two text entry boxes for instant messaging
I’m not much of an instant messaging (IM) user. But, I use skype for messaging and now briefly used the GMail embedded Google IM.
When I chats with people, they often take so fucking long to reply (there is no excuse for not giving me their undivided attention, btw.) Now, I don’t know if they are going to reply to the last thing I wrote or not (Google tells you the other person is typing, which helps). So, I need to wait. Not wanting to waste time, I start typing something about another topic after a reply doesn’t arrive within a few seconds… but then they reply to the “old” topic and I am forced to delete (sure, I could, inconveniently, CNTRL-X it) what I’ve written and respond to the last topic, then retype. Sucks!
I propose another entry box on-top of the existing one, so I could keep what I’ve written and respond in the top one to the new reply. This way, I could “multitask” two topics in the same session. Is that clear? I’m too lazy to draw a diagram, so I can clarify in the comments if need be.
If Skype developers are reading this, please take note of my other Skype suggestions and qualms.
(There might as well be an IM client that does this already, I haven’t gone through any of them.)
August 26th, 2006 at 11:39 am
I do this with irssi. I type the new topic as normal, but if the person replies to a previous one, I press the down arrow. Then I can type a new response, but what I typed before remains in the history so can be recovered by pressing the up arrow twice.