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<p>What is needed for a status UI? Most importantly:</p>

<ul><li>Be able to globally create a new "away message" for all accounts</li>

<li>Be able to see the current global status</li>

<li>Be able to used saved statuses</li></ul>

<p>Less important goals include:</p>

<ul><li>Change the status of just one account</li>

<li>View the statuses of each account individual when the above is done</li>

<li>Create complex statuses where MSN accounts are Out To Lunch, and AIM accounts have an available messages except for SeanEgn1 who is Away with a specific message</li></ul>

<p>I've focused on the first, more important, list which should handle 95% of users' needs.</p>

<p>At the bottom of the buddy list, is a dropdown menu. In this menu is the current global status (in this case "Online"). The user intuitively knows to click the menu to change his status. He chooses "Away" from the dropdown menu.</p>

<p>The menu changes to the Away status, and an editable GtkIMHtml appears. The user enters his away message there. We add a timeout and check the "changed" signal to determine when the away message is finished, and we set it then. This is not unlike how we send typing notifications</p>

<p>While away, the user can edit the away message just by changing the text in the GtkIMHtml. To come back, he uses the menu again to set him as "Online". Next time he uses the menu, he'll find that the away message he just set has been automaically saved. The menu will ordinarily contain many more status included by default, but I didn't want to mock too much up. I'm a busy guy.</p>

<p>Messages will be saved automatically, and then deleted after a given amount of disuse. Users can still create their own messages that will stay persistant in "Create new status..." This is where most of the more advanced things from the second list will occur. Although I do have a few ideas about that dialog, I'll wait for feedback on this idea before making mockups of that.</p>

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