[Pidgin] #8896: Window icon and title in tabbed mode
Pidgin
trac at pidgin.im
Mon Apr 6 07:47:30 EDT 2009
#8896: Window icon and title in tabbed mode
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Reporter: msundman | Owner: lschiere
Type: defect | Status: new
Component: unclassified | Version: 2.5.5
Keywords: |
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The point of an icon is to easily recognize or find what you're looking
for. When you run pidgin in tabbed mode (Preferences->Interface->Show IMs
and chats in tabbed windows) an IM-window represents the conversations of
'''all''' tabs in that window. Now the window icon and title are taken
from the frontmost tab in the window. This is bad because it makes the
window hard to find. Tabbed windows should have a pidgin icon and have a
title starting "Pidgin" or "Chat" or "IM" or somesuch generic text,
because that's the most specific identifying abstraction of such a window.
E.g., say I'm IMing with Ann, Bob, Carol and a few others. I switch to
another window for a while and then I want to say something to Bob. I scan
the taskbar for Bob's avatar or a Pidgin icon but none of the taskbar
buttons have that, so I scan it again for the title "Bob" or "Pidgin" but
again none of them have that. If I want to find the correct window I'd
either have to remember who I was chatting with last and look for that or
start going through the taskbar buttons very carefully and for each one
ask myself "Could this be it?" (which is the very thing icons are meant to
prevent).
So, not only is this a UI defect (the too-specific icon+title instead of a
properly specific abstraction is simply wrong), but has also the
(un)practical consequence of causing a heavy cognitive load when looking
for an IM-window (i.e., when actually using the icon+title).
--
Ticket URL: <http://developer.pidgin.im/ticket/8896>
Pidgin <http://pidgin.im>
Pidgin
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