Changes between Version 74 and Version 75 of Using Pidgin

Timestamp:

Oct 18, 2007, 2:49:45 PM (16 years ago)

Author:

lschiere

Comment:

--

Using Pidgin

@@ -199 +199 @@
 === Can I group buddies by their owner, like Trillian's or Miranda's Metacontacts? ===
 Sure! Right click a buddy on your list and at the bottom of the menu click "Expand".  Then just drag other screen names to the same person below it.  When you're done, click on the arrow to collapse them.  When the contact is collapsed, Pidgin will select a buddy to display based on the status of the buddies in the contact, and their order.
+
+=== I grouped my buddies into contacts, can I control which one is selected? ===
+Yes and no.  Pidgin uses an algorithm to determine which buddy is selected.  If you right click on a contact
+and select expand, you can see an                                                                                                                                                 ordered list of the buddies in that contact.  Pidgin will pick the                                                                                                                                                
+highest/topmost buddy that is most available.
+                                                                                                                                                                                                                  
+It computes which is most available as follows:
+
+1. It will start at the top looking for a buddy that is "present" and not idle. If it finds one, it will use that.
+
+2. If it did not already find one, it will then start at the top looking for a buddy that is away but not idle. If it finds one, it will use that.
+
+3. If it has not already found one, it will start at the top of the list looking for a buddy that is idle but not away.  If it finds one, it will use that.
+
+4. If it has not already found one, it will start at the top of the list looking for a buddy that is both away and idle.  If it finds one it will use that.
+
+5. Lastly, if all of the buddies are offline, it will pick the top buddy. Ideally it would search the list one more time, looking for a buddy that is offline, but on a protocol that supports offline messages.  This has not, however, been implemented yet. 
+
+With this search pattern, you should be able to drag the buddies in that contact into an order that will yield reasonable results for that contact most of the time.  While this will be sufficient for most people most of the time, we recognize that a small minority of users may need to control things more precisely.  In the source tarball there is a plugin, contact_priority, that does not install by default.  If installed and loaded, this plugin allows for some modifications to the algorithm that Pidgin uses.  Specifically, you can weight certain accounts to be either more likely to be chosen or less likely to be chosen. This cannot, however, be done on a per-buddy basis with the existing plugin.
 
 === What do those colors in the conversation tab mean? ===