GNOME Bugzilla – Bug 593102
empathy in one window?
Last modified: 2011-05-16 07:16:58 UTC
Binary package hint: empathy I would like to make a wish to have an option of running empathy in one window instead of two (buddy window and conversation window). Empathy should be like nautilus (places left and file lists right). I know this sounds crazy, but I really don't know why chat clients always have two windows. I find that annoying, for example when you want to drag empathy around on your desktop. Just a suggestion. From downstream: https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/empathy/+bug/415136
yes! like gajim single-window mode http://img694.imageshack.us/img694/555/stiscreenshotj.png
The image attached dont look good ;) but the concept is awesome
Created attachment 175975 [details] OMG Mockup The OMG tribe also got excited over this idea an contributed the attached mockup.
Article here btw: http://www.omgubuntu.co.uk/2010/12/one-window-empathy-boy-would-it-simplify-my-life/
That's kinda in the opposite direction we are moving to. We are working on making the differnt Empathy components less tied together. For example, the chat application is now a separated process. The idea is that you should be able to chat without using Empathy's contact list (by using gnome-shell people pane for example) or chat without using Empathy's chat window (by replying in the shell notifications).
There is one small, but very important problem: users do not care how many processes use Empathy, they need a user-friendly interface. Now, as is well described by Joey Sneddon, Empathy is really inconvenient. To start a new conversation you must reopen Empathy (minimum two actions) and only after that select somebody from contact list. To look who is online you shoud do the same operation, and moreover, after you successfully find out who is currently possible to talk you will have a very difficult quest to reopen you conversation window with current dialogs. In the simplest case you should press Alt+Tab and select one from opened windows. But a lot of peoples close unused windows... And in this case restore all previously opened dialogs is a very difficult task. And if in addition to standard conversations you use multiuser conferences... In fact, usage of empathy in this case is a torture, because you always should spend a lot of nerves and attention to do simplest operation, like switch from conversation to conference and then return back. These problems are greatly distract from communication. Single window interface can resolve all this problems the best way. Maybe for users with 5 friends in contact list Empathy is comfortable. But for users, who has hundreds of contacts and should actively use conferences Empathy is really uncomfortably. Especially in comparison with IM clients like Gajim, which support single window interface.