[OTR-dev] Pidgin plugin development and GUI look

[Ian Goldberg]

On Tue, May 27, 2008 at 07:09:25PM +0200, hcat at gmx.net wrote:
> > You forgot to run "intltoolize --force --copy" before autoreconf.
> > 
> 
> Right. Thanks, works now.
> 
> I tested the pidgin plugin for a while, it seems to work well. I have however a few notes regarding the UI:
> 
> 1.) Auth dialog:
> http://userp.uni-koblenz.de/~monreal/tmp/otr/otr-auth.png
> A) The space seems to be one line to big.

There's no explicit whitespace being added; I'm not sure where it's
coming from.  Any ideas?  The stuff underneath is in a notebook page;
maybe that's it?

> B) The nested expanders look bad. IMHO one would be enough (showing 2
> paragraphs of text) or even better: a help button which would open a
> help webpage.

I wanted at least some help text that doesn't entail going to the web.
You're suggesting just having "What's this?" open the HTML widget
directly, with the current first-level text as its first paragraph?

> C) Window title should be "Authenticate _B_uddy" (not _b_uddy) as per
> HIG

Fair enough.  Fixed.

> D) Why "other"? I don't see any other options, so just "Authentication
> Options" would be enough IMHO

Also fixed.

> E) The smiley is nice but it does not really serve a propose. Why not
> use the GTK stock icon gtk-dialog-authentication?

It's the stock INFO icon.  The stock authentication icon is a lock, and
a lock just really doesn't convey what's going on here, in my opinion.

> 2.) Chat window:
> http://userp.uni-koblenz.de/~monreal/tmp/otr/otr-chat.png
> A) The background of the user icon should be transparent, not white.
> It looks a bit broken this way.

Hmm.  The original pngs *do* have a transparent background.  The
background in your image isn't in fact white; it's the background colour
of the menu bar.  Might this be a bug in how GTK handles menus labelled
by icons (an admittedly unusual case)?

> B) Why is the chat partner's account listed here? Clicking it does
> nothing... IMHO this is confusing and should be removed... or does it
> serve a purpose I don't get ATM?

Ah, it's because you can group buddies into contacts, and all buddies
from a single contact show up in the same conversation window.  So we
need some way to show that there are multiple conversations going on at
the same time, and they may have different OTR statuses.  Try picking
different things from your "Send To" menu; you'll see the single OTR
menu (representing the "current" conversation), but multiple icons
(representing all conversations, labelled by who you're talking to).

Indeed, it's unfortunate that clicking it does nothing.  If anyone knows
a way to make that menu item not highlight at all, I'd love to do that.
[But making it inactive causes it to grey out so much that I found it
unreadable.]

> C) This seems to show the status again (duplication, as it is also
> shown in the menu header).

Except it's shown in the menu header just as an icon; the added text may
be useful for people new to OTR.

> Clicking it opens the webpage, I wonder if a "What is OTR?" or "What
> does this all mean?" menu entry would not be better.

Good call.  Fixed.

> Generally I like how the icon is integrated now, but I don't like the
> way the same menu opens when pressing "OTR" or the icon behind. It
> should be possible to combine both to only one menu (with text and
> icon). Perhaps also add the status as a text there? I have done a
> mockup for this:
> http://userp.uni-koblenz.de/~monreal/tmp/otr/otr-mock-1.png

As above, this is because there can be multiple icons for multiple
conversations in the same window.

> Also, I have the feeling that having the OTR indicator closer to the
> text box would be better. The same menu could be integrated into the
> toolbar (as a 3rd option?):
> http://userp.uni-koblenz.de/~monreal/tmp/otr/otr-mock-2.png

We left the button available for people who want something like this.
Do you think this is vitally important?  (Do most people leave that
toolbar visible at all?)

Thanks so much for your feedback!  I'm checking in the above changes
now.

   - Ian