Bug 111532

Summary: Improve Kopete away message handling
Product: [Unmaintained] kopete Reporter: Josh Berry <des>
Component: libkopeteAssignee: Kopete Developers <kopete-bugs-null>
Status: RESOLVED WORKSFORME    
Severity: wishlist    
Priority: NOR    
Version: unspecified   
Target Milestone: ---   
Platform: Compiled Sources   
OS: Linux   
Latest Commit: Version Fixed In:
Sentry Crash Report:

Description Josh Berry 2005-08-26 06:04:16 UTC 
Version:            (using KDE Devel)
Installed from:    Compiled sources
OS:                Linux

Kopete's away message handling doesn't work very well for the way I like to use away messages.

When I use Gaim, I keep a large list (possibly 30 or 40) of away messages saved with titles so I can pick the one I want quickly.  Most of my saved messages are pretty lengthy, span multiple lines and include HTML.  Kopete supports none of these things.

I'd like to see:

- A way to explicitly save and reuse away messages, without worrying that they'll fall off the end of the recently-used list and disappear forever.

- Support for multi-line away messages.

- Support for HTML embedded in away messages (yes, I know not all protocols support this, but it's easy to strip out for those that don't).

Why the recently-used list isn't enough:

- Messages don't have titles.  I have to read and parse the beginning of every message in the list to find the one I want.

- Messages that haven't been used for a long time can get kicked off the end, even if I still want them.  The only way around this is to drastically increase the size of the list, which has the side effect of saving one-off messages I don't want.

- Messages get re-ordered every time I use them (the most recent floats to the top).  So I have to scan the *whole* list looking for a message, because they move around and I won't know where I (approximately) need to look.

I don't think adding these features would detract from the current uses of Kopete away messages ... you could keep the recently-used functionality, if you wanted, and still have saved messages.  Also, when doing "one-off" away messages, the only noticeable interface difference would be a multi-line text box that supports HTML instead of a single-line text box (and perhaps use Ctrl+Enter to put up the message instead of Enter, which now breaks lines).

Away message handling is the *only* thing about Kopete that annoys me and the only thing that occasionally drives me back to Gaim (though never permanently). ;)

Thanks!
Comment 1 Klaus Weidenbach 2006-06-04 15:48:46 UTC 
I would like to see a feature to have one list of maybe temporary/recently-used away messages like it has now, but I also to have one submenu maybe with static/permanent away messages that I want to use often and don't want to get kicked off the list.
Comment 2 Ryan Silva 2006-06-24 05:43:47 UTC 
I agree with everything that's been said. I also like to keep a list of saved away messages (funny quotes, common things that I'm doing, etc.) and then I choose one to use. I also often have long messages so I'd really like to have a text box instead of just a line! The html isn't so important for me, but it would be nice.
Comment 3 Sebastian Kosch 2006-08-29 17:41:36 UTC 
Same here (yes, I know, there's already a whole bunch of wishlist entries for this feature).
And if you don't have time to implement this stuff before the release of v1.0 or whatever, it'd be a huge improvement already if the current away message would be in the input box where you enter a new away message, so that - if you're only changing a part of it - you don't have to retype the whole thing.

Besides, it's kinda annoying that a "Global Away" message is shown in the status bar down left, but this message is anything but global. Rather, it only goes for one of the protocols.
Comment 4 Josh Berry 2007-04-19 23:31:57 UTC 
*** This bug has been confirmed by popular vote. ***
Comment 5 Josh Berry 2008-07-28 00:58:36 UTC 
I believe this has been implemented in the KDE4 versions of Kopete.  (The new status system has certainly addressed saving status messages.)  So I would consider this bug resolved.

There's no recently-used functionality in the new status system, however.  If anyone is still interested in this, perhaps open a new wishlist bug.