Offline group behavior is buggy. Maybe we only need to show all contacts in their groops and have a toggle to show only online contacts. No Offline group at all.
There is a discussion of a problems with current Offline group behavior http://www.igniterealtime.org/community/thread/32034
Long standing issue. So a suggestion would be to get rid of that group. Just to show all contacts (online and offline in their groups), and to have a toggle button or menu checkbox to “Show only online contacts”.
ummm… quite an issue indeed. From my daily IM experience (50 users), it is personal preference. Show all contacts (on/off) in their groups can be annoying but grouping them into a single offline group lessens the group meaning.
Showing only online contacts is not preferred since we always send msg to offline users, it would be inconvenient to do so when they are not shown.
with the latest Spark svn version one can get rid of that Offline group already. You should disable Offline users grouping and enable Show offline users checkboxes to have all offline users to show up in their groups and no Offline group visible.