Re: Please change the 2.4.0 input field's resize behaviour

> On Mon, Mar 03, 2008 at 06:57:52PM +0000, Mark Scott wrote:
> <snip>
>  
>>> Do you really regularly send IMs that are longer than four full lines?
>>>      
>> Yes, very often.  I've got several years of logs I can analyze if you'd
>> like hard stats.  There will be a mixture of paragraphs that flow,
>> unbroken, to more than four full lines and messages containing anywhere
>> from several to many explicit linefeeds.
>>
>>    
>>> Are
>>> these IMs something other than normal text (i.e. code snippets)? Are these
>>> longer IMs routinely five lines, six lines, some larger number, unbounded?
>>>      
>> Messages I exchange with colleagues run from one character to, I expect,
>> a dozen lines.  Code snippets, exception stacktraces, lists of
>> instructions, XML, problem descriptions etc..
>>
>> They're ultimately bounded by the MSN protocol's limit on message size.
>>  I don't know what that limit might be but do hit it occasionally.
>>    
>
> Yes, the current mechanism is most certainly tailored to IM usage which is
> the sending of short-to-middling sentential data, and very much not to the
> IM usage whereby large bits of multi-line data are sent back and forth.
> I'm not sure I think that is a bad thing, I feel reasonably comfortable
> stating that the overwhelming usage of IM is in fact the case we are
> tailored for currently.
>
> That being said, I do fully appreciate the other usage and would like to
> make it as painless as possible. If you could analyze your logs and
> determine what in fact your average message length (in lines) is and what
> your 'routine' maximum length is, I would find that incredibly interesting
> to know, and quite possibly very valuable (assuming your usage mirrors
> others with similar patterns).
>
>  
>> Looking at my current Pidgin 2.3.1 window I can see I have 12 lines
>> visible in the input field and 40 lines of conversation visible (with,
>> as it happens, 132 chars per line).
>>    
>
> I think, as Kevin indicated in his email, that IM windows of this size are
> rare, and that, as he also indicated, much of the design here was to allow
> for smaller yet functional windows.
>
> As above however I really don't want to penalize those that keep large IM
> windows, so suggestions for what could be done (other than adding the
> manual sizing back as an option, at least for the moment) are welcomed.
> Would a larger maximimum line allowance be acceptable? Would that resizing
> be too annoying?
>
>  
>>> Were you really happier having to either constantly resize the input area
>>> to accomodate these larger messages and then back down again to a normal
>>> size, or happier with an average of wasted space?
>>>      
>> Really much happier with what you consider "wasted space".  I wouldn't
>> have filed a report otherwise ;-)
>>
>> We clearly have different ideas on what's "normal".  I never found
>> myself constantly resizing anything.  Hardly ever, in fact.  I guess
>> that suggests 10 to 12 lines is, for me, enough to give sufficient
>> context to whatever I'm currently typing.
>>    
>
> I'm assuming given these statements that you in fact left your input area
> at 12 lines at all times and did not shrink it after your large messages.
> Which I believe is likely because of the large size of your IM window and
> the fact that even at 12 lines your history area was large enough to be
> useful. For many IM users 12 lines is not an input area size they could
> tolerate as their windows are notably smaller than yours.
>
> For example my conversation windows here at work contain ~20 lines of
> history with the default 2 line input area. (For full disclosure, or
> something. My window at home has a significantly larger history area but
> that is an artifact of the window management layout I use at home and not
> because I actively chose to make it that large.)
>
>  
>>> Is there some middle ground that would serve your purpose and yet provide
>>> the benefits of the cureent automatically resizing input area.
>>>      
>> IMHO your premise is flawed.  I don't see any benefit at all in an
>> auto-resizing area.  To me, it's too small and the auto-resizing is
>> distracting and irritating.  YMMV.
>>    
>
> Given your window size and your acceptance of a large input area even for
> messages which don't require it you don't see any of the benefits, but
> that doesn't mean they don't exist. The benefits are exactly for people
> for whom the normal two lines is sufficient greater than 90% of the time,
> but who for some part of the rest of the time need a larger input area to
> fit their message. The auto-resizing allows them to not have wasted space
> for the majority of their messages but to cleanly and automatically size
> up to accomodate double length messages, which returning immediately to
> the default size upon message sending.
>
> Do you not see the benefit to that (assuming the usage model I laid out)?
>
>  
>> Regards.
>>
>> --
>> Mark Scott
>> mark@...
>>    
>
> It is beginning to appear to me that there may very well be a usage case,
> like yours, for which the auto-resizing is just not a viable option. I'm
> assuming even if the widget sized itself to 12 lines on demand you
> wouldn't like the size changing. If that is in fact the case I'm not sure
> what option there really is other than to allow for disabling the
> auto-resizing entirely and switching back to manual resizing. But I
> haven't quite gotten there yet.
>
>     -Etan
>
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