Created attachment 150520 [details]
screenshot

It currently shows the user's alias, which is useless since we see it right under the mouse cursor where the tooltip was spawned from, and it shows "<b>Contact</b>", which takes space and is redundant.

Created attachment 150521 [details]
mockup

Here's the same tooltip, but with more information shown:
- Account (same as original)
- Username/JID (same as original)
- Ressource: for jabber accounts
- "Conversation vidéo et audio disponibles" = "Video and audio chat available". Of course, this string would have a variants such as "Video chat available" and "Audio chat available".
- The last time the contact appeared online
- The status

(In reply to comment #1)
> It currently shows the user's alias, which is useless since we see it right
> under the mouse cursor where the tooltip was spawned from, and it shows
> "<b>Contact</b>", which takes space and is redundant.

Agreed. This has been reported in bug #603977.

(In reply to comment #2)
> - Ressource: for jabber accounts

I don't think we should display that. It only makes sense for XMPP accounts and that's mostly a XMPP implementation detail that most users won't understand.
Furthermore, Telepathy currently doesn't expose it so Empathy is not able to know the ressource(s) of the contact.

> - "Conversation vidéo et audio disponibles" = "Video and audio chat available".

I don't really see the point. We already have this information easily available in the contact list.

> - The last time the contact appeared online

Do you know clients implementing this? Are they getting this information from the server or locally save the last time they saw the contact as online?

>> "Conversation vidéo et audio disponibles" = "Video and audio chat available".

> I don't really see the point.
> We already have this information easily available
> in the contact list.

Of course, the point is precisely to be able to remove them from the contact list! (ie bug #583433)

> - The last time the contact appeared online

> Do you know clients implementing this? 
> Are they getting this information from the server
> or locally save the last time they saw the contact as online?

Pidgin does this, I would venture a wild guess that they are storing it as offline information since I think it works with all protocols.

What about removing contact list tooltips altogether?

1) They doesn't contain any useful info. Most is already shown in contact list (status icon, name, photo...) and other items aren't really useful in daily use yet even more useless every time i try to move cursor around. I think, that more appropriate place for contact details is "right click menu"/"information"

2) They really stand in the way every time i try to find some contact

We are displaying additionnal info when available such as position and plan to add more in the future: contact-info, music the contact is listenning, user mood, etc.

Yes, but I still think that they take unreasonable amount of space when shown. Currently they block at least 3 contacts below. 

The second question is how often do you need to know information shown in the tooltip? 99% of the time I just need to write quick reminder to colleagues to send me back data they promised three hours ago and not check what everybody listens to. So if the information is so vital to communication (e.g "user mood" can be) then it should probably be shown right in the contact list. Other - "not so often needed" information should go to right click menu. 

Some things look nice at first, but become a real pain to use 8 hours a day ;)

Adding Alan and Nick, maybe they have some ideas about what we should do with these tooltips.

Note that now the tooltip can display a map with the position of the contact (if supported).

If the job of these tooltips is to show a more detailed view of the contact, then contacts integration is definitely the way to go. An option to 'Open in Contacts' is something that I very much want to work towards in the long run.

As for the tooltips themselves, I'm not sure. The design could certainly be improved, but then tooltips are something that are going out of fashion in general...

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