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Weird behaviors with "message counter" and "reset message counter" with Coccinella. Any feedback?

Hi everybody,

I have just started to use Coccinella 0.96.12 (on a MacOS X 10.5.x) as a jabber client. In the past, I have used gaim, AdiumX, Psi and iChat.

All of these softwares have advantages and drawbacks. Therefore, I have given a try to a different one... Coccinella.

So far, it meets all my expectations... but it has 2 very annoying behaviors which I would say are close to be bugs (or unfinished features). Here they are:

1- Interaction(s) with the Dock:
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When Coccinella is started and it is in the background, then you see in the dock the number of new chat messages received since the software was at the forefront. This is good, as you can quickly be aware of new incoming messages.

However, when you put the software at the forefront, you don't know which of the chat window(s) or chatroom window(s) has had new messages. Other softwares like iChat for instance will go directly to the window having new messages... when clicking to the dock icon. Furthermore, with iChat, if several windows received new messages, the Dock icon can be used to go to each of these windows one after the other.

The equivalent feature in Coccinella becomes almost useless.

I wonder if the described behavior is intended, still in development, or not working as expected.

2- The message counter on top of each Coccinella chat/chatroom window:
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In many of the chat software used, you have a counter of new messages showing all the new incoming messages on a particular chat/chatroom window not seen by the user. Once you go to the particular window, then the counter number disappears.

In Coccinella, it seems that you do have similar feature. However, it seems to work very badly. Let me give a couple of examples of what I see:

a/ If I use Coccinella and someone sends me a new chat message on a window am not on, then the counter is not updated. In other word, I don't get informed of new updates in a particular chat/chatroom windows not being in front.

b/ If I use Coccinella (but in the background), I can see in the Dock that new messages came. I can also see the counter number incremented on each related chat/chatroom window. However, when I go to each of these windows, the counter does not reset and the number in parenthesis remains.

This "reset counter" management is, for me, the most important issue I seen with the Coccinella.

Here again, I wonder if the described behavior is intended, still in development, or not working as expected.

As I have seen that the newer version of Coccinella (0.96.14) is expected to be released soon (end of the month), I wanted to get a feedback from other Coccinella users (MacOSX users or not) and from developers.

Again, apart from these 2 problems, I really find that software great.

Thank you for your feedback and comments.
/Damien.

Forum: 

Remark: The mentioned behaviors occur when the "Jabber | Appearance | Use tabbed interface" is unchecked.

If that option is checked and at least 2 tabs exists (2 chatrooms or 2 chats), then the counter number appears to work much better (with a reset of the number when going to the specific chat/chatroom tab)... which is almost correct.

However, you get other/different weird issues with the "Use tabbed interface" option.

1- If there are several tabs (chatrooms or chats) and you have one of the tab selected (any of them), if Coccinella is in the background, and if that particular chatroom (or chat) receives a message... then the counter number is not properly incremented for this particular chatroom/chat. Indeed, instead of having a number appearing in the tab next to the name of the chatroom/contact, a number appears on the top of the window. Furthermore, that number will not start with usual (1), (2), (3) ... but will start with higher number (probably referring to the number of messages typed since the window was opened).

This does not feel good.

2- If Coccinella is in the background, if there is only a single chat window or chatroom window and if a message comes in that window, the count number is incremented. However, that number is not reset when you click on that chatroom/chat window. (remark: it will be reset if I open an additional chat/chatroom tab)... this looks like the behavior mentioned in my previous message (with "Use tabbed interface" option unchecked).

This again, this does not feel good.

3- The "Use tabbed interface" option does not work well with the MacOS X Dock:
a/ From the Dock, you can only see the status of the selected tabs... not of the other tabs.
This means that you will not see from the Dock that there is a new message in a particular chatroom as that chatroom was not selected.

b/ From the Dock, you see the count number of message for the selected tabbed chatroom/chat ... but with the number reported on "1-" (meaning a number probably referring to the number of messages typed since the window was opened). These numbers will not appear on the top of the Coccinella Icon of the Dock, but on the chatroom/chat lines (seen with a right click on the Coccinella Icon).

This is a bit weird.

Therefore, while the use of the "Use tabbed interface" option (ticked) is much better that without, it is still not perfect.

Thank you for your feedback an comments.
/Damien.

Hi there.

Just a quick note to report that the latest version of Coccinella (0.96.14) has the same "issues" as reported earlier on.

Cordially.
/Damien.

PS: I have also noticed that this software does not seem to be compatible with a MacOS feature allowing to move (with shortcut) between windows from the same application.
(for reference, this feature is configurable through the "System Preferences" | "Keyboard & Mouse" | "Keyboard Shortcuts" | "Move focus to the next window in active application"). :-(

I find it a bit strange as this is the first application I have seen not working with that feature.

Hi,

I opened a bug report regarding the reported problems here:
https://bugs.launchpad.net/coccinella/+bug/454535

Will try to reproduce the problem and in case it happens to me, will probably fix it ;)

Sebastian