Pidgin icon matches the user-switcher-applet too much

I think the point of the FUSA's move in that direction is to eventually replace the Pidgin applet's functions (it's supposed to be able to change status, but there's a bug open on that functionality). At the moment, though, I'd agree that there's a usability problem presented by the duplication of functionality.

This isn't considered a bug in FUSA. It is true that Pidgin shouldn't be using the notification area for things other than transient notifications.

How does one get the Pidgin buddy list to come up if it doesn't have a tray icon?

Also, NetworkManager anyone? Or any media player? They all keep a persistent icon in the notification area.

Rhythmbox does not keep an icon in the notification area unless you enable that plugin. To do so is a violation of the GNOME HIG. That's also why hitting the X on Rhythmbox closes it, rather than sending "to the tray" which isn't *really* a tray. It's a notification area. It's *just* for notifications (according to the HIG). The media players that do that are not following GNOME's guidelines.

I would say that if you have Pidgin minimized and want to bring it back, you'd probably click on it in the window list. Or you can alt+tab to it. How do you open any other minimized window?

I think minimizing to the notification area is much better for programs you run all the time (fe IM, e-mail, music) because it makes them easily accessible from any desktop (if you use more than one) and the program is completely out of your way, which is much nicer than having it minimized on one (or all) of the desktops. This way you get to the program in one click on a small icon (if possible showing some extra information, like "new mail", "paused", "new message" or whatever) from any desktop and it doesn't clutter the taskbar... It's also nice to have only one icon to think about for any of these programs, when it has anything to do with Pidgin, I look at the Pidgin icon, when it has anything to do with the music player, ... The Pidgin icon fe shows both my status and a notification whenever I receive a new message.
Imo it would be a step back to avoid this behaviour.
If it is really needed to follow Gnome's guidelines strictly, maybe there should be made a new 'area' just for such programs to *fix* the current situation? (which I personally find unneeded, although I do believe guidelines are made to be followed)

+1 Lucky LIX.

Many, many applications drop an icon persistently in the notification area: NetworkManager, aMSN, Pidgin, Bazaar GTK, Dropbox, aMule, Transmission...

IMHO, trying to change the default behavior of other applications (losing functionality, also) because of feature duplicity is a step back that might be considered.

All of those applications should be using applets, not notification
icons, though.

And two bugs have been filed complaining about the fact that the Pidgin
icon matches the FUSA applet making there be 2 "available" 2 "busy" etc.
icons. They are Bug 273220 and Bug 291846.

I'm against the status icon duplicity (I'm the bug 291846 initial reporter), but IMHO the solution is not to change the default Pidgin behavior nor to lose its "docking" feature in the notification area.

I propose the following solution: to remove at all the status icon from FUSA. Two use cases:

1. The user isn't running Pidgin: In this case, the FUSA status icon isn't necessary. There's no reason to have it.

2. The user is running Pidgin (and its status icon in the notification area): In this case, the FUSA status icon isn't necessary, because there's already one status icon in the panel.

3. The user is running another IM tool (not Pidgin): In this case, that IM tool could possible have its status icon, so we drop to use cases #1 or #2.

IMHO, fixing one only application is better and easier than fixing many.

Hi dudes,
In my opinion we should only change pidgins default behaviour,
the FUSA is very nice idea and someone only have to enable the pidgin option that the pidgin-own-icon hides in the status bar until a new message comes in (that's also what I'm using it now)

Concerning these attitudes "Want to acces pidgin right away", thee is one simple answer why we could disable this icon anyway.

Did you ever come across your multiple Desktops?

e.g press CTRL+ALT+-> and playe your pidgin including open IRC Channels on another workspace.

Who's the one I can ask for changing this option in pidgin as default?

PS: I filed a bug against FUSA because it isn't able to write the pidgin status in 9.04

Thank you for taking the time to report this bug and helping to make Ubuntu better.You reported this bug a while ago and there hasn't been any activity in it recently. We were wondering is this still an issue for you? Do you get the same with Lucid or Maverick? Thanks in advance.

HI Pedro thanks for taking the time to take a look into this bug again.
Hopefully all will agree with me that this bug has been solved by empathys integration into the indicator applet in Lucid.

But even for those using piding the issue can't be there anymore because indicator applet does use a black and white theme.