The text entry box fits the content precisely and induces claustrophobic feeling. I could not make larger with the mouse and I did not see any relevant settings either. It is really uncomfortable to use it as it is now. Reproducible: Always
I'd like to note here, that Facebook chat (the website thingy) also uses one-line text input that auto-resizes. On the other hand GMail's GTalk client has two lines high input by default (G+ then have even three lines as default height). Neither one of these however can be resized anymore (wider, for example).
Created attachment 70553 [details] Makes the message entry box resizable. Gmail has indeed an extra line which also hold the emoticon's icon. It does not create the same claustrophobic effect so I could settle for similar one if making it resizable is too undesirable. I played today a little with the layout and managed to almost achieve what I wanted initially. The patch is attached here.
Thanks for the patch, we'll try to review it asap. However note that your "claustrophobic" argument is not exactly valid. Say we accept this and in a month or two someone else will pop up and he'll post a patch undoing what you did, because he feels the chat window is overwhelming or something similar. We could be dragged back and forth in this because different people have different preferences (also note that we're not really convinced we need this change, but I'll leave that decision up to the component maintainer). For future reference - when you want something changed - /always/ clearly state what's wrong with it, why you think it's wrong for users and try proposing a solution and explain how and why will the solution help /all/ users, not just you. That will help your case a lot better than saying "you did it wrong, it's uncomfortable, fix it" ;)
I should probably apologise for not making myself clear enough. I think we are all very aware or at least should be aware that a feeling is personal matter as much as aesthetic preference, food etc... hence your objection on the 'validity' of my note is not exactly valid. I am likely more capable to know what I prefer that most other people. I have not proposed to change the size of the box precisely because I recognise the opinion of others may and will differ, and I am not the one to judge it. I do not know the preference of the majority neither do I care too much about it because it is very unlikely for it to be shared amongst all people. What I want to propose is to make the box customisable so that everyone has the freedom to have it according his/her own taste. Of course it makes sense to put the default to whatever most people or those with stake in the project prefer. You can see this in my patch. At first sight nothing has been changed. The change is only visible if you hover over the upper border of the entry box. The mouse pointer will change shape suggesting it is capable of resizing it. On the patch: It is not perfect. One issue I see is the empty space left if it is extended too much. It is not practical to extend so much and thus is not a practical issue but certainly deserves a fix. I am not sure how to do it though. Another nice thing will the ability to remember what was the last size and use it when launched next time. I can do that but will probably spent more time and make it less well integrated with the framework than someone in the know. It will be great if these things are address and the feature provided without disruption for others.
As you pointed out with your patch: - it doesn't save - it doesn't 'snap' to 1 line, 2 line etc. so you can set it to 1.5 lines high which looks considerably worse than what we have. Marking as won't fix. Sorry.
This has come up again. I'm reopening this. From Thomas Pfeiffer, our usability guy: " Hm yes, that indeed does feels a bit odd. Pidgin for example displays two lines initially and then auto-expand afterwards. This immediately makes clear to users that there is a multi-line input, whereas the one in KTp looks like single-line at first. " We will change the minimum height to two lines. Now the send button is gone, it won't look so out of place.
Git commit 53f8fd7acf30303da56e594aa8a819d40affb5ba by Martin Klapetek, on behalf of Róbert Szókovács. Committed on 17/04/2013 at 12:48. Pushed by mklapetek into branch 'master'. Make the input box two lines high by default REVIEW: 110061 FIXED-IN: 0.7.0 M +1 -2 lib/chat-text-edit.cpp http://commits.kde.org/telepathy-text-ui/53f8fd7acf30303da56e594aa8a819d40affb5ba