Comment 0 for bug 592859

Binary package hint: empathy

Messages regularly come into Empathy, and I regularly miss them. Some may thing this is subjective, and it is. Some may also think it's just me, and maybe that's true too, but let me enumerate some of the reasons why I believe this to be the case:

1. The sound isn't loud enough. Turning up the system volume isn't an option, as it makes the sounds of everything else too loud. The sound level of notifications in Empathy is not adjustable like it is in Pidgin.

2. The new message sound isn't played if the window is focused. This may seem dumb at first, but there are plenty of times when the window could be focused, but the user would still miss the message if there is no sound. Consider the following cases:
a. The conversation window is focused, but I stepped away from the computer (or looked at my desk),
b. The conversation window is focused, but my attention is on the PDF (or webpage, or whatever) I have open next to it, and the new IM comes in on a different tab than the one which is selected.
c. I'm looking at the conversation window, but message comes in on a tab other than the one selected.

3. The Notification Area icon doesn't get my attention very well. In the default theme, it's a white envelope which turns green when there is a new message. This violates the GNOME HIG, for attributing meaning to a color change (since some people are colorblind). One could say that white to green is still visible to a colorblind person (certainly to _some_ colorblind people, as colorblindness isn't the same for everyone), but even so, it's not hard to imagine the icon being difficult to distinguish to someone who has trouble seeing color. I am not a colorblindness expert, but I know what's in the HIG.

4. When a message comes in from a person who doesn't have a tab open in the conversation window, their icon flashes in the buddy list. That's great, except that the buddy list is often minimized or behind other stuff, obscuring the flashing. (I do like the flashing though; it makes me think of the good old ICQ days, when life was simple). I put it here because, while it is good, it's insufficient, and I don't want people to quickly reply with "why don't you just look at the flashing icon in the buddy list...."

5. When a message comes in, in the conversation window, the icon next to the name of the person who sent the message changes from green to white. Yes, the exact _opposite_ of the notification area icon. Upon close inspection, the green and the white _are_ different icons, but barely. Without seeing the color, I don't know if I'd be able to tell the difference, certainly not at a glance. Again, HIG, etc.

6. The Window Manager "URGENT" bit is set on the window. This is good. The problem is that with the new default Ubuntu theme, the button in the window list doesn't grab your attention, as it looks very close to the way the button for the focused window looks, which is not very different from the way the rest of the buttons look.

Is this subjective? Sure. However, I've been using Gaim/Pidgin for years, and I've never had the problem of missing IM messages.

I understand that it's a hard problem. People complain when it's too annoying, and people complain when it's not attention-grabbing enough, and you can't please everybody. Can I submit though, that Pidgin has been around the block; they've been through all this before, and for quite a while now, has had a pretty standard way of getting the attention of the user. I think what they've come up with is pretty good, and it didn't happen overnight. There's no reason we have to re-invent all this stuff with Empathy. How about incorporating some of the good ideas that Gaim/Pidgin have developed over the years and consider using them. "Not Invented Here" really doesn't help anyone when it comes to human factors.

Package: empathy 2.30.1-0ubuntu
Ubuntu 8.10