[OTR-dev] Pidgin plugin development and GUI look

[hcat at gmx.net]

To the list...

> But we'd like it obvious at a glance that there are multiple
> conversations of differing security happening at once.  Try it out with
> the currently checked-in code to see how it works now.

Another quick mockup from me that tries to address the multi conversations problem: http://userp.uni-koblenz.de/~monreal/tmp/otr/otr-mock-3.png

This is using the details bar to display all active accounts and their OTR status. Normally they are flat tiles, hovering them would give the same button feedback as hovering the toolbar does, pressing either (left) would pop up a menu similar to the current menu popup (shown at the bottom of the mockup). Alternatively the tiles could show the OTR status icon instead of the protocol icon. Either way, the currently inactive icon(s) should be displayed with about 30% transparency (mockup uses 50% but this is not enough I think). Grayscaling is not a good idea as it would look disabled and for example the "not private" icon is already gray.

IMHO this would be another nice option with the advantage that the different account states belong to the active tab.

Still having a simple "OTR: <StatusText>" or "OTR: <StatusIcon>" or "OTR: <StatusIcon> <StatusText>" on the right side of the toolbar would be nice because:

a) you mostly care about what you will get on the next send. If you type and look at the text box, you will notice a "not private" icon or red text there, but probably not notice those when they are only displyed at the top of the window.
b) I don't think multi-account chats are *that* common. I have quite a few meta contacts with people who have 2-5 different accounts, but it rarely happens that accounts get changed during conversations.

Cheers,
-Michael
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