One of the things I want to do for KDE 4.2 is a “Contacts” plasmoid: A Kopete-centered plasmoid that displays your contacts status and allows for a quick chat initiation. So far I have two mockups which I’d like feedback on — please comment!

Before pasting those two mockups now, let me outline my plans for it:

I want it to

* facilitate starting a chat / sending that one-line message quickly
* let me quickly see the status [changes] of interesting contacts
* be useful both on the desktop and in a panel, with the usual plasma eye-candy

I do not want it to

* integrate other communication mechanisms than IM/Kopete
* display messages. This is what Kopete / KNotify / the Notify plasmoid do.

Now for the mockups: