[OTR-users] Pidgin OTR Button duplicates itself

[Brian Morrison]

Ian Goldberg wrote:
> On Sat, Sep 15, 2007 at 01:34:27AM +0200, 412MN wrote:
>> I have some users in my contact list that are registered with multiple
>> accounts (ICQ/XMPP) therefore I bundle them in the list. In a
>> conversation window with these folks I get a menu item in the upper part
>> of the window that says "Send to" and I can choose the person's account
>> I want to talk to. Whenever I switch the accounts though, a second OTR
>> button appears. Here's what I do to reproduce this:
>>
>> Open a new conversation
>> ICQ Account is default, one OTR-button visible that tries to establish a
>> secure ICQ connection
>> I click on "Send to" and choose the XMPP account from the list
>> window is active in XMPP mode, two OTR-buttons visible, the first one on
>> the left still connects to ICQ the second and new one to XMPP
>>
>> I'm not familiar with the code but I know a little about coding and my
>> guess is there must be some routine in the plugin code that creates the
>> button and fails to destroy the old one when a different account is
>> chosen. Ideally the OTR-button linking to ICQ would be
>> destroyed/replaced and an XMPP one created once the account is selected
>> and vice versa.
> 
> It's not failing to destroy the old one.  You really do need both of
> them there, unfortunately.  gaim 2 (now aka pidgin) made the decision
> that a single conversation window can contain simulaneous conversations
> with different people (or different accounts of the same person).  But
> what if one of those conversations is OTR-protected, and one isn't?
> When you receive a message, how will you know if it's authentic or not?
> The purpose of leaving both buttons there is just to warn you of this
> possibility.
> 
> It's clear that this isn't the best UI choice, though.  Suggestions on
> how to deal with this problem are more than welcome.

I think it would make sense to show only a single button, but display a
warning when the protocol in use changes, maybe as text in the window,
or perhaps by changing the button colour temporarily. Then keep the
state for each connection and change the button display as necessary to
reflect it.

I've just been caught out by this as I've combined a few contacts into a
single one and found that the UI situation is confusing to say the least.

-- 

Brian Morrison

bdm at fenrir.org.uk