Software Update: Gaim 2.0.0 beta 1

Yesterday, with some delay, the first beta release of Gaim version 2.0.0 was finally released. Gaim is a multi-protocol, cross-platform instant messaging program. The software is available for Linux, BSD, Mac OS X and Windows, among others, and is compatible with AIM (Oscar and TOC protocols), ICQ, MSN Messenger, Yahoo, IRC, Jabber, Gadu -Gadu and Zephyr networks. Gaim’s developers invite everyone to try this new version, but they recommend making a backup of the .gaim folder first. At the time of writing, the page where all downloads can be found is down, but since the changelog is very long, the time it takes for it to be available again could be put to good use. This is the complete list of changes:

State System:

• The code dealing with buddy and account status, away messages, away states, online/offline, etc has been completely rewritten. Huge thanks to Christian Hammond, Dave West, Daniel Atallah and Sadrul Habib Chowdhury.
• Your status can now be set from inside the buddy list using the selector at the bottom of the window.
• To see messages when a buddy signs on or off, goes away, or becomes idle, load the “Buddy State Notification” plugin

Buddy List:

• Buddy icons are now shown in tooltips (Felipe Contreras)
• Tooltips now contain additional information about a “Person” that contains multiple online buddies
• Added a “Last Seen” field to buddy tooltips (Richard Laager)
• Contacts will auto-expand when buddies are dragged around
• If Gaim is exited with the buddy list hidden in the docklet, it will remain hidden when Gaim is started again (Scott Shedden)
• Improved buddy list searching with CTRL+F

Conversations and Chats:

• Messages from buddies in the same “Person” will automatically use the same conversation window.
• The “Send As” menu has been replaced with a more appropriate “Send To” menu based on “Persons” on your buddy list
• Message formatting persists between messages (Igor Belyi)
• Full message background colors are now supported
• Smooth scrolling when receiving a new message
• Screenname colors in chats now chosen intelligently from GNOME color palette
• Conversation buffer scrollback limited to avoid large memory usage in active conversations
• Control-Shift-Tab will reverse cycle through the conversation tabs (James Vega)
• Many problems related to having an IM conversation and a chat open with the same name are fixed (Andrew Hart)
• Warning dialog when closing a window with unread IM messages
• In chats right-click on names in the conversation window to IM/Send File/Get info/ignore the user
• Added tab management options to the tab right-click menu (Sadrul Habib Chowdhury)
• Brand new message queuing system (Casey Harkins)

sounds:

• Beautiful new default sounds (Brad Turcotte)
• Use libao for playing sounds via NAS instead of accessing NAS directly

Log Viewer:

• Log viewer aggregates logs from the same Contact (Richard Laager)
• When opening the log viewer, show the most recent log by default (Peter McCurdy)

plugins:

• Plugins are now accessed through a separate dialog from the Tools menu of the Buddy List
• Newly installed plugins can now be activated without restarting Gaim (Sadrul Habib Chowdhury)
• Overhauled the system tray/docklet plugin (Casey Harkins)
• Text Replacement Plugin rewritten, works in real time and far more intuitively (Benjamin Kahn with help from Richard Laager)
• Entries in the text replacement plugin are now sorted alphabetically (Richard Laager)
• The Evolution Integration plugin now supports Groupwise contacts
• Mono plugin loader (Eoin Coffey)
• Perl plugin loader has been rewritten (John Kelm, Google Summer of Code)
• New music messaging plugin (Christian Muise, Google Summer of Code)
• gaim-remote has been superceded by new DBUS bindings within Gaim (Piotr Zielinski, Google Summer of Code)
• The functionality of the auto-reconnect plugin has been moved into the Gaim core, and the plugin itself has been removed.

MSN Features:

• Custom smiley receiving support (Irving Cordova & Francesco Fracassi)
• Added support for sending (with the /nudge command) and receiving “nudges” (Julien Cegarra, Martin Bayard)
• Added an account action to open your Hotmail inbox from MSN

Yahoo Features:

• Stealth Settings have been implemented
• Doodle is now supported (Andrew Dieffenbach, Google Summer of Code)
• Buddies’ requests to add you to their lists now prompt for authorization

AIM/ICQ Features:

• ICQ file transfer support with newer ICQ clients (Jonathan Clark, Google Summer of Code)
• Many overall improvements to OSCAR file transfers (Jonathan Clark, Google Summer of Code)
• Ability to set ICQ “require authorization” and “web aware” setting (Ettore Simone)
• ICQ encoding fix for offline buddies (Ilya Konstantinov)

IRC Features:

• SSL support for IRC connections (Daniel Atallah)
• Show an error message when temporarily unable to join an IRC channel or change your nick (Richard Laager)
• Added /nickserv, /memoserv, /chanserv and /operserv commands (Joao Luís Marques Pinto)

Jabber Features:

• Support for SRV lookups
• Support for buddy icons
• Jabber User Directory searching

SILC Features:

• Whiteboard support (Pekka Riikonen)
• Sending/receiving images in IMs (Pekka Riikonen)
• Cipher and HMAC selection support (Pekka Riikonen)

Other Protocol Changes:

• Bonjour (Rendezvous) protocol support (Juanjo Molinero Horno, Google Summer of Code)
• Updated Gadu-Gadu protocol support (Bartosz Oler, Google Summer of Code)
• SIP/SIMPLE support (Thomas Butter, Google Summer of Code)
• Sametime protocol support

Other Noteworthy Changes:

• UPnP and NAT traversal support (Adam J. Warrington, Google Summer of Code)
• The modify account dialog now contains two tabs, which should display better at lower resolutions (Sadrul Habib Chowdhury)
• New “find buddy” results dialog (Alex Converse)
• People using input methods can now use Enter again
• GNOME users can open received files by clicking on “Open” in the file transfer window
• Mouse-over hyperlink coloring is now themeable
• Buddy Pounces now have a proper management window. (Kevin Stange)
• Buddy icons maintain aspect ratio when resized
• The last used directory is remembered for opening or saving files and buddy icons

Preference Changes:

• Preferences have been substantially reorganized and cleaned up
• Smiley theme descriptions are now shown correctly for the highlighted smiley theme (Levi Bard)
• All Buddy List preferences have been moved to the Buddies menu of the buddy list window.
• Proxy settings will be taken from Gnome if it is running. These may still be overridden on a per-account basis.
• Removed “Dim idle buddies;” behavior is now always enabled
• Removed keyboard shortcut preferences for ctrl-B/I/U; enabled by default, but won’t interfere with bindings set by the GTK theme
• Removed keyboard shortcuts preferences for ctrl-# to insert a smiley; behavior removed from Gaim
• Removed “Enter” vs. “Ctrl-Enter” to send; “Enter” sends by default, but it is now possible to change this binding in your GTK theme
• Removed “Show multi-colored screennames in chats;” behavior is now always enabled and screenname colors automatically adjust themselves to compensate for background color.
• Removed “Raise Buddy List Window on Events” and the related behavior
• Removed “Display remote nicknames if no alias is set”
• Removed “Show idle times” and “Show warning levels” on the buddy list; behavior is now always enabled
• Removed “Auto-expand contacts;” contacts expand only when dragging buddies around the buddy list
• Removed conversation and buddy list buttons and related preferences
• Removed “Raise conversation window” preferences; moved feature to the notify plugin
• Removed “Show alias in tabs/titles;” behavior is now always enabled
• Removed “Show formatting toolbars;” the setting in conversations’ “Options” menu now affects the global preference
• Removed “Show timestamps;” behavior is now enabled, but is overridden by the timestamp plugin
• Removed all protocol options pages
• Removed “Escape closes windows;” default key binding is now Ctrl-W
• Removed “Gaim usage” and “Idle time reporting” preferences; behavior now always uses mouse/keyboard when available
• Removed “Log when buddies sign on/sign off/become idle/become un-idle/go away/come back” and “Log your own actions;” all of these will be logged when the system log is enabled
• Removed the separate ignore formatting preferences; behavior has been consolidated into a single preference

[break] Click for a more detailed version.