Invite button: show name and group?

[yeah]

I have a couple of contacts with the same name, so if I want to invite someone to a chat I'm having with another contact, those two friends are shown with the same name in the popup menu.
Would it be possible to add the group their part of? Or some other distinctive attribute, like showing their email in brackets?

[kakaroto]

custom nickname ?

[square87]

Hi
it also happens to me.
Emails is better because they are unambiguous, and also a scroll-x in those windows can be useful :S
Thanks, bye

[yeah]

custom nickname ?

That means I have to manually change their nickname? That's not very nice, in my point of view

What I mean is that, when clicking on the "Invite" button, often I get:
Mr A
Mr B
Mr B
Mr C

So I have troubles understanding which Mr B is the one I actually want to invite in the chat. I think it would be better something like:
Mr A (mr_a@emails.com)
Mr B (mr_b@foo.com)
Mr B (the_only@bar.net)
Mr C (laundry@washings.org)

So there's some more information without having to manually manipulate the contact's name.

Another possibility could be to have listed the active groups (those groups in which there's at least one contact active) in the popup menu, and the contacts grouped in the group' submenu, something like

Code:

Group 1
    > Mr A
    > Mr B
Group 2
    > Mr B
Group 3
    > Mr C

But this could still make the problem arise, altough with less frequency

[kakaroto]

you could set a global nickname, one for all of them, with : $nick ($email)
and it should work..
in any case, I've committed the suggested fix in revision 8984. So you can see the emails too, but it looks really ugly and bloated :s
(btw, it's not in the 'menu' when you click from the button bar of a chat window, that would be too much ugly to put it there, so you need to click on the File menu then 'invite'.)

[yeah]

Thank you

you could set a global nickname, one for all of them, with : $nick ($email)

Tried but, I'm sorry, it's ugly

So you can see the emails too, but it looks really ugly and bloated :s

I don't find it that ugly.
If possible, I'll rip the status from there and put instead the email, starting from the fact that before inviting a person I'd check her status in the CL.
Another idea would be to make it homogeneous, adding the status of those who are online too. In either case, I don't see it so bloated, but this is a matter of preference, I understand.

The other options are:
- adding a new option in preferences (and I have already read that window is already too rich)
- create a plugin, this would just move the option in another place, and I personally think it would be too much do a plugin just for this.

Those are a bunch of ideas, any thought about them?

[kakaroto]

hehe, cool, too bad the custom nick didn't work!
About the status, it wouldn't be a good idea, because that window is used at several places (4 different things), like when you do a 'send message' from the contact list, or when inviting, or send file, etc...
the status is there because it is useful information, and if it's there it's probably because someone asked for it years ago.
About your options :
- lol, thx for knowing it's too rich :p and yeah, wouldn't be a good idea
- I agree, which is why I put it in SVN, otherwise, I would have said to write a plugin for it from the start.. + it would be complicated to make it into a plugin since you would need to hook the function directly, which is not 'very' recommended..

Just keep it like that, in any case, it doesn't matter, not many people use those windows, and the change is still acceptable, and it will be done differently (probably) in aMSN2.

[Phil]

I have a global nickname that does the thing : "$nick ($user_login)" and I don't know why you find that ugly....

[yeah]

Because I don't like to have the email right to the nick in the CL
Not to add that that solution hides almost all the contacts PSM
Personal taste, of course