Dec 20, 2005
Gaim 2 first beta released
Gaim 2.0.0beta1 Released via Slashdot
The first beta release of version 2 of Gaim, the popular instant messaging program with support for multiple protocols including MSN, AIM and Jabber, was released a couple of days ago. The changelog lists a huge array of improvements and new features, including several added as a result of Google’s Summer of Code programme, for which Gaim produced plenty of ideas for budding developers to get their teeth stuck into.
As an example of how fast open source development can go, the Gaim developers have already been flooded with feedback on the new beta, showing both the anticipation for the 2.0 release line and the willingness of users to say what they like and what could be improved. It’s great to see such a postive response from both Gaim users and developers – often the latter group can be quite protective of their software (this is often a trait of developers in general, I’m not singling out the Gaim programmers specifically here) and don’t respond well to critism so I’m glad to see that they’re taking ideas on board and hopefully working to make the software do what users want rather than what the programmers think the users should have.
I compiled the beta and gave it a whirl. And well, that feedback post explains my thoughts exactly. Although I do love the smooth scroll.
I have long been waiting for the adium-style message tab resizing. I am generally pretty unimpressed with gaim, having seen the delights of adium, but its the best of the linux-IM bunch, and so I use it at work.
So I do like the “smooth scroll” and the better UI decisions with regard to contact names. But I do wish there wasn’t such an adium catchup.
I’d also love to see some improvements in libgaim to enable me to see the extended status info of msn contacts. (Music palying that sort of thing)
I’ve compiled the beta as well, although I haven’t really tried it much because I like Adium and I’m usually on the Powerbook anyway. Gaim works ok, but it looks hideous compared to Adium.
It would be great if they improved things in libgaim, because there’s quite a few clients that use that library.