Re: single-window chat planned or implemented?

On Sun, 19 Oct 2003 21:22:04 -0500, Graham Booker wrote:
> Actually, I was referring to Adium when I said "Tabs like TabbedView 
> (what you typically see in tabs) is limited.  Open about 10 
> conversations, and you start to have problems reading the buddy 
> names." 

I figured, and of course there are problems with any sort of tabbed interface if you overdo it. IE, any web browser with tabs is going to have the same issues if you overdo it on a normal-sized screen... then you get the guys at omniweb saying "we think tabs have problems from a UI standpoint" and go through a whole rigamarole instead of just doing tabs, and of course end up just implementing tabs. :)

IE, I do have times where I chat with ~10 people, but they're very rare compared to the times where it's < 5. So if 90% of the time the thing works great, and the rest of the time it's not perfect...

> In the time that I have asked the mac users I know, almost every 
> single one of them that has ever used adium mentioned this as a 
> problem.

It's a problem in any tabbed interface, but there's still a reason why it's so popular. I mean, what other info do you really, REALLY need to know beyond the person's name and whether they've sent a message? For all the negative things they may have said about adium's tabs, I think they'd be hard pressed to point to something more elegant & efficient.

Sure you could throw it all into a sidebar (or drawer i guess) and add a timestamp & buddy icon next/under their name, or who knows what else, but honestly you're just trading horizontal real estate issues for vertical. And that stuff is "nice", not "necessary", ya know?

I love fire, but opening up fire, proteus, etc, and then opening up adium on an ibook or something otherwise resolution challenged is like a breath of fresh air. Small. Light. Clean. Consistent. Efficient with pixels.

> What I am thinking about may be closer to Proteus and Gaim 
> than Adium, but I will NEVER, EVER put the tabs in a drawer, 
> especially since the drawer is used for the group list in group chats.

*shivers* Yeah, tabs shouldnt' be in a drawer. For awhile there was some talk on the camino list before it died about trying that, or rather all sorts of things in a drawer (thumbnails, etc). They even talked about having tabs down the side ala projectbuilder... cus yeah, everyone knows reading sideways is intuitive. :) *shakes head*

Peace,

db


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