What would you like to see implemented as grouping in the future Skype for Linux

windows grouping doesn't let you view all contacts at the same time but grouped, you can only view all but ungrouped.

I like 1.3 style

Windows grouping sucks.

The main reasons I used grouping previously were:

1. To hide users that I talked to infrequently. I wanted to maintain them in my contact list (so I could remember that I was in their contact list) but didn't want to see their status or have them take up space on my list.

2. To provide a more specific ordering of my users. My close friends and people I talked to most often were in my top group, next down were people I talked to occasionally and at the bottom were people I almost never called but was interested to see when they were online.

As has been previously mentioned, Windows group doesn't allow you to see more than one group (so it's basically more of a filter than a grouping system) and it requires a lot of maintenance if you want to keep changing you filters often. To work most effectively it would also require that users could be members of multiple groups.

The Linux grouping system allowed you to easily hide and show sets of people, but had some issues with the UI (editing the title allowed editing of the number indicator, the titles were almost treated as if they were users rather than as actual separate titles). It didn't allow one person to be in multiple groups, but I don't think that was ever necessary with this style of grouping. It didn't however allow easy sorting of the groups (and sometimes the order could get rearranged, as could the "expanded or not expanded" state of the group).

So ideally I'd make most use of a Linux style grouping mechanism where I could potentially move the groups around to an order of my liking (rather than just alphabetical). I would also like to able to apply "attributes" to a whole group, such as:

* Don't notify me when their online/offline state changes
* Appear as offline/away to this group
* Do not receive IMs from this group
* Always answer as busy with this group...

Hope these ideas help...

Mike 5:)

Windows sucks..

/P

IMO the best solution would be the possibility to switch between these interfaces... or at least keep the new one, but having implemented grouping name, a nicer information window (while you're scrolling names), and taking' off the "calling window", because it take space on the desktop...

enjoy,
giopas

Keep voting guys. I'm interested to see more feedback on this.

(I'm playing with a group meld ideas myself atm. Throw in yours if you have something unusual in mind.)

Voted for 1.3 skype's group style, although i hardly remember how windows grouping is (the only i remember is that i didn't like it)

i like the idea proposed by Ikelos, a nice thing would also be to be able to hide offline contact, or group them into a "offline group"

One thing I really wish for is a separation of phone numbers from contacts. Currently I kind of get around this by making a group for friends phone #s, then one for business XXX, then another for business YYY, etc. I'd really like to have phone #s in its own separate tab and have something on that tab that I can expand to slide out the dial pad.
A separate tab would reduce the group name pollution that I currently have (since I now must have two categories for each .. i.e., "Business XXX IM contacts" plus "Business XXX phone numbers"). To me IM and phone are two very separate functions and I would like to see them treated as such.

As a s/w person my thinking would be to generalize this to a three level system visible as tabs, groups, and entries. Then *I* could create a tab called "Phone #s" or "Business XXX", or "Contacts with Video" and put my groups (containing entries) in whatever form I like.

OTOH as a s/w person I also recognize how complex it is to make something simple.

I don't use grouping mainly because my contact list doesn't have that many entries (just family and closest friends). I just tried windows grouping and I must say it is inconvenient and lacking functionality. Gaim / kopete style grouping is all I may ever dream.

In windows client I like ability to concentrate on 1 group only and do that quickly without collapsing all other groups (like linux requires me to).

In linux client I like ability to see several groups open at the same time (that windows doesn't allow me to).

I'd feel more comfortable with the windows-like approach where I can "ctrl+click" groups to have them displayed simultaneously one-by one or in mixed mode (both can be helpful).

I'd like to have nested groups, to be able to quick-filter on top-group and see all contacts grouped in subgroups.

And ability of sub-group to belong to several super-groups would be welcome. A contact belonging to several groups is a must anyway.

The most difficult of all the above is UI, which would be quite complex...

Keep shooting guys.

I think an idea of how this should look like in the end is shaping up in my head now.

I fully agree with ikelos and all of the suggestions in that thoughtful post. Most specifically:

• I want arbitrary ordering of contacts (a check-box can manage whether they are sorted alphabetically or by manually dragging them around).
• I want to be able to see multiple groups concurrently.

Additionally, I'd like to pair contacts together (as is possible in pidgin/gaim), so that a contact with home and work accounts can appear as one contact (whichever is more available).

(edit) I should note that in 1.3, my groups were named with single letters in the front, like "z London Engineering" to put that group on the bottom. In 1.4, I'm using this to create groups too, so I have "z uk Tony Blair" as an example of a contact in a sorted pseudo-group. This is ugly and I can't wait for the ability to sort contacts more cleanly.

I would like multiple groups at once, with a quick filter option that lists contacts in any group (with an option to exclude contacts that are hidden)