1003999 - De-emphasize contact list

Status: RESOLVED WONTFIX

(Instantbird Graveyard :: Contacts window, defect)

Description

[Jules Blok]

User Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:28.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/28.0 (Beta/Release)
Build ID: 20140314220517

Steps to reproduce:

1. Open InstantBird.
2. Start a new conversation.
3. Close contact list.

As a user with only a few contacts having a separate contact list is redundant. The conversation window with the buddy-list available when creating a new tab is more than enough for me.


Actual results:

InstantBird shuts down completely.


Expected results:

InstantBird should stay active until all windows are closed. It should act the same way as Thunderbird and Firefox in this regard.

I also suggest to de-emphasize the contact list and have InstantBird start with a new tab from which you can start conversations. I think non-expert users would prefer a single window just like Firefox and Thunderbird.

Comment 1

[Patrick Cloke [:clokep]]

(In reply to Jules Blok from comment #0)
> As a user with only a few contacts having a separate contact list is
> redundant. The conversation window with the buddy-list available when
> creating a new tab is more than enough for me.
This is only an issue on Windows and Linux.

> InstantBird should stay active until all windows are closed. It should act
> the same way as Thunderbird and Firefox in this regard.
The new conversation tab is very new, so we haven't really thought about optimizing for it's usage yet.

> I also suggest to de-emphasize the contact list and have InstantBird start
> with a new tab from which you can start conversations. I think non-expert
> users would prefer a single window just like Firefox and Thunderbird.
This seems like a pretty strong assertion, I'd argue the opposite as most users are used to a contact list.

(Also, it's Instantbird, not InstantBird.)

Comment 2

[Jules Blok]

> This seems like a pretty strong assertion, I'd argue the opposite as most users are used to a contact list.

The new tab shows a contact list so you still get a contact list. It's just that you can now either open a new conversation as a new window or as a tab in the contact list or just close the contact list completely.

Comment 3

[aleth [:aleth]]

We've actually had a number of reports from users that are using the new "new tab" as a contact list replacement, so thanks for your feedback! 

(In reply to Jules Blok from comment #0)
> Actual results:
> 
> InstantBird shuts down completely.

In Preferences, you can change the settings so that closing the contact window minimizes it to the tray. This might do as a workaround for now.

Comment 4

[Sylvestre Ledru [:Sylvestre]]

On the behalf of Florian:
Closing bugs related to the Instantbird UI as WONTFIX, as the development of the standalone chat client Instantbird has stopped. Instantbird users are encouraged to migrate to Thunderbird. The user interface of instant messaging in Thunderbird will feel familiar, as the Thunderbird IM support started as a fork of Instantbird.