I personally don't find it a problem. I can't really see how it can be enhanced! But
that's just me

i dont really see this as a problem. its as easy as doing it on WLM

to me it's fine this way too !

Well, it's not intuitive for people to click on Available, and then change the status
to Available again, so the field for the message appears. Sure, once you know then
it's not a big problem.

Besides, changing to another state changes the message, like auto-away.

Yeah, I don't find it intuitive either ! Fortunately you told here how to do, I was
unable to find !

If a gtk plugin was developed to add a text section that showed the current personal
message. This could be located below the 'Buddies/Accounts/Tools' menu but above the
Buddy List frame, then the user could just see the current personal message and then
able to click it to edit it. Perhaps I can work on this plugin in the future. What do
people think of this idea?

@ craigwharding:
good idea

+1

+1
great idea

+1

even if pidgin doesn't know anything about personal messages, could pecan not add a
dialog box from the account's menu to allow you to update your message?

craigwharding: That would be great :)

curlybap: Sure, I can do that. Since the issue is similar to the nickname stuff I
guess people would find it easier to find there.

+1

+1

+1

support

+1

+1

I also reckon the personal message shouldn't change if the status changes to Away or
Busy.

If possible the personal message shouldn't be saved as status.

+1

I took me a few days before found where to set a personal message in Pidgin, I agree
that it should not be melt with the status message (not editable by default in MS WLM
if I remember)

+1

+1

+1

+1

+1

+1

+1

+1 as well

I agree, current behaviour is unintuitive. 

Devid has implemented curlybap's idea, and that would override Pidgin's standard
behavior. You would still have the option to use the old behavior.

It's still no ideal, but other better solutions need to be implemented on Pidgin, not
much msn-pecan can do about it.

In my implementation also the personal message is not changed when you change your
status (I really hate to have my personal message changed!), you can try it using the
next branch
(http://github.com/felipec/msn-pecan/commit/8eb8691e7c49be776508903b9cf9138ac5c2895d).

Just to keep people in the loop from my comment above
(http://code.google.com/p/msn-pecan/issues/detail?id=51#c6). I've started this plugin
that adds a Personal Bar at the top of the buddy list. You'll have the ability to
change your Display Name and Personal Message for multiple msn and other accounts. 

http://www.nabble.com/Pidgin-GUI-addon%3A-%22me%22-bar-to19172351.html#a19172351
http://www.nabble.com/%22Personal-bar%22-mock-up-to19595048.html#a19595048

It's far from feature rich and I am still working on it to include base
functionality. I haven't created a homepage for it yet, but it will probably be on
code.google. When I create and have more details I will post it here and the
support/dev pidgin list when I get the page up and going.

craigwharding: cool! One suggestion, can you use text fields instead of labels? That
way people can easily change the fields.

I'm using labels for now (within an event box). When the user clicks on the display
name label it pops open the pidgin 'Friendly Name' request dialog box. For now, all
you have to do is update your display name and hit enter and it's done. One click to
change your display name compared to (maybe?) the two which is currently implemented.

I have better UI ideas for this and other things in the personal bar but like I said,
I am working on functionality right now.  This and other features/improvements can be
an obvious work in progress once I get the project page up and running. I am
definitely open to suggestions/dialogue once it is released and newer versions come out.

+1

Ya..I like this..
But..I also have a question

I sign in into 2 MSN account
And If i change my PM..Example: "Hey this is a PM"
It'll appear, only FOR A WHILE..
Then dissapear..

How do i fix this?
Or this is a bug?

ongkaqrif: the way PM works will be totally different in the next release, maybe
you'll like it, maybe you won't :)

+1

+1

Using 0.0.17, personal messages don't seem to work if "use independent personal
messages" is unchecked.  If checked, I can use the Personal Message menu item to set
the message, but I assumed if I uncheck the box in account settings (removing the
menu item), then personal messages would be set by Pidgin's status.

Am I making the wrong assumption or is there another way to set the personal message
when independent personal messages is disabled?

tbhi: you are correct, that's a bug.

It looks like Devid fixed it so expect it to work on 0.0.18, which hopefully will be
released soon.

Well, i must write 2 times if i want to set status on YM, MSN, GTalk, and AIM lol..
So please integrate it on status message setting..!

ongkagrif: that's already done, but unfortunately there's a bug in 0.0.17, it will be
fixed in the next version.

That's what I'm talking about xD
Still waiting for the next version :)

I was using 0.0.17 (i guess) and back then I had an option to change my personal
message on the account settings and it worked fine. Now I'm using 0.0.18 from Ubuntu
repo and I don't have that field. By reading the other comments i understand that it
can be changed it the status selector. It is highly unintuitive and if I didn't went
on google I wouldn't know that. I'm all for change that, an option to set it up
somewhere visible would be enough. 

If you want the old personal message feature (set using the menu) you should build
msn-pecan with "DO_NOT_USE_PSM=y build".

I also agree!
Besides it should be here: https://edge.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts
since pidgin is the default IMer on Ubuntu and this definitely fits on that paper-cut
definition: https://wiki.ubuntu.com/PaperCut ! :P

@vudu.curse good idea, I just filled one:
https://bugs.edge.launchpad.net/hundredpapercuts/+bug/392482