Hello all,
it's incredible how fast this thread grew!!!
Here are some of the things I would like to say...
first, Fabio, you said amsn is a clone of MSN messenger and should do the same as the official client whether it is bad or good... well, I don't agree with you on that. Yes, we are a clone of MSN, but our philosophy is "clone it and improve it". The MSN GUI is bloated, VERY bloated, and almost 90% (I'm guessing) of our users like aMSN because it's not as bloated as the official client (we do have many users from windows who *could* use the official client but prefer the simplicity of aMSN). aMSN is not 'only an alternative', consider it much more!
Also, don't misinterpret what Fenix said (as someone else told you), that's not what he meant, I'm sure. He doesn't like M$N as well as many people because of the way it is, the 'support' they can give you in case you have a problem, how much they'll be willing to help you or add a new feature you'd want, its GUI, bloatedness, etc... compared to aMSN. Fenix, correct me if I'm wrong.
What sukeri said :
If I was a aMSN developer, I would say:
aMSN is aMSN, and it is not meant to be MSN Messenger! Microsoft does their things their way, and we do our things our way!
he's totally right and I agree with him. I also agree on the fact that if you want it your own way and we're not willing to do it, then you can make the changes yourself. Many users have their 'modified amsn' to suit their specific needs... many will make that into a plugin to give it to others too...
Then fabio you said that we can enable/disable it and doing that wouldn't be a problem and it's easy, etc... I have to disagree... because just
adding the feature is already a hassle.. it might not be difficult, but it is still work to do, I would personally prefer to concentrate and spend my time on implement support for the msn spaces/blogs than doing that. We are very short on resources (developers/time) so we try to prioritize what needs to be done. Also, adding an option is not 'that simple', because adding an option means making that option and other options more difficult to access.. look at the advanced preferences, you can do fancy stuff with what's in there, but it got to a point where I would read the whole options 3 to 4 times before finding what I need, and most of the time, I don't find it, give up until someone tells me, no it's there, right under this other option... so adding an option will only make aMSN more bloated.. maybe once we rewrite the whole preferences dialog, it wouldn't become an issue.
About the display picture in the contact list, tell me if you found it, it shouldn't be difficult once you get the SVN version (search the forum for instructions on how to get it)...
Then, I'll go to Elias's post, he says
many users is only you for the moment
humm.. no, you're wrong Elias, Fabio isn't the first one to request it, there have been some users that requested this, probably not enough to say "many".. also, all of them up to know, when they were told that their DP is not necessary since they should 'know' about it, and that they can always click there and switch from one to the other, they usually say "ohh cool, forget it then"... so you might be one of the rare people who actually, really want the feature... and I think you're not totally wrong, because that feature will become very usefull, especially when you are in a multi conversation window, it will allow you to see all the display pictures at the same time... But yeah, as Elias said, we have more than 1 million (actually more than 1.6 million) users using the latest version (probably, many, many more using older or SVN versions) and it is nowhere near 0.1% of users requesting this (out of 1.6 million, maybe 10 people requested it... do the math...). If we had more requests, it would go up in the priority list and will eventually be done at some point.
sukeri and others... yes, the emblem thingy is an idea we've been trying to do, it was only too difficult to do it with the current design and will be included in the next one (look at clgui.tcl, search in the forum for it to know which revision of the file works...)
if i have other things can i ask?
Yes of course, don't hesitate, as long as it's not "I want audio support"
well, as long as it's not something we already received/answered, so make sure you read the FAQ and you search the forums before asking (like those features in SVN that you asked for were already requested a few days ago on another thread in which we answered it's in SVN so if you searched, you would have known).
Also, I'd like to correct sukeri, you said you had the impression fabio was asking for it as being part of the GUI, no, I think he meant he'd like to see it and it could be enabled/disabled (like the official client which allows you to disable (hide) it).
About removing the button bar, I thought it would be a skin option, or an option.. wasn't sure, but it seems vivia says you need the winskin plugin, so go get it and remove that button bar!
vivia, /you being rude again
I guess you're in a bad mood lately... if you're fed up with the forums, questions, support, etc... give it a break!
and finally, could you all forget about vivia's 3rd point.. it is indeed important, but it's not related to this. What that sentence meant is to not request new features (like file sharing, or stuff in the new MSNP13 protocol... basically anything in windows live messenger), but discussing the GUI, and especially an old 7.5 feature (other than anything proprietary like audio conversation, or msn games...) is perfectly acceptable.
now.. I commented on all of your posts.. but can't find something to say myself... oh well, I think you get my point from all my comments!
if any other question arises.. I'll be here!
take care
