HALP!

[zaphraud]

1. Whats with the mandatory listing of names ABOVE the text? That sort of makes the chat window have to be unnecessarily large to not scroll too fast.

2. how the hell does one add a chat to their buddy list? For the life of me, neither I nor several people I have asked have been able to figure out why the feature is disabled. None of the chatrooms I saved to my buddylist using GAIM on the PC show up, and even worse, they can't be added. Not even when I am in them!

Currently, I'm stuck making AIM GoChat bookmarklets in my browser!!!

3. Why the obsession with a totally separate program called "Address Book"? It seems that from within a chat, there is no easy way to add anyone to your buddy list other than copy and paste the name. Clicking add while on their name instead launches an Apple program that looks more like its meant to be a PDA assistant than any kind of chat client! Worse, when people get "Added to your address book", they don't show up in your buddylist. That kind of makes adding them useless, near as I can tell. What was the point of that anyways?

4. How do I IM someone in a chat, without doing INITIATE DIRECT CONNECT.... I can't just click on the damn name and get a IM window to open!!

So... am I and people I know just doing something silly and wrong, or is this a problem or everyone else too?!?

[zac]

Ignoring some of your adjectives...

1. Whats with the mandatory listing of names ABOVE the text? That sort of makes the chat window have to be unnecessarily large to not scroll too fast.

In the Messages preferences, disable "show header".

2. how the hell does one add a chat to their buddy list? For the life of me, neither I nor several people I have asked have been able to figure out why the feature is disabled. None of the chatrooms I saved to my buddylist using GAIM on the PC show up, and even worse, they can't be added. Not even when I am in them!

You can't add a chat to your list in 1.1.4; you will be able to in 1.2.

3. Why the obsession with a totally separate program called "Address Book"? It seems that from within a chat, there is no easy way to add anyone to your buddy list other than copy and paste the name. Clicking add while on their name instead launches an Apple program that looks more like its meant to be a PDA assistant than any kind of chat client! Worse, when people get "Added to your address book", they don't show up in your buddylist. That kind of makes adding them useless, near as I can tell. What was the point of that anyways?

Not entirely sure what you're asking here; AB does not launch when I add a contact.

4. How do I IM someone in a chat, without doing INITIATE DIRECT CONNECT.... I can't just click on the damn name and get a IM window to open!!

Double click on the person in your list.

[aptenergy]

Relax dude. We're all friends here.

3. There are several ways to add a contact:
- From a tabbed chat window, right click on the tab and choose Add Contact...
- From the contact list, right click on a group and say "Add Contact..."
- Contact > Add Contact...

[zaphraud]

Ignoring some of your adjectives...
In the Messages preferences, disable "show header".

That turns on and off a large bar at the top of the window. What I am referring to is simply making it look like any other chat, IM, hell even BBS Door program I have used in the last 15 years.

zaphraud: Hows it going?
chatperson: Alright. Whats new?
zaphraud: Oh, not much.

Instead I get:

zaphraud:
Hows it going?
chatperson:
Alright. Whats new?
zaphraud:
Oh, not much.

Which takes up to twice as much room (Multiple lines from the same person don't redisplay the name at least, but thats a rare benefit at best in a chatroom or a conversation, the kind of thing that really only doesn't use too much space if someone is giving a lecture or scrolling ASCii art.)

You can't add a chat to your list in 1.1.4; you will be able to in 1.2.

Thats what I was afraid of, but it seems surprising anyways.

Not entirely sure what you're asking here; AB does not launch when I add a contact.

If you are in a chat, the list of names on the side has an option to "Add to address book". Which apparently *only* does exactly that, using Apple's PDA utility program Addressbook! I now have a couple entries in this otherwise unused (haven't run the palm into the mac yet.. haven't used the palm in quite some time) program that consist entirely of AIM names and the alias I would have assigned had the function worked.

Missing from the menu that pops up when a name is right-clicked in chat is the option for "Add to contact list" or "Add Contact", so you are indeed technically correct. However, the replacement of the "Add Contact" function with the useless "Add to addressbook" option

Why is it useless, why is this objective rather than just my opinion? Because even once I get the Palm pilot connected to the Mac, I will have no use for vcards that consist entirely of AIM names, perhaps with an alias.

Basically, it connects the program to another program in a manner that allows it to save data that is useful only to itself, then, flat-out refuses to retrieve data from that other program in any useful fashion.

It almost seems like a practical joke, really, but try it if you don't believe me.

4. How do I IM someone in a chat, without doing INITIATE DIRECT CONNECT.... I can't just click on the damn name and get a IM window to open!!

Double click on the person in your list.[/quote]

Nothing happens. Again, this is NOT the buddy list I am talking about, but rather, the list of people displayed next to the side of the chatroom. Clicking or doubleclicking does nothing at all. Right clicking brings up a menu with, among other things:
Add to Addressbook (*NOT contact list)
Invite to chat (*Oh, thats hilarious - they're already IN the chat...*)
Initiate Direct IM with ...

But nothing for sending a regular IM. There is a "Send notification" option, but its permanently greyed out.

3. There are several ways to add a contact:
- From a tabbed chat window, right click on the tab and choose Add Contact...
- From the contact list, right click on a group and say "Add Contact..."
- Contact > Add Contact...

I don't mean to sound too agitated but its been a bit of a rude awakening switching to a mac, no harm meant. I sort of had this idea that I'd at least be able to take advantage of all the open source stuff, but GAIM was discontinued and its replacement links here. Sorry.

There is no option "Add Contact" from a chat window anywhere. I'm assuming you are referring to an actual chat and not an IM window. Chat's cant be added at all (see above) and clicking on the tab for a chat does nothing whatsoever. Clicking on an IM window does something, but even then it only shows that address book thing.

Of course, since there is not really any way to send an IM to a person until they are on your buddy list anyways, the odds of an IM window being open where I'd need to add someone are much lower. Where is "send IM", I find myself adding people I will never speak to because they don't even use the service anymore, just to try to say hello.

I see now that its hard to say really since the program refers to everything as a "chat", including IM windows between only two people(!) In all the above text, when I refer to a chat I am referring to a multi-person chat, not a two-person IM window.

Oh well.

[zac]

That turns on and off a large bar at the top of the window. What I am referring to is simply making it look like any other chat, IM, hell even BBS Door program I have used in the last 15 years.

http://www.adiumxtras.com Get a different message style, there's plenty that display how you want.

As for the rest, check out http://trac.adiumx.com/ReportingBugs

"GAIM" wasn't discontinued; http://www.pidgin.im which you can compile for yourself if you want. I'd prefer you help make Adium better, but to each his own.

[aptenergy]

There are many message window styles. "Smooth Separate Lines" and "Simplicity" are two message styles that do what you want. You can find them on the Adium Xtras site at http://www.adiumxtras.com.

Yes, I was confused by your terminology. IM windows can either be group chats or single person chat, so we typically don't use it the way you do. Anyway, I see now that "group chats" don't have "Add Contact..." (I hope you see that single-person chats do) and you can't double click screen names in the group chat participant list to start a chat with them. I assume this is something that can be easily remedied; can you file a bug on trac.adiumx.com? (You might want to file a separate bug for each individual group chat issue.)

FWIW, I like using Address Book; that way I can map names to other contact information. I can also merge cards, so having a contact with just a screenname... that can easily be fixed.

[zaphraud]

That turns on and off a large bar at the top of the window. What I am referring to is simply making it look like any other chat, IM, hell even BBS Door program I have used in the last 15 years.

http://www.adiumxtras.com Get a different message style, there's plenty that display how you want.

As for the rest, check out http://trac.adiumx.com/ReportingBugs

"GAIM" wasn't discontinued; http://www.pidgin.im which you can compile for yourself if you want. I'd prefer you help make Adium better, but to each his own.

The PIDGIN codefork goes along with making PANGO support mandatory and other things that resulted in a vastly inferior, much more bloated GAIM. So does the .im domain name, really. Wouldn't want to have any "A" in the product name of GAIM, people might realize the product originated as a result of code and servers originally developed in the United States... even the name "Pidgin" refers to the process of communications bastardization that ultimately resulted in the unwieldy monster "UTF" that now pollutes the Internet and causes security issues (realistic looking domain name spoofing with IDN, for one) due to its bad design.

So... I'll have to choose more addons for Adium.

[zac]

The PIDGIN codefork…

Pidgin is not a fork; they were forced to change their name by AOL.

[evands]

There is no such program as PIDGIN, just as no program named GAIM has ever existed. Pidgin or pidgin, Gaim or gaim.

The PIDGIN codefork

Not a fork, as Zac mentioned.

goes along with making PANGO support mandatory

No, it doesn't. This is wrong.

and other things that resulted in a vastly inferior, much more bloated GAIM

Also false. Pidgin, which is effectively Gaim 2.0.0, is significantly more streamlined than Gaim ever was.

So does the .im domain name, really. Wouldn't want to have any "A" in the product name of GAIM, people might realize the product originated as a result of code and servers originally developed in the United States...

This is asinine. im is short for "instant messaging" so is a very appropriate top level domain for an instant messaging program. This has nothing to do with country of origin; furthermore, the development team of Pidgin is international.

even the name "Pidgin" refers to the process of communications bastardization

Actually, it refers to a derivative language which evolves from interconnections between peoples with distinct tongues; it is often simplified relative to the parent languages and allows common communication.

that ultimately resulted in the unwieldy monster "UTF"

UTF isn't the result of bastardization; it's the result of standardization, a process quite the opposite. There's nothing unwieldy about UTF.

that now pollutes the Internet and causes security issues (realistic looking domain name spoofing with IDN, for one) due to its bad design.

This is the result of implementation issues with browsers, not with UTF-8/UTF-16 themselves; I also challenge you to name one other security issue related to this "problem".

So... I'll have to choose more addons for Adium.

Strong conclusion to an excellent argument!

[The_Tick]

Is there anything else we can do to help you with Adium? I'd like to go ahead and get this thread back onto topic (minus the cursing please. )