Loud ramblings of a Software Artisan

I use GAIM for instant messenging, because it allow doing all the protocols at once. But I find its UI sometime really cumbersome or annoying. Here is my GAIM wishlist, all UI related:

• Buddy grouping is unclear. We don't know that a buddy is a group of buddies (like for example 1 person, 3 protocols), and the "expand" menu is cumbersome. Why no putting a disclosure triangle and setting up and explicit icon. The icon and the disclosure triangle only appears when the mouse is over the item in the buddy list.
• I need to know the default buddy that will be used when I ask to send a message to grouped buddies.
• Stop showing that buddy list when there is a connection/disconnection. If I happen to hide it, keep it hidden. This is really annoying and it only got better because Metacity in GNOME 2.9.x no longer put it fore front.
• There is a nice notification icon, use it. Update it to show any message unread in any of the tabs. Unread = either the tab or the window has not gotten focus since the message appeared. Bonus of that notification icon can provide the number of message waiting in the icon, or at least in the tooltip.
• There are lot of various cosmetic UI issues, like the account window that has checkboxes to connect the account, or the login window that does not have an "auto-connect" option.

I will report these bugs to the gaim bug tracker or comment existing bug that already report this. I'll also maybe sit to fix some, when I find the time to do so, or when the "piss off factor" will be so important to proritize this task higher. And I'm probably forgetting a few.

Let's go with guerilla installation of AbiWord. Install AbiWord everywhere on Windows machine (with approval of course) or just use it from a USB thumb drive. Here is the announcement I'm reposting:

From: <cspurrier_at_craigweb.net>
Date: Sat Jan 22 2005 - 21:17:29 CET

Announcing AbiWord for Thumb Drives (an unofficial version)

AbiWord for Thumb Drives for Windows is an unofficial
modified version designed for use on USB Thumb/Pen Drives. It was created by
Craigweb. AbiWord for Thumb Drives is based off of AbiWord 2.2.3.

Download it at http://sourceforge.net/projects/abiwordftd/

I haven't tested it personnaly. Have fun.

Source: abiword-user mailing list.

OK, I have been lame of this. I finally posted my gallery of GUADEC 2004 in Kristiansand, Norway, at least the gallery of the digital pictures. I still have a bunch of slides to scan, and I will post them ASAP.