it back to Pidgin. If they accept it, GREAT! If they don't, then at least you and some others can benefit from the code "developed-the-way-you-want-it".
The core Pidgin developers are writing Pidgin the way they feel is best for them. We are just free-loading off their endeavours (and I would just like to thank those developers for being so generous as to allow us to do that). If you don't feel the same about something they are doing and cannot persuade them to your side, then tough. You can always fork the code and go your own route.
See ya...
d.c.
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Erm, the choice to 'code it oneself' is ALWAYS there, and always has been, for any given application... hardware limitations notwithstanding. That excuse is always thrown about way too freely. (You need new rhetoric.)
If the developers are writing it for themselves as you claim, then there's no reason to ever make any part of it public.
In reality, the choice is NOT there, as can be seen by deryni9's post. It's a case of "devs know best and that's that" at this point. deryni9 said an 'option' would be too much of a cost, but they've not even shifted the functionality to be available to users via themes (which would have little to no 'cost'); it's just been removed entirely. In the eyes of at least some of us, this aspect of the functionality has taken a step -backwards-.
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Completely agree. I have been a fan of gaim since the very early days and this is the first time I've looked at it and really been disappointed. I totally appreciate the work being done on it, but can't you see that Pidgin now tells us much less information at a glance?
Compare the screenshot I made, you will see that the older version looks just as clean and uncluttered as the new one. Those green circles don't really tell you anything except status. The old icons told us status AND protocol.
Etan said that this was done to clean up the interface. I think this is a prime example of form over function. And the end result isn't even all that much more cleaner looking if you ask me.
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Things are significantly cleaner now because there is much less going on in the buddy list in the status icon column, but that's not the point.
The point is that while yes, some information was removed, the real issue is that it was virtually useless information, people just happened to be used to it. As an example of a similar change that happened a little while back, how many people here remember that gaim used to show AIM Capability information in the tooltip? Hm? How many people who remember that care that it is now missing? Do you want to know how many people complained about that change? Roughly as many as are complaining now. Do you know how many people are complaining about that change now? None.
I've put out the call now so many times I've lost count, but here goes again. Please, GIVE ME A REASON that this information being ever-present in the status icon column was useful to you. Give me a scenario in which you needed it in that specific location. Give me explanations as to why the tooltip, right-click menu, and Send To menu don't fulfill those same uses. I am still waiting.
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1. Things are not more clean now. Instead of having a useful client icon next to each user we have a single icon for all client types. Also, certain buddies now require a seperate icon on the right of their username to show that they are on a mobile device... now there are 2 icons for a single buddy when otherwise there was 1. That's not what I'd define as "cleaner". Also AOL user have a separate icon to the right of their names? This kind of defeats the purpose of removing client icons, no?
2. You keep saying that this is pointless information that was removed however it was useful to me. Earlier in this thread you pointed out that not everyone feels the same way about certain features so why are you acting like a hypocrite? Since you obviously don't care what we think, you can just be honest about it and say so.
I'm not aware of the aim capability information you refer to so I must have started using gaim after the fact. Can't comment on that.
3. INSTEAD OF USING BIG WORDS you can try reading. Users have already pointed out why this is important to them. Someone mentioned it's easier to have client icons because they like to use one account for chatting and another account for file transfer. My personal reason is that my coworkers all use aim at home and jabber at work so it's easier to just select the proper buddy.
Sure we can still send files to the appropriate account by expanding the particular buddy. Sure I can group my coworkers and then expand them to select the necessary client. But why does a newer version of Pidgin require 3 clicks to do something when it used to require 1. Before we had the option to group buddies (which btw looked just as clean as what you're arguing); now we don't have that option anymore. Can you explain to me why it isn't feasible to allow client icons to be turned on or off?
Etan, if Pidgin is by the developers and for the developers why even maintain www.pidgin.im?
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1) Things are more clean now, instead of multiple disparate status icons you have *one single* status icon which mean 'available'. The fact that the mobile icon became an icon on its own rather than an emblem was in fact to make that icon easier to see and find. Since embedding them on the status icons was considered too cluttered.
2) How was it useful to you? Have you told me yet? In what way am I acting like a hypocrite? I do care what people think but only when they think it for a reason. If there isn't a reason I don't care, and things like "because I am used to it" are not reasons.
3) Yes, people have said both of those things, and if you bother reading you will see where I explained that those aren't things that have not changed in any real material way. If you prefer one account over the other you have always needed to look at the contact carefully, now you just need to look in the conversation window Send To menu or the tooltip instead of at the status icon, that isn't a great hardship. Similarly for file transfers, if you are picky about which account you send to you have always needed to be careful about where you did it, you still have to, nothing has changed.
You *do not* need to expand a contact to interact with one of the sub-buddies, because the right-click menu lists all the sub-buddies individually and you can interact with each of them if you would like to. That also hasn't changed. There is virtually *nothing* which requires expanding a contact in order to do properly.
What exactly used to require one click (in every circumstance) that now requires more? Can you give me an example?
No one said it isn't possible to make this an option, what I have said is that all options have costs in code, maintenance, and support, and the costs for this option are relatively high, while the benefits are virtually zero. Since, as I've said numerous times there are virtually no circumstances under which the protocol status icons are the right solution. If you want a buddy protocol tag in the buddy list, use an alias, if you want it in the conversation window write a plugin, or learn to use the mechanisms that are currently in place in pidgin to allow you to find the information in exactly the circumstances that you need them. From the right-click menu when you want to send a file or start an IM, from the conversation Send To menu when you need to determine what buddy/account/protocol you are sending from or to send on.
Would you prefer if we didn't make the client public at all? Is that what you want? Would that serve you better? I have never been able to fathom the user attitude which states "if the client doesn't serve every one of my needs I should attack the authors and tell them it would be better for them not to publish it at all". Can you explain to me where your logic comes from? How is your case served by antagonizing me and suggesting that perhaps I should just remove the published software? I certainly don't see it.
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This 'option' isn't possibly themable, in order for it to be themable there would need to be specific icons for each protocol, there isn't, instead there is one icon per status. The green circle happens to be available, if you want some other icon to be available you can do that, you can even pick a specific protocol icon if you like that icon and make it mean 'available' but it will mean available for all buddies on all protocols.
What 'functionality' have you lost because of this change? What ability did you lose? What did this make harder? Tell me, please. I have yet to see that being the case.
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While normally this is a sentiment I agree with whole-heartedly in this specific case the change was actually made with the overwhelming majority of our users in mind. Most of the users of any IM client are not very technically savvy and requiring them to understand the distinctions between protocols is beyond what should be required of them, as part of this we removed the main visible trappings of specific protocols so that things Just Work better and can be seen as more unified.
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One thing I don't like about Pidgin Beta 2.0.0beta7 already is that each user isn't differentiated by the client they're using. You need to expand the user to see if they're on msn/aim/jabber/etc.
Before, you could create "user folders" and drag multiple identities into that folder. this seems to be a step backward.
anyone know if this is an option you can change somewhere?
The "user folders" are called "contacts" in pidgin, which was not changed in beta7, and you can still drag multiple identities into one contact.
Can someone elaborate on this "user folders" / "contacts?"
I've been using gaim since version 1.2 or something like that. I have convinced half-dozen of my friends to switch to gaim/pidgin as their primary IM software.
but I never knew about this functionality.
Thanks in advance.
Harv
If you have a buddy who has multiple IM accounts, you can merge them into one contact by drag'n drop them together
Thank you.
And I have a comment.
While I completely agree the "identity" approach in principle, my daily usage of pidgin is a lot less protocol-agnostic than I would like.
For example, a friend of mine, who I've convinced to use pidgin, usually uses his yahoo protocol as his primary IM just because most of his friends are on there.
However, when it comes to file transfer, I usually specifically pick his ICQ protocol as first priority, and MSN as my 2nd choice. These are from my experiences of using pidgin/gaims, as I find that for one reason or another, file transfer in ICQ is by far the fastest when it works. MSN and the way it handles http proxies means it has the most reliable file transfer mechanism.
In other word, while I don't really care which protocol I am using when I am *chatting*, there is definite a protocol preferences when it comes to file transfer.
The comment I want to make is that right now, it's not very easy to have such protocol preference remembered in the current GUI design.
What do you think of it?
Harv
There is no good way to have pidgin remember 'always IM this buddy in the contact' and 'always send files to this buddy in the contact'. That being said, since file transfer is usually a more deliberate action then IM anyway, the fact that you can right-click the contact, navigate down to the correct buddy submenu and hit Send File directly on that buddy is not too much of a hardship, likewise if you already have a conversation window open you can simply switch the Send To menu and then drop the file into the window to have it send to the right person.
Also, the previous UI didn't make this any easier per-se it just meant that if you had the buddies not in a contact you could tell which to send the file to by the icon and not by the name/alias. Which is realy a very minor difference and contacts being awesome really wasn't something to be encouraged.
Right now, my preference is to actually open up the IM windows to that specific protocol, and drag the file from my GUI file manager to that IM windows
(oppose to click on "transfer file" and navigate through the file system.
I guess my only "request" or "wish list" is that there is a small icon of sort on the IM dialog box indicate the actual protocol is being used.
Harv
This is easily doable from a plugin, and in fact there is even a built-in tray location for plugins to add per-conversation icons for things like this (the typing indicator is in that space currently). That would be the way a feature like this should work.
I'm talking about all of my buddies having this green icon
This is what pidgin looks like
http://img410.imageshack.us/img410/3263/gaimbeta7ma7.png
This is what the last one looked like (more or less, my icons were smaller)
http://www.branchez-vous.com/images/articles/gaim2.gif
Here is a good image i made to show my problem with the new buddy list... are there ways around it?
http://img442.imageshack.us/img442/3808/gaimbeta7ri6.png
1 & 2) Are you sure that pidgin doesn't distinguish between hiptop and mobile? If so I wonder if that was intentional. But this has little to nothing to do with the main point of this post.
3) The protocol that a buddy is using is unimportant information in virtually all cases, so it was removed to clean up the interface and fit into the DesignGuideline of Uniformity (http://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/DesignGuidelines).
4) While the icons themselves are in fact larger the size of the buddy list rows has not changed, as you can see in your screenshot quite clearly, because the windows are the same height and show the same number of buddies, and the rows all line up, so this isn't really an issue.
The per-protocol icons were intentionally removed from the buddy list because that is information that is extraneous under virtually all circumstances and the information is still available and as pidgin gets better should be less and less needed.
What about the protocol icons did you find useful? What about having them on the buddy list had use to you? Keeping in mind that they are still in the tooltip and that contacts and group sorting/ordering has not changed at all.
1 & 2> yes I'm sure. I was comparing the same person on a hiptop. This is something that shouldn't have been left out as it is important. IMing someone on a hiptop is usually okay while messaging them on a cellphone isn't always cool.
3> well this is important to me and I'm sure to alot of other people.
4> you seem to be right on this. no real issue here even if the height was a little off.
anyway looks like i will just stick with an older version of gaim for as long as possible. the new changes seem like downgrades to me. your mention of "cleaning up the interface" by removing "unimportant information" is something I disagree with and I believe alot of others will find this annoying as well. I think it would be nicer if the developers just put in an option to either "merge user protocols" or "show independent protocols". No real benefit to the way it is now IMO :T
I just asked and was told that yes the mobile and hiptop icons were consolidated, but I am unsure if that will be staying. I'll mention it to the icon guy and see if he can come up with something, if he does and it is acceptable it will likely be added back.
When it is useful to you? Under what circumstances? For what purpose? And never assume about other people unless you've dealt with them for ages. I have and I'm still loathe to assume to much about them.
You are free to stay with whatever version of gaim/pidgin you want no one ever forces you to upgrade. You are free to disagree with our design decisions all you like but unless you can convince us that a decision we made was wrong for some real reason we are unlikely to reconsider, especially when virtually everyone gets used to the new icons in less than a couple of hours and there have only been about 10 people who have complained about the new icons more than 'oh, this is different'.
An option for the icons is not going to happen because options have costs and this would be a much greater cost than we care to have nor have we yet been given a good reason that the icons are needed. I've seen exactly one idea come close, and that was as easily doable with aliases as with icons.
I for one like the new status icons. I think it's much easier just to see who's available at any given time. That being said, I have both a question and a comment. Question: why is the AOL triangle still on the right side for my buddies that are actually logged on for AOL (how is this different than the other protocol differentiations that have been removed)? Comment: having the mobile icon on the right side is a little deceptive because my friends currently mobile are still listed as available on the left (which they ostensibly are but chatting on a mobile isn't exactly the same as at a computer). It would be nice if you made the mobile icon their status icon instead of whatever you're calling the icons on the right, just as a more immediate visual cue. Overall, I think the icons are a large improvement, guys. Great work.
AOL is a modifier to the standard on the protocol, it is a distinction that is at least somewhat worth noting (though I wouldn't cry if it was removed) and someone on a mobile device is available when the mobile device has them as available, and should be 'away' when set as away on the device.
The status icon is used to represent the status, 'mobile' isn't a status, 'AOL' isn't a status, 'MSN' isn't a status, 'Available' is a status, 'Away' is a status, see the distinction?
I miss these icons because I don't group my contacts. (My preference) and some friends use multiple clients/protocols at the same time as well, but prefer certain ones... so I could quickly tell which protocol to use for them by seeing their icon.
Now everyone is just an 'online' or 'away' ugly green blob. If you really don't wish to include such functionality as part of the default interface (due to icon copyright reasons or who knows why), then it should at least be available in some sort of theme option, which currently seem limited to smileys.
Hell, while the right-click send is okay-ish, I still miss the 'send' button as well.
But from what I've read, both changes seem to be yet more open-source-project decisions based on "we know better than our users". Sadly, such decisions are all too common. I'm sure you lot think your thoughts on the matter(s) are better, but what is wrong with the _choice_ on either issue?
The choice is there thanks to these guys making Pidgin open source. Since you feel so strongly about those missing items/new behavior, write code/themes to get Pidgin the way you want it. If you don't have the skills to do it, then find other like-minded people and raise a cash bounty for some developer to write the code for you. Then you can offer it back to Pidgin. If they accept it, GREAT! If they don't, then at least you and some others can benefit from the code "developed-the-way-you-want-it".
The core Pidgin developers are writing Pidgin the way they feel is best for them. We are just free-loading off their endeavours (and I would just like to thank those developers for being so generous as to allow us to do that). If you don't feel the same about something they are doing and cannot persuade them to your side, then tough. You can always fork the code and go your own route.
See ya...
d.c.
Erm, the choice to 'code it oneself' is ALWAYS there, and always has been, for any given application... hardware limitations notwithstanding. That excuse is always thrown about way too freely. (You need new rhetoric.)
If the developers are writing it for themselves as you claim, then there's no reason to ever make any part of it public.
In reality, the choice is NOT there, as can be seen by deryni9's post. It's a case of "devs know best and that's that" at this point. deryni9 said an 'option' would be too much of a cost, but they've not even shifted the functionality to be available to users via themes (which would have little to no 'cost'); it's just been removed entirely. In the eyes of at least some of us, this aspect of the functionality has taken a step -backwards-.
Completely agree. I have been a fan of gaim since the very early days and this is the first time I've looked at it and really been disappointed. I totally appreciate the work being done on it, but can't you see that Pidgin now tells us much less information at a glance?
Compare the screenshot I made, you will see that the older version looks just as clean and uncluttered as the new one. Those green circles don't really tell you anything except status. The old icons told us status AND protocol.
Etan said that this was done to clean up the interface. I think this is a prime example of form over function. And the end result isn't even all that much more cleaner looking if you ask me.
Things are significantly cleaner now because there is much less going on in the buddy list in the status icon column, but that's not the point.
The point is that while yes, some information was removed, the real issue is that it was virtually useless information, people just happened to be used to it. As an example of a similar change that happened a little while back, how many people here remember that gaim used to show AIM Capability information in the tooltip? Hm? How many people who remember that care that it is now missing? Do you want to know how many people complained about that change? Roughly as many as are complaining now. Do you know how many people are complaining about that change now? None.
I've put out the call now so many times I've lost count, but here goes again. Please, GIVE ME A REASON that this information being ever-present in the status icon column was useful to you. Give me a scenario in which you needed it in that specific location. Give me explanations as to why the tooltip, right-click menu, and Send To menu don't fulfill those same uses. I am still waiting.
1. Things are not more clean now. Instead of having a useful client icon next to each user we have a single icon for all client types. Also, certain buddies now require a seperate icon on the right of their username to show that they are on a mobile device... now there are 2 icons for a single buddy when otherwise there was 1. That's not what I'd define as "cleaner". Also AOL user have a separate icon to the right of their names? This kind of defeats the purpose of removing client icons, no?
2. You keep saying that this is pointless information that was removed however it was useful to me. Earlier in this thread you pointed out that not everyone feels the same way about certain features so why are you acting like a hypocrite? Since you obviously don't care what we think, you can just be honest about it and say so.
I'm not aware of the aim capability information you refer to so I must have started using gaim after the fact. Can't comment on that.
3. INSTEAD OF USING BIG WORDS you can try reading. Users have already pointed out why this is important to them. Someone mentioned it's easier to have client icons because they like to use one account for chatting and another account for file transfer. My personal reason is that my coworkers all use aim at home and jabber at work so it's easier to just select the proper buddy.
Sure we can still send files to the appropriate account by expanding the particular buddy. Sure I can group my coworkers and then expand them to select the necessary client. But why does a newer version of Pidgin require 3 clicks to do something when it used to require 1. Before we had the option to group buddies (which btw looked just as clean as what you're arguing); now we don't have that option anymore. Can you explain to me why it isn't feasible to allow client icons to be turned on or off?
Etan, if Pidgin is by the developers and for the developers why even maintain www.pidgin.im?
1) Things are more clean now, instead of multiple disparate status icons you have *one single* status icon which mean 'available'. The fact that the mobile icon became an icon on its own rather than an emblem was in fact to make that icon easier to see and find. Since embedding them on the status icons was considered too cluttered.
2) How was it useful to you? Have you told me yet? In what way am I acting like a hypocrite? I do care what people think but only when they think it for a reason. If there isn't a reason I don't care, and things like "because I am used to it" are not reasons.
3) Yes, people have said both of those things, and if you bother reading you will see where I explained that those aren't things that have not changed in any real material way. If you prefer one account over the other you have always needed to look at the contact carefully, now you just need to look in the conversation window Send To menu or the tooltip instead of at the status icon, that isn't a great hardship. Similarly for file transfers, if you are picky about which account you send to you have always needed to be careful about where you did it, you still have to, nothing has changed.
You *do not* need to expand a contact to interact with one of the sub-buddies, because the right-click menu lists all the sub-buddies individually and you can interact with each of them if you would like to. That also hasn't changed. There is virtually *nothing* which requires expanding a contact in order to do properly.
What exactly used to require one click (in every circumstance) that now requires more? Can you give me an example?
No one said it isn't possible to make this an option, what I have said is that all options have costs in code, maintenance, and support, and the costs for this option are relatively high, while the benefits are virtually zero. Since, as I've said numerous times there are virtually no circumstances under which the protocol status icons are the right solution. If you want a buddy protocol tag in the buddy list, use an alias, if you want it in the conversation window write a plugin, or learn to use the mechanisms that are currently in place in pidgin to allow you to find the information in exactly the circumstances that you need them. From the right-click menu when you want to send a file or start an IM, from the conversation Send To menu when you need to determine what buddy/account/protocol you are sending from or to send on.
Would you prefer if we didn't make the client public at all? Is that what you want? Would that serve you better? I have never been able to fathom the user attitude which states "if the client doesn't serve every one of my needs I should attack the authors and tell them it would be better for them not to publish it at all". Can you explain to me where your logic comes from? How is your case served by antagonizing me and suggesting that perhaps I should just remove the published software? I certainly don't see it.
This 'option' isn't possibly themable, in order for it to be themable there would need to be specific icons for each protocol, there isn't, instead there is one icon per status. The green circle happens to be available, if you want some other icon to be available you can do that, you can even pick a specific protocol icon if you like that icon and make it mean 'available' but it will mean available for all buddies on all protocols.
What 'functionality' have you lost because of this change? What ability did you lose? What did this make harder? Tell me, please. I have yet to see that being the case.
While normally this is a sentiment I agree with whole-heartedly in this specific case the change was actually made with the overwhelming majority of our users in mind. Most of the users of any IM client are not very technically savvy and requiring them to understand the distinctions between protocols is beyond what should be required of them, as part of this we removed the main visible trappings of specific protocols so that things Just Work better and can be seen as more unified.