Metacontacts: Who am I talking to, exactly?

[dfabulich]

I have a friend who uses IM from work, at home, and on his cell phone. I've combined his multiple IM accounts into a Metacontact. But when I do this, I can't figure out who exactly I'm talking to.

That is, the documentation here http://trac.adium.im/wiki/CombiningContacts describes how to use the metacontact bar to choose where to send my IMs. But if my friend IMs me back, I still can't tell whether he's IMing me from his home account or his work account.

For example, suppose Alice wants to talk to Bob, and Bob has two IM accounts, both online: Bob_home and Bob_work. Alice can use the metacontact bar to send a message to Bob_home saying "are you there?" and then send the same message to Bob_work. Suppose Bob replies from home, saying "yes, I'm here", Alice still has no way of knowing whether Bob is at home or at work.

The metacontact bar still says "Bob_work", so she might guess she's talking to Bob at work, but she has no way to know for sure.

Am I missing something here? Is there any way to tell which Metacontact account just sent me a message?

[Robby]

Does clicking the "speech bubble" in the toolbar of the chat window work for you?
Another possibility would be to check your transcripts.

[dfabulich]

Clicking on the speech bubble exposes the Metacontact bar. That lets me choose who I want to send to, but doesn't tell me which subcontact just sent me a message.

The true subcontact is listed in the transcript, though, so I guess that'll do...

[darmok]

Clicking on the speech bubble exposes the Metacontact bar. That lets me choose who I want to send to, but doesn't tell me which subcontact just sent me a message.

The true subcontact is listed in the transcript, though, so I guess that'll do...

Check your contact name format (View menu). I have mine set to "alias (user)", so I see both the metacontact name and the true username right there on each message. Also try a different message format, as some give more info than others.

HTH,
- Dan.