No option to show empathy contact list

[Patrick Scott]

The Me Menu currently provides the option to edit Chat Accounts and change chat "Status", the user must go into application menu and launch empathy in order to view his contact last.

The option "Chat Contact List" or something similar should be added to the Me Menu - Clicking it would then launch empathy (or whichever chat application is integrated). This would solve two problems:

1 - The Me Menu seems broken when you first boot, all of the Chat status options are disabled unless you know to launch empathy from the application menu. When I first used Ubuntu last June, I was very confused as I had never heard of Empathy and I did not know it was related to the Me Menu.

2 - If I close the Contact List, even though my status is online, the only way to get back is to go into the application menu and find and select Empathy again (unless I have a launcher configured, which I don't). The Me Menu should be a one stop shop for chat, and I should be able to relaunch the Contact List from there.

In order to show how ridiculous the current situation is, let me draw this comparison. If I am running windows xp and using the MSN/Hotmail Chat desktop application, let's say I close the contact list. To get the contact list back do I have to go back to the start menu and search for the MSN application among the many others, or do I simply double click the MSN icon in the System Tray? In this example, Ubuntu is currently forcing the user to 'search the start menu'..

[Raoul Verveer (lazy-r)]

The show contact list button is a great idea. Maybe even better to call it "Go online".
As far as I'm concerned, the status options shouldn't be visible at all when Empathy is not running. But if they are, the online status should also be a trigger to start Empathy.

[Raoul Verveer (lazy-r)]

Also: there is an option to launch the default chat application in the MessagingMenu. I never really quite understood why these two are seperate menu's. Maybe the MeMenu should just be a sub-menu of the MessagingMenu.

[Patrick Scott (patrickscott52)]

Hi Raoul, in relation to your first comment, I don't think changing your status to go online should also bring up your Contact List. Going online is something you do to make yourself Contactable but it doesn't necessarily mean you want to Contact somebody. I think they should be two different options.

I also think that the Change Status options should be both visible and enabled even when Empathy is not running. Currently, when I boot Ubuntu the options are visible but disabled. Now, I know that I must launch Empathy to get those working, but as a new user (l've been using Ubuntu for just a year) I had no idea that Empathy was in any way related to those options in the Me Menu and no idea how to enable them.

To sum up, I do agree with you when you say go online should trigger Empathy to start if it hasn't been started already, but I think it should start in the background and not show the Contact List.

The Change Status issue has been discussed and thought out on in detail in an old Bug Report 452067, but that report has been, in my opinion, incorrectly marked as a duplicate of a different bug which has already been fixed in Natty. It has therefore been forgotten. so I've commented on it to get it revived but I have had no luck yet. Please also comment on that bug if you have the time and you agree! :)

As for your second comment, I had no idea that there was a Chat option in the MessagingMenu! :D I don't use an email client so I had never thought to look there, but yes I agree with you and it doesn't make much sense that the Chat Statuses and the Chat option are in separate menus! Since this "Chat" option actually launches the the Contact List, it somewhat diminishes the importance of my bug report [it is now a minor usability issue which would take a big redesign to really fix]

[Raoul Verveer (lazy-r)]

Agreed. Setting the status to online shouldn't trigger the contact list.
I still think, the Me-Menu and Message-Menu should actually merge. Both have options for chat and microblogging, which should be shown together, imho.

I will check out bug #452067, thanks Patrick.

[Matthias Meyer (matthiasrhmeyer)]

How about a simple Search Panel, where you can type in the name of the contact you want to chat to, and a click on a result brings up the chat window.

[Andre (ajx)]

@Matthias Sounds like a lens for Unity, e.g. the "people lens": https://wiki.ubuntu.com/Unity/Lenses/Ideas