Pidgin – don't shoot the messenger, eh?

This whole issue started when Windows Live Messenger started to act up and use all available CPU power for no apparent reason. In general I like Live Messenger – it looks and feels nice, has the features I want (and a bunch that I don’t, but selective awareness filters out those). But using all available CPU power is not something I can live with: the laptop gets hot, the fan starts going into overdrive and everything on the computer starts to go really sluggish.

So I started to look for a replacement. The name Pidgin came up more than once, so I decided to give it a go. I went through the usual download and install process: Windows platform, Norwegian language, the usual install directory. A few moments later the program was ready to run.

Cue problem one: Syncing with Live Messenger.
For every contact I have Pidgin decided to present me with a yes/no option. An option that might have made sense if I had been a long time user of GAIM, but since I’m not I went with the safe answer: Yes.

Bad call: An Unexpected Error Has Occurred. Oh well, these things happen in Windows. “No I don’t really want to send an error report; I just want to get the program up and running again.” Again I start up Pidgin, get presented with a bunch of yes/no windows and go for the safe answer: An Unexpected Error Has Occurred. At this point ‘no’ start to look like a good alternative.

Click. “Wow it worked.” Click. Click. “This could take a while.” Click. “How about a ‘yes/no to all’ button in the next version?” Click. An Unexpected Error Has Occurred. Yeah, baby! I missed you. At least I got 5 fewer windows to wade through the on the next restart. Repeat until window count is at 0. It was almost enough to dissuade me from using the program, but I decided to at least give it a fair chance. I should have known better…

Cue problem two: Meldingen kunne ikke bli sendt på grunn av en tilkoblingfeil.
Translated: The message could not be sent due to a connection error. Now, this is not the first time I have seen the error message; Live Messenger produces one like it occasionally. But it does not produce one in every conversation; usually multiple times per conversation; and even every other message at times. It might not be the worlds most important smiley I’m trying to send as a response to something being said, but I’d like for it to be sent nonetheless.

Cue problem three: Norwegian?
This problem I probably should have anticipated. Translations may vary much in quality in different programs and applications, and Norwegian is not really a high priority language so it tends to get little attention. But translating about half of the program, then leaving the rest in English is the first time I have encountered. This image should give a clear example of the problem, and it is like that throughout the program.



At this point I (foolishly) though that a reinstall of the program would do the trick. I could just choose English at the start of the installation and everything would be peachy: I was wrong.
Reinstall one: “That’s odd. I’m sure the language selection was at the very beginning.”
Reinstall two: “Nope, restarting the machine between uninstall and install did not help. And how come it keeps all my settings”
Reinstall three: “How foolish of me to think that deleting the application data folder would change anything.”
Reinstall ‘one more for good measure’: Yeah, right…

Cue problem four: Documen…wha?



How foolish of me to think that the Help function in the program would lead to a valid webpage. I should have known better, right?

To be fair, there is a section that deals with my language problem in the FAQ section. It is even the first question in the Windows Specific section.

How does Pidgin for Windows determine which language to use?

For the user who installed Pidgin, the language selected during installation will be the default. This can be overridden by setting the PIDGINLANG environment variable (for example, PIDGINLANG=de). If neither of these are specified, it will fall back to the default Windows user locale setting.

Oh right, you just change the PIDGINLANG variable. How could I have missed that! The PIDGINLANG variable! (At this point, your sarcasm metres should be spiking)

If this is indeed a frequently asked question, one that is even asked so much that it gets to be number one; how come the answer can only be understood is you have intricate knowledge to the program code?

If Pidgin aspires to be a real alternative to proprietary IM clients like Live Messenger, AIM and Yahoo! Messenger a few things need to change.
1: Stable connection with the various providers’ services: I don’t want to repeat myself over and over again just to get my single smiley across to whomever I’m talking to.
2: Language packs: complete them or don’t offer them. Most people will be more annoyed at bad translation than the fact that their language is not available yet.
3: Documentation: I know that Pidgin is supposed to be clean and easy to use, but at times, someone, somewhere will have a question that they need answered. Having the help function lead to a non-existing webpage does not answer that question. Forcing people to use the developer wiki as their only source for information only accomplishes to make non-programmers, like me, feel stupid. You really don’t want to alienate your users like that.

Until those three changes I’ll stay right here with my proprietary, advertise-filled, CPU hogging Live Messenger, thank you very much!