Comment 21 for bug 452067

David Siegel wrote on 2010-03-29: #10

> Think about what "Available" means -- the user who clicks on available
> wants to be contactable. They don't necessarily want to see their buddy
> list, they just want to be reachable via instant messaging.

I totally agree with this point.
It describes exactly the idea I have of the MeMenu: in the morning I turn on the computer, and I begin to work... I don't want to open my chat program nor I want to see my buddy list, but I want to give to my friends a way to contact me, and MeMenu should provide a quick way to do this.

Think about a mobile phone.. it's the same thing!
When you wake up in the morning press the power button to turn it on, and the you put the phone somewere. You don't open you contant list, because, for the moment, you don't want to contact anybody. You just you want to be contactable.
MeMenu should behave in a similar way: yo click on you name, the menu opens, then you click "online". That's all...very quick, very easy! as easy as turning on a mobile phone!

I understand that you want to support both pigdin and empathy, and this efford is all-worthy. But if supporting two IM client prevent from implementing such a usefull feature... maybe it is not worth the trouble!
I think that you should support empathy by default, because it is the chat software installed by default.

Of course if a user wants to drop empathy and install pigdin he should be able to change the behaviour of the MeMenu.. but if he does this change he probably is an experienced user, so he can go to the trouble of changing the default chat application (maybe from Sytem->Preferences->Preferred applications)