Away <-> N/A

caiaphas · Post by **caiaphas** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:20 am

How come Adium still shows the icq buddies that I am n/a when I set it to away? I'd like to have those at two separate choices...

Adium 0.84

Post by **evands** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 11:10 am

How is "away" different from "not available"? They sound synonymous to me.

Githon · Post by **Githon** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 8:45 pm

They're two different statuses in ICQ. AIM and YIM don't have any equivalent, and I assume MSN doesn't either.

ICQ has Available, Away, N/A, Occupied, and DND.

revolution · Post by **revolution** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:49 pm

But surely they achieve the same thing??

Away = not at computer therefore not available??
N/A = not available to chat or away??

ozean · Post by **ozean** » Wed Sep 07, 2005 10:54 pm

Well, I was wondering about this too. However, I think there is a small but important difference between being away and being not available. I can be not available but still be at the computer, that is I am not gone, but I choose to be not available to anyone. I guess secretaries of bosses thrive on these subtle differences, at least one could think that judging from your average movie

In general, I really like these subtle differences and I have always wondered about how far Adium actually supports these differences under the hood. The dock icon doesn't differentiate between being away and being occupied for example, but do other people see my status as away or occupied? (sorry, I hope this is not off topic)

Githon · Post by **Githon** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:09 am

I just confirmed with my friend that when I set Away in Adium, I am listed as N/A on ICQ.

That alone is a problem, since in the ICQ community, Away and N/A are considered different statuses that you set for different reasons.

A far BIGGER problem is this:

I asked him to check if it still showed my away message.

Parias: If I right-click on your name and go to "Read N/A Message", I get rewarded with............ absolutely nothing.

Not only has Adium been setting the wrong status in ICQ, but apparently it hasn't been giving the away message either.

Post by **evands** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:25 am

Away / N/A confusion problem is now fixed for the next version.

Adium does set the custom away message in some form, but I am unsure of which clients can read it. I am fairly sure that other libgaim-based clients -- Adium, Gaim, Proteus -- can read the message.

ozean · Post by **ozean** » Thu Sep 08, 2005 10:43 am

From the Gaim FAQ:

AIM:
Can I set a status message?
In AIM, yes, you can. In 1.x, go to Tools->Away and select either an existing one or the option to create a new one. Statuses themselves are supported for ICQ, but Status messages are not.

Does Gaim support available messages?
See the above question, with the caveat that the UI for this is somewhat different, it is from the account actions menu. This UI will improve with gaim 2.0.0.

This is all I found in their FAQ - no info for other services (question: AIM and ICQ should use the same protocol, so does this apply for both AIM and ICQ?).