Expandable text entry widget

[karderio <karderio gmail com>]

Hi :o)

I have a feature I would like to suggest for GTK+. In order to properly
illustrate how this feature would work, I will take the example of an
IRC client (most current messaging applications should work :).

In most current IRC clients that I have used, you enter text in a one
line text entry. This of course poses the problem, when you write much
text, of being able to read all you have written before sending it. You
run the risk of starting talking about the colour of scrollbars to end
up ranting about the current state of your currently proffered dristro.

Occasionally, the height of the text entry can be set by the user by
dragging a separator, but this seems rather like asking the user how
much space they, upon average, don't mind wasting.

So, here's the suggestion : on a one line text entry, instead of cutting
the text, with no easily detectable way for the user to tell how to
scroll it, automatically make the text entry one line higher and show
all the text.

I'm sure this is quite possible to code on a per application basis,
however this functionality seems to me best placed in GTK+. For one it
make using this feature in a GTK+ app virtually effortless. Most of all
it would assure that such expandable text entries do so in a consistent
manner.

For those of you who are thinking that they have seen this behaviour
before, I admit shamelessly having pinched the idea from Google talk
after seeing a friend happily chatting away with this application the
other day.

Love, Karderio.