Therefore, I here expose my satisfaction to the current state of Pidgin. Even if some details of the UI could be changed to please me even more, they’re in a state that’s already pleasant.

With that being said, I’m one of those that prefers seeing the presence status over the protocol icon.

I understand the idea of abstraction that Pidgin wants to defend. I also think that it’s impossible to have 100% abstraction due to the implicit differences between the supported protocols (take IRC versus AIM, for example). So in my humble opinion, it’s just a matter of deciding where the abstraction line is being dropped.

In the other hand, I don’t think that the above should be a priority over improving the core (Purple), for example.

As I said before, I’m already happy with the current way and I’m just wasting your time while giving my 2 cents about what would make me even happier.

Don’t give up! :) hri

The Pidgin developers do a great and often under-appreciated job. That’s one of the problems with Open-Source. People get conditioned to the stream of freely collaborated software and take it and the process for granted. This will only get worse in the future.

I rarely weight in on such matters, this is the first time I have ever commented on Pidgin even though I have used it for years. However, like Joe V said “I like Pidgin. I liked Gaim. I liked the old icons. I like the new icons. I’m easy to please…”

I have been aware of the whole menu and protocol icons for some time and was simply glad to go along with whatever got rolled out but I must confess that I like the protocol icons in Pidgin 2.2.0. For someone like me who has accounts on almost every IM and who has friends with multiple accounts themselves it is a nice feature to have a visual cue, for example, to see which account I am referring to at a glance so that I can access the correct logs to copy and paste info.

The Gaim/Pidgin 2.0.x beta process was one of the longest betas I have seen for an Open Source utility. And since betas imply that things are in flux and may not work properly or even work differently after the final release it is silly (for users) not to expect that the process is anything but “one step backward and two steps forward”.

Then implement a good speex chat plugin and dominate the world. That is my most earnest hope!

Thanks again for such a great IM client!!

FWIW, I disliked losing the protocol icons, and if they’re back as an option, I’m happy to have them back. That said, the continued efforts to improve the interface, even knowing that I won’t agree with all of them you have or will ever do, are welcome – rocking the boat exposes us to different way things can work and occasionally might change our minds. I may have occasionally complained, but in the end, pidgin is as important as vim to me – that’s saying a lot.

I like Pidgin. I liked Gaim. I liked the old icons. I like the new icons. I’m easy to please. I used Gaim and continue to use Pidgin because I support free software, and because I don’t want all the adware and other encumbrances of commercial IM clients. I appreciate all the time (and, it would seem now, real money) that you and the rest of the Pidgin developers are spending on a client that I can use freely (both libre and gratis).

I think there is a strong chance that the Pidgin developers suffer the wrath of a vocal minority. I suspect that there are a number of people who are silently cheering you on, and an even larger number who simply don’t care either way and will use whatever you deem best. (Some of us have more important things to evaluate than whether the icons you chose are the best possible choice.)

So thanks. A true, heart-felt “thank you” to you and to the other Pidgin developers. And chin up — I suspect a lot of us are on your side. :-)