[sushiism]

Labels = more visual noise than status circles. Pretty annoying if your donig some design at the time. Still use adium 1 to this day, adium 2 is a long way off getting that good.

[waffffffle]

Originally posted by Stradlater:
Awhile ago, I think you could choose to align the idle time on the left, but I think this was part of the hacked status circles plug-in.

Anyways, if the buddy name is long and the idle time overruns the window, then do one of the following:
- Make the screenname into a smaller alias (or make the alias smaller) so that you can fit all the information into your narrow window.

I don't use aliases in the buddy list. I like knowing immediately which screen name my buddies are using and I use Address Book integration and not aliases for everything else.

- Make the font size of the buddy list smaller so that you can fit all the information into your narrow window.

It's already pretty tiny. I don't want to be squinting at my buddy list. Adium 1.x let me use this current font size with the same size window. Why shouldn't I be able to do the same in Adiumx?

- Turn on automatic horizontal window resizing with or without one of the previous options and if you refuse to do one of the first two, live with a wider list.

Not a chance. I don't want my buddy list moving or taking up a different space on the screen. I want my buddy list to be constant in size and position.

Oh, and if you don't like the way labels look, fool around with the preferences. You have a few options:
- Make it so labels ONLY encircle the name.

That doesn't help the problem. They are still ugly

- Disable labels and learn how to tell status by colors you define.

What are you talking about? Colors? You mean labels right? What other coloring of status is there?

- Disable labels and learn how to tell status by using status icons.

As I said before, status icons are on the right side. They take up too much space.

[OreoCookie]

I strongly disagree with the critics here.

The UI of Adium is the best I have seen in any Mac app in a long time. The labels are right where they belong! perfectly easy to read, intuitive. Perfect. Like a bliss coming from Fire.

Keep up the excellent work.

[resImadA]

Originally posted by sushiism:
Still use adium 1 to this day, adium 2 is a long way off getting that good.

I'd be interested to hear why you think "Adium 2" is a "long way off" from getting as good as Adium 1.x.

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by waffffffle:
I don't use aliases in the buddy list. I like knowing immediately which screen name my buddies are using and I use Address Book integration and not aliases for everything else.

Address Book integration is the same concept as aliases. Use it with first name only to have a narrower buddy list.

Originally posted by waffffffle:
It's already pretty tiny. I don't want to be squinting at my buddy list. Adium 1.x let me use this current font size with the same size window. Why shouldn't I be able to do the same in Adiumx?

Because Adium 0.5x is a complete rewrite in code with new facilities to hook up under the hood (like libgaim). They didn't really remove status circles from Adium, they just haven't added back in a new coding of them. And the tic-tac-toe mentions are stupid seeing as the main programmer did not spend his time creating it, but rather someone learning to program.

Originally posted by waffffffle:
Not a chance. I don't want my buddy list moving or taking up a different space on the screen. I want my buddy list to be constant in size and position.

Turn off borders, save more space, make transparent, then resizing isn't even that noticeable. If this doesn't work for you, then be patient and wait for circles to return, program them yourself, or ask nicely on the Adium board and maybe your request will be addressed sooner.

Originally posted by waffffffle:
That doesn't help the problem. They are still ugly

I still think you should play around with things; labels can be very subtle. But if you are immovable, see my next option.

Originally posted by waffffffle:
What are you talking about? Colors? You mean labels right? What other coloring of status is there?

I mean color the text, and turn off the labels.
1. Prefs/Contact List/General/[Do Not] Show Status Labels
2. Prefs/Contact List/Contacts/Status Coloring...and color the text and ignore the labels colors.

Originally posted by waffffffle:
As I said before, status icons are on the right side. They take up too much space.

On the right side, time or icons, they still take up the same amount of space as circles, but I understand your left-side reasoning. To reinforce your idea, why don't you nicely mention these things on the Adium discussion board? These things might already be planned, though.

[decursive]

jesus, did all the people who got shot down in the adium forums rally in this thread?

[nforcer]

Originally posted by resImadA:
I didn't call you a troll, I called your post a troll; which it was.

As we stated many times, a replacement for status circles is coming along with the contact list revamp. I don't understand why you're so bitter over this.

Constructive criticism is trolling? You were talking about removing unneeded features from Adium. Since when has "tic-tac-toe" been a necessary feature in an instant messenger? It's a marketing tool was the response. I just can't see "tic-tac-toe" being as good of a marketing tool as a bug free client with lots of user customization and features that help facilitate the instant messaging experience.

I have successfully converted several IE users to Firefox. I didn't do it because Firefox had a "cool, better looking icon" or anything like "tic-tac-toe". They use it because it has unique and necessary features (popup blocking and tabbed browsing, mainly), and because it does stuff it claims to do well.

I'm not bitter about status circle replacements, I'm upset that criticism is so easily disregarded. I realize they are coming back at some point, but I feel for the people who have lost them for now (due to whatever technical reason) while "marketing tools" remain more necessary than ever.

[jokell82]

Originally posted by nforcer:
Constructive criticism is trolling? You were talking about removing unneeded features from Adium. Since when has "tic-tac-toe" been a necessary feature in an instant messenger? It's a marketing tool was the response. I just can't see "tic-tac-toe" being as good of a marketing tool as a bug free client with lots of user customization and features that help facilitate the instant messaging experience.

Tic Tac Toe was not created by the lead developers of Adium. Another user had created it as a proof-of-concept and the devs added it in. It's not like anyone took time away from programming adium to make it.

[resImadA]

Originally posted by nforcer:
Constructive criticism is trolling?

No, but your post (The one which I called a troll) was not constructive criticism.

Originally posted by nforcer:
You were talking about removing unneeded features from Adium. Since when has "tic-tac-toe" been a necessary feature in an instant messenger? It's a marketing tool was the response. I just can't see "tic-tac-toe" being as good of a marketing tool as a bug free client with lots of user customization and features that help facilitate the instant messaging experience.

The developer who did tic-tac-toe did it to learn the Adium code and get familiar with cocoa. That developer is now making contributions towards features that you might consider more useful. There was never a time where a developer sacrificed implementing something more important to work on tic tac toe. We've told you this before.

Originally posted by nforcer:
I realize they are coming back at some point, but I feel for the people who have lost them for now (due to whatever technical reason) while "marketing tools" remain more necessary than ever.

As we've told you (several times), the feature was removed because it was getting in the way, and we needed to remove it before work could begin on the replacement.

The developer who wrote tic tac toe hasn't made changes to it in a while. It's not "more necessary than ever." I'm not sure where you got that impression from.

Originally posted by nforcer:
I'm upset that criticism is so easily disregarded

I'd be interested to hear where you think criticism is being disregarded. Can you provide something to backup this claim?

[Horsepoo!!!]

I can't believe status circles are a life and death subject to some people. Geezus! Go outside and take deep breaths, people.

"Give me the status circles or give me death!!!"

[nforcer]

Originally posted by resImadA:
No, but your post (The one which I called a troll) was not constructive criticism.

I raised a point by asking a valid question. How is that not constructive? I could see it being trollish if I presented it like "OMG, LOL. TIC TAK TOE IS TEH WORHTLESS. ADIUM TEAM IS TEH SUX0RS. REMOVE IT LOLLOL". Or perhaps made personal attacks on someone. But I did neither.

The developer who did tic-tac-toe did it to learn the Adium code and get familiar with cocoa. That developer is now making contributions towards features that you might consider more useful. There was never a time where a developer sacrificed implementing something more important to work on tic tac toe. We've told you this before.

I've done projects to learn something. They might have been neat to do, but it does not mean they should be included in other projects just because they can. It's good to hear the developer who did it is making contributions towards more practical features. I don't recall reading about there never being a time where a developer sacrificed something more important to work on tic tac toe, but that's good to know.

As we've told you (several times), the feature was removed because it was getting in the way, and we needed to remove it before work could begin on the replacement.

Hasn't the contact list been rewritten at least once (with inline editing) since then? Do status circles exist now?

The developer who wrote tic tac toe hasn't made changes to it in a while. It's not "more necessary than ever." I'm not sure where you got that impression from.

Tic-tac-toe seems to have some kind of protection status since it's been justified as a marketing tool. But where does that justification stop? If I want to build a bittorrent client into Adium "because sometimes people might send me bittorrent links" could that not be a marketing point? "Adium 2: Download bittorrent files without using a separate app". Feature bloat is a concern.

I'd be interested to hear where you think criticism is being disregarded. Can you provide something to backup this claim?

Moving a post from one thread into a new one, responding to it, and then locking the thread without letting users respond is the first thing that comes to mind.

[gorickey]

I think it's time for PM's to be used...

[resImadA]

Originally posted by nforcer:
But where does that justification stop? If I want to build a bittorrent client into Adium "because sometimes people might send me bittorrent links" could that not be a marketing point? "Adium 2: Download bittorrent files without using a separate app". Feature bloat is a concern.

The Adium development team is responsible for drawing that line. It's unfortunate that some users become enraged when the line is not drawn in their favor.

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by nforcer:
Feature bloat is a concern.

I don't see it being much of a concern with Adium's plugin-based nature.

[ambush]

Leave the poor coders alone, they deserve everyone's respect.


NO **** BELOW THIS LINE
------------------------------------------------------------------------

[waffffffle]

Originally posted by Stradlater:
Address Book integration is the same concept as aliases. Use it with first name only to have a narrower buddy list.

It doesn't matter. I have SCREEN NAMES listed in my buddy list, not aliases. I don't like having aliases or real names in my buddy list.

Because Adium 0.5x is a complete rewrite in code with new facilities to hook up under the hood (like libgaim). They didn't really remove status circles from Adium, they just haven't added back in a new coding of them. And the tic-tac-toe mentions are stupid seeing as the main programmer did not spend his time creating it, but rather someone learning to program.

I know the entire story. Status circles are NOT coming back, they are being replaced with a less functional feature, icons which will not show idle time.

Turn off borders, save more space, make transparent, then resizing isn't even that noticeable. If this doesn't work for you, then be patient and wait for circles to return, program them yourself, or ask nicely on the Adium board and maybe your request will be addressed sooner.

I like a normal window. That is what I am comfortable with. I shouldn't have to use all that eye candy just to save screen space.

I still think you should play around with things; labels can be very subtle. But if you are immovable, see my next option.

I HAVE been playing. For me, there is no comparable replacement for status circles in Adium right now and as far as I have been told, there isn't going to be.

I mean color the text, and turn off the labels.
1. Prefs/Contact List/General/[Do Not] Show Status Labels
2. Prefs/Contact List/Contacts/Status Coloring...and color the text and ignore the labels colors.

I really don't like the look of that. I use yellow to designate "away" and it is very hard to read yellow text.

On the right side, time or icons, they still take up the same amount of space as circles, but I understand your left-side reasoning. To reinforce your idea, why don't you nicely mention these things on the Adium discussion board? These things might already be planned, though.

I already mentioned that those icons suck. Idle and away are separate icons and idle time takes up its own space as well.

I HAVE mentioned this on the Adium boards but over there you have to be afraid of what you say because you get scolded by saying something that doesn't agree with the the team then you're scolded and reminded that you should do it yourself. Well I CAN'T do it myself, at least not any time soon, but I really want this feature.

[mindwaves]

I just like to add that I'm also in favor of Status Circles. They are one of the main reasons why I came to Adium 1.X. Hack or not, they were incredibly useful to me and looked nice also.

[nforcer]

Originally posted by waffffffle:
I HAVE mentioned this on the Adium boards but over there you have to be afraid of what you say because you get scolded by saying something that doesn't agree with the the team then you're scolded and reminded that you should do it yourself. Well I CAN'T do it myself, at least not any time soon, but I really want this feature.

You are so righte.

[starfleetX]

Originally posted by waffffffle:
The most important thing that status circles offers is the ability to see the idle time on the LEFT side so that it doesn't overrun the buddy name if the screen name is long and the window is narrow (which commonly happens for me in AdiumX). Plus labels are UGLY. They take up way too much space to show the same information while status circles show in just a small fraction of that space. Status circles show all the same information that labels, idle time and status icons show in one spot that is always in the SAME place horizontally.

Okay, you're entitled to the opinion that they look better on the left instead of the right or that you don't like the label color applied to the whole name, but could someone please explain to me how this:


(Adium 0.51)

is so much noticeably larger than this?


(from your screenshot)

Regardless of whether the time is on the left or right, it still takes up about the same amount of space. The difference is only a few pixels.

[sanity assassin]

I just gave the new Adium a try, very impressed. One thing though, and it's probably been mentioned, but will there be more options on the contact list toolbar?

[Mr Scruff]

I think what we're seeing here is a clash of cultures. The traditional Mac users vs the open source development model.

Traditional Mac users are used to making high demands of the developers of applications they use. Normally, this is fair enough because up until recently, most Mac software was shareware.

Unfortunately, with open source it's quite a different story. The usual motivation for open source is, if a program doesn't exist to do what you want, write it yourself. And seeing as you've gone to the trouble of writing it, release the source code so others can improve it.

This is quite a selfish motivation (I don't mean that in a negative sense) but perfectly understandable. However, it does mean that the users are not in a position to make any demands at all of the developers (since they are giving up their own precious free time to produce the software).

If the developer solicits feedback, then it's quite legitimate to provide it - it helps improve the software after all. Even then, the developer is perfectly entitled to completely ignore this feedback, and not even give a reason for doing so! If Adam & Co collectively decided to abandon Adium today, nobody here could have any complaints. If you don't pay, you don't have any rights.

Regarding nForcer's problem on the Adium boards - I can see both points of view. I don't think he was trolling, and I don't think his post was a troll. I do however think he was (unknowingly) posting misinformation, regarding the status of the tictactoe plugin.

Lets say I was to program a chess plugin for Adium, and release it to the Adium devs who decided to include it with the Adium release. Some would say, why are you writing chess plugins? There are many more features which need attention which are far more important than chess plugins. To which I could answer, if I want to program a chess plugin in my spare time - what business is it of yours?

Again, I think it's confusion over how open source development works that's at the root of the problems here.

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by sanity assassin:
I just gave the new Adium a try, very impressed. One thing though, and it's probably been mentioned, but will there be more options on the contact list toolbar?

This is alpha software, meaning it is not close to feature-complete. I'm sure more toolbar options will be added later; but honestly, you can do everything through the menus.

[eevyl]

Amen Mr. Scruff.

[Tick]

Originally posted by sanity assassin:
I just gave the new Adium a try, very impressed. One thing though, and it's probably been mentioned, but will there be more options on the contact list toolbar?

There are plans to add more buttons there, from what I remember off hand.

[gorickey]

Is Adam Betts still planning on re-doing or adding a smiley set by the time the final is released? He can do the toolbar icons as well...

[waffffffle]

Originally posted by starfleetX:
Okay, you're entitled to the opinion that they look better on the left instead of the right or that you don't like the label color applied to the whole name, but could someone please explain to me how this:


(Adium 0.51)

is so much noticeably larger than this?


(from your screenshot)

Regardless of whether the time is on the left or right, it still takes up about the same amount of space. The difference is only a few pixels.

For me, when they are on the right they often get covered up by the end of the screen name. If they were on the left the screen name would just get cut off by the right of the window. Plus, once these new status icons get implemented that will shift the screen names even further to the right so that more of the screen names in my buddy list overrun into the idle time. In my opinion status circles are by far the BEST and most space efficient way of displaying all of the relevant information about a user.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by waffffffle:
For me, when they are on the right they often get covered up by the end of the screen name. If they were on the left the screen name would just get cut off by the right of the window. Plus, once these new status icons get implemented that will shift the screen names even further to the right so that more of the screen names in my buddy list overrun into the idle time. In my opinion status circles are by far the BEST and most space efficient way of displaying all of the relevant information about a user.

Gawd, who cares. What's this obsession with knowing immediately how long people have been idle? Are you the Idle Police?

If you can't put up with very similar features, cry me a river.

[Truepop]

Anyone have a copy of Adium 2 before TOC was taken out? I can't to login.oscar.aol.com because it is blocked on my college's network but toc seemed to work and 1.6.2c dies on click on my computer

[King Bob On The Cob]

Unless it was taken down with the site revamp...
http://www.adiumx.com/downloads/

[Truepop]

Originally posted by King Bob On The Cob:
Unless it was taken down with the site revamp...
http://www.adiumx.com/downloads/

It was. I downloaded and installed .51 without thinking they would take out TOC and then I started it up and couldn't get back to an alpha release of 2.

[resImadA]

Originally posted by Truepop:
Anyone have a copy of Adium 2 before TOC was taken out? I can't to login.oscar.aol.com because it is blocked on my college's network but toc seemed to work and 1.6.2c dies on click on my computer

Your college blocks instant messaging!?

[Nebagakid]

Dude, I would love to use it, and have, but today, when I tried to open it, Adium crashed while trying to connect, and then the Crash Logger crashed. I have deleted preferences and reinstalled twice. (but now, it seems that whenever I touch a menu, it crashes, and Crash Reporter always crashes!)


Thus, I have not tried .51, but how is theme handling going to work in later versions, because in .5 it did not seem very user friendly, and it seemed like something a dim-wit could do.

Does it have Rendezvous support? I know it has Address Book support, which is great. The standard emoticons are not super.

I wonder if it would be possible that people have their own user set themes, so that when you talk to them, you get their theme, and vice versa. Like, if I was talking to some dude who loved golf, I would be looking at his golf set theme. That would have to be a custom setting, because it would just confuse some users

[Truepop]

Originally posted by resImadA:
Your college blocks instant messaging!?

I wonder what the techs are doing at this school are doing. Yahoo HTTP works sometimes, MSN works all the time, only toc.oscar.aol.com seems to work on port 443 and Oscar doesn't work in any combo.

[Tick]

Originally posted by Truepop:
I wonder what the techs are doing at this school are doing. Yahoo HTTP works sometimes, MSN works all the time, only toc.oscar.aol.com seems to work on port 443 and Oscar doesn't work in any combo.

What college is this?

[Truepop]

Originally posted by Tick:
What college is this?

Lipscomb University in Nashville TN. Good news is I only have about 3 more weeks then I transfer to UNT in Texas for the summer and next semester.

[waffffffle]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Gawd, who cares. What's this obsession with knowing immediately how long people have been idle? Are you the Idle Police?

If you can't put up with very similar features, cry me a river.

How about this one: I need to get to my academic advisor to sign a form for me ASAP. By knowing exactly how long he has been idle I know if I can catch him before he leaves the CS building for the day. It happened to me last week. He was idle for 11 minutes, I caught him in the parking lot and he signed my form.

[Tick]

Originally posted by waffffffle:
How about this one: I need to get to my academic advisor to sign a form for me ASAP. By knowing exactly how long he has been idle I know if I can catch him before he leaves the CS building for the day. It happened to me last week. He was idle for 11 minutes, I caught him in the parking lot and he signed my form.

You can display idle time in the contact list, and in tooltips.

[waffffffle]

Originally posted by Tick:
You can display idle time in the contact list, and in tooltips.

Have you even read this thread? I already stated the problems with idle time in the contact list: it overruns the screen name if the screen name is long, among other things. Tool tips take more time to read since it requires mousing-over a contact's name.

[jokell82]

Oh, if only I could have Proteus 4's buddy list with Adium's message view...

[Stradlater]

Originally posted by waffffffle:
How about this one: I need to get to my academic advisor to sign a form for me ASAP. By knowing exactly how long he has been idle I know if I can catch him before he leaves the CS building for the day. It happened to me last week. He was idle for 11 minutes, I caught him in the parking lot and he signed my form.

It was good you had the idle time in the buddy list, waiting less than a second for the tooltip to appear would have made you late!

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by jokell82:
Oh, if only I could have Proteus 4's buddy list with Adium's message view...

What's wrong with Proteus 4's message view?

[gorickey]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
What's wrong with Proteus 4's message view?

[insert]Heavily debated tabs vs. drawer opinions...[/insert]

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by gorickey:
[insert]Heavily debated tabs vs. drawer opinions...[/insert]

Ah...

I prefer the drawer for it's ability to show more info and to show more 'tabs' but I prefer even more neither tabs or drawers for it's ability to not make me accidently hit my ex-girlfriend's conversation tab and thinking I was writing to my girlfriend. Boy, when that ever happens to you kiddies, you'll never want to see tabs or drawers for the rest of your lives. Believe me.

This applies to web browsing with tabs also...closing a window and accidently closing all tabs in that window is always a very sad thing.

All little flaws with tabs and drawers that nobody really acknowledges but are there.

I'm glad Proteus at least gives the option of having conversation open in individual windows.

[Tick]

Originally posted by waffffffle:
Have you even read this thread? I already stated the problems with idle time in the contact list: it overruns the screen name if the screen name is long, among other things. Tool tips take more time to read since it requires mousing-over a contact's name.

Have you? Have you read the other threads on macnn and on the adium forums that said a replacement was coming and to wait?

[jokell82]

Originally posted by gorickey:
[insert]Heavily debated tabs vs. drawer opinions...[/insert]

Exactly. I fall on the side of tabs.

What I *REALLY* want is a single window view for Adium. That was the reason I used Adium in the first place.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by jokell82:
Exactly. I fall on the side of tabs.

What I *REALLY* want is a single window view for Adium. That was the reason I used Adium in the first place.

Well...I think it's great that there are 2 different multi-IM products. This means more variety. The more the merrier. I'm glad Omni brought something different than tabs also for that matter. I was getting bored with browsers copying the tab thingy from the browser that started it all (don't know its name).

[jokell82]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
Well...I think it's great that there are 2 different multi-IM products. This means more variety. The more the merrier. I'm glad Omni brought something different than tabs also for that matter. I was getting bored with browsers copying the tab thingy from the browser that started it all (don't know its name).

Just two? http://fire.sourceforge.net/

I don't mind that there is more than one chatting program. I just want the features of the new adium with the looks of the old adium.

[RGB]

Originally posted by Horsepoo!!!:
I'm glad Proteus at least gives the option of having conversation open in individual windows.

So does Adium. Just drag a conversation's tab away from the tabbed IM window, and it will separate.

[Horsepoo!!!]

Originally posted by jokell82:
Just two? http://fire.sourceforge.net/

I don't mind that there is more than one chatting program. I just want the features of the new adium with the looks of the old adium.

Fire doesn't differentiate itself...unless ugliness is a basis for differenciation. Haha, just kidding. It's great that Fire's around too.

[nforcer]

Originally posted by jokell82:
What I *REALLY* want is a single window view for Adium

That's something I really want for any IM client out there. iChat forces a window for a contact list and everyone you message. Proteus and Adium force at least 2 windows (contact list and message view with drawer or tabs). I think the best thing would be contact list as a drawer along the left or right side of the message window, and as you double click contacts, it makes a new tab along the bottom of the message view window for them.

Drawers work and look much better than a single window with panes, when used properly.