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Those on the mac should check out Adium. I haven't tried Miranda, but Adium has all the "pretty" features of Trillian, the power of GAIM (and much more flexibility) and has this neat feature that some IM client vendors still haven't figure out: it lets you keep the windows from automatically popping up. Nice when you're on a coding bender or your friend sends you an in-line copy of tubgirl while you're giving a demo to your boss.

You've got to be kidding me. The AV thing is nice, but for straight IM it sucks. I cringe whenever I see people using iChat on a Mac. Check out Adium X.

gaim has come a long way, and is relatively polished on *nix and windows, but the OSX port still needs some optimization, in the meanwhile I use Adium X for my multi-IM chatting.

http://www.adiumx.com/ It's libGaim + Cocoa GUI.

I'm not a big fan of GAIM the client.

However, I'm a huge fan of libgaim.

Does anyone remember mICQ? They were the first people to reverse engineer the ICQ protocol. Until then, you were forced to use the seriously crappy Java ICQ client if you wanted to use it on anything but windows.

micq however, IMO of course, was a crappy text-based program that had a horrific interface. Really, I would much rather use my IRC client for ICQ than stick with this thing.

And now I can. See, the micq guys caught on and released libicq or libmicq, I can't remember at this point. I imagine a good portion of this code is still in libgaim.

The point is though, that others took libicq and applied their UI design skills and made very useful programs out of it.

And this is what I get in libgaim.

I'm not a fan of how you have to contort gaim or work on a specific system with specific plugins to keep windows from popping up on you while you're typing. (I will admit it's been a while since I used gaim, so this climate may have changed)

However, if you wanted the best support for the various networks out there, GAIM is the way to go.

libgaim allows me to get rid of the (IMO again) clunky interface and replace it with something else. On the mac, my workstation, I use AdiumX, but before I used Fire (no link, sorry). Both are libgaim-based which means that the advances in this library (especially recently as YIM and MSN seem to change their protocols hourly) are almost instantly integrated into the front-end of my choice. The 'hive mind' mentality here is very effective.

I *really* wish that more people working on protocols would do this - right now, several HTTP libraries are available but developers refuse to settle on one - I hope apr solves this once and for all. I don't want to worry as a developer about the idiosyncracies of apr, libwww, and others when developing a web app.

Object brokers are another example. If I install GNOME, KDE, and any other app that uses an ORB, chances are I have many ORBs on my system - for what reason? Those "extra" features that the developer can't live without. I know GNOME and KDE are finally working on making it cross-platform (in the GUI sense), but this provides another good example.

Do what you like at the GUI or application level - but normalize the libraries (and make MORE of them that meet specific, unique needs so they can be chained together). This gives the developer a reasonable notion of stability at the library and API layer, and the user a reasonable notion of functionality. Also portability, security, and enhancements come quicker and cheaper because more eyes are looking at the same code. Fix a buffer overflow? Well, you've fixed it in 20 programs instead of one. Doesn't that make everyone happy?

Sorry for the rant. I just feel the need to talk about important topics on my mind that no one will listen to or care about because they're buried at the bottom of a slashdot forum. :)

I don't think gaim qualifies as mac compatible till someone bothers putting a mac binary on their site.

A port of gaim to osx needs a port of gtk first, which is some time into the future, the GTK+OSX project aimed at this but with gtk1.x, not gtk2. Anyway, that project seems far from finished... You can ofcourse install it under X11, or you could try out adiumX, which uses the core library of gaim anyway.

I agree, its misleading, and the gtk2/x11 port is butt-ugly, it does work.

For gaim on osx I prefer adiumx [adiumx.com].

Adiumx has a really straight forward user interface, and feels very mac-like. It supports a laundry list of protocols, but keeps things simple yet powerful in terms of UI.

True, you won't find all the gee-gaws from iChat AV a la video/teleconfrencing, but it's a well written program that does IM extremely well (much better than iChat ... *cough* tabs, easily set up for multiple users of the same computer, etc *cough*).

And it's not resource intensive.

Since Adium (can't speak for Fire & Proteus) is nothing but a nicely done GAIM port, for me it IS GAIM on OS X.

What would be interesting, now, would be to get Adium ported to Linux (and, why not, Windows), using Qt, for instance.

GAIM has a real problem of being ugly, has usuability issues, and lacks the general polish you get with Adium. The Kopete project looks interesting, but it's not there yet : missing buddy icons and file transfers in everything but MSN Messenger - and even there, it has issues with NATs and can't display a MSN picture full size (yes, real people want that).

Has anyone experience in porting Cocoa (Obj-C) apps to Qt?

While GAIM might have a very good coverage, as far as IM networks are concerned, I can't say that I enjoy running it in the situations when I have to -- e.g. when I am on my BSD box.

When it comes to MacOS X, there are several worthy contenders: Fire, Adium to name a few. All of them are Cocoa apps and you do not need to run X11 to use them.

And Evan and the rest of the Adium team!!! WHAT WOULD ADAM ISER DO!?

Some additions, corrections:
- Don't discount Safari as a browser - it's the best browser I've ever used. just turn on tabs (looks in preferences), and popup blocking, which for some reason I'll never understand are disabled by default.
- Third party utilities including Path Finder and Onyx will allow you to quit the Finder. there's really no reason to, though.
- You really don't need to reinstall when you first get the machine - just look through places like your Applications folder for things you don't want.
- And now, my "things no Mac should be without" category:
Quicksilver - the app/document launcher on steroids.
Adium - multi-protocol IM client
Desktop Manager - virtual desktops. Cooperates with expose and multiple monitors.
MenuMeters - CPU/bandwidth/HD Monitor and more, in the menubar.
SideTrack - replacement trackpad driver allows the sides to be used as scroll wheels.
Colloquy - modern IRC client

• Mac Rumors - Good rumors website
• Mac Slash - Slashdot like mac news site
• Mac News Bytes - Good quick links to mac related articles
• Version Tracker - Software update website. Kind of like download.com for mac.
• Mac Update - Similar to versiontracker.com
• Mac OS X Hints - Good tips site for beginners and experienced people alike.
• Think Secret - Another good rumors site. Very accurate, most of the time.
• Emulation.net - Links to game emulation for mac

• Adium - Multi-protocol IM client
• Byte Controller - Good itunes hotkey/menu pager applet
• Camino - Nice mac based gecko browser.
• Colloquy - Webkit based IRC client. not too newbish.
• Cyberduck - SFTP/FTP client for os x
• Desktop Manager - Multi desktop app for os x
• Apple X11 Server - Apple's integrated X11 server. you'd want this for the next two items
• Fink - UNIX software for your mac
• Gimp.app - decent free photo editor
• Handbrake - DVD to mpeg4 ripper
• iTerm - Multi tabbed terminal
• Logorrhea - iChat log viewer/searcher/indexer
• Meteorologist - Weather applet for the menu bar
• Menu Meters - Menu applet for cpu usage, net usage, and more.
• Mplayer OS X - This app will play just about any media format in existance
• Poisoned - GiFT (Kazaa) and mldonkey based P2P mac client.
• Quicksilver - Very cool file/application/url/itunes/etc/etc/etc indexing program. It's like spotlight, only here TODAY and free!
• VLC - Another good video playing app. Nice to have a backup sometimes if mplayer doesn't play a file (which is very very rare).

I'd say that if you're somewhat familiar with Linux/BSD you'll be very comfortable in OS X. Just start in the Terminal and work your way out. If you want your traditional UNIXy tools, install the Fink project (which often leaves much to be desired, especially when installing fink itself, but it'll get the job done)

For me, other essentials include Adium (a multi-protocol instant messenger), Firefox (sorry Safari) USB Overdrive (I find USB mice to move much too slowly even at max system settings), and Meteorologist (little weather-sensing menubar app).

macosxhints also has a good number of tips and tricks that you might want to through.

Other than that, I can't think of any real problems I had migrating over. It takes a few days to get used to, but it really is fairly intuitive. Try to experiment a bit, particularly with your normal 'window' habits. You may find you like to do things a different way. I used to run everything maximized, now I don't ever run something maximized anymore, despite having a smaller screen. I couldn't tell you why, it just feels more comfortable to do things this way for me. If you have any question, just remember there's a 'help' command in every application, the help docs are usually very nice.

I use Adium.

Or Adium, a quite nice interface that can use your adressbook to display informations (and a picture) about your chat partners
They are all directly installable via the "darwinports" port system

B) You can go to a Mac board and find numerous places where Apple ignores/violates thier own HIG.

They are the Human Interface Guidelines, not Human Interface Laws. No one document can describe with absolute certainty how each situation must be handled. A good designer will take the guidelines as a starting point, and apply them to an overall vision as appropriate.

While I am a Mac user and like most of Apple's designs, methinks you are placing too much faith in Apple's designers. They didn't get into the Interface Hall of Shame for nothing.

They are just as guilty as anyone else of making things look shiny at the expense of usability. There are many other examples: for instance, in the OS X help system, if the toolbar is hidden, so is the search field. It's pretty confusing for a new user to see "enter your question in the field above" when there is no field there.

They have also given several applications a brushed-metal appearance that do not warrant it (cough Finder), and in many cases this is ugly, a waste of screen space, and a detriment to usability. Brushed metal is only for windows that represent an interface to a specific piece of hardware, and IMHO should never have been there in the first place.

The list goes on: AppleWorks is the epitome of a "bad Carbon port" and trashes several parts of the HIG; iChat, while shiny, is very difficult to use for normal text chats. I use Adium instead: it has its own usability problems, but since it's open source, I can fix those (and have done so in several cases). It also doesn't waste so much screen space as iChat. iCal is terrible: slow, kludgy and full of nonstandard controls.

The list goes on. I still prefer Apple on the whole to either XP or *nix for usability reasons, but they're far from perfect...

Your point that every operating system has its share of annoyances - I couldn't agree more.

I wouldn't say that some of the things you mention are design flaws, however.

Is it bad that OS X has no 'maximize' button (in its place there is a 'zoom to fit' button)? I wouldn't say so - both are imperfect, but I have found 'zoom to fit' more useful.

Here is how you can test it out for yourself. If AOL Instant Messenger is available to you on a Windows platform, sign on and then shrink your buddy list until some people on it are hidden - and then maximize your buddy list. The buddy list will occupy your whole display, which is something no one would ever want to do. Nor are you able to resize the window while it is in its maximized state - didn't know what a poor design choice this was until I switched.

If you had the beautiful open-source Adium client (based on libgaim, but only available on the Mac), you would be able to zoom to fit instead. Your buddy list will grow vertically (revealing as many contacts as it is able to fit on-screen), but it won't occupy the whole screen. I believe this behavior is preferable. If the 'zoom to fit' button fails you, you're able to go back and manually resize - without having to 'restore' the window to its non-maximized state. This behavior is intuitive and easier to learn initially. If you think about it, having two window states (maximized/non-maximized) is as silly as falling back on a console-based editor with edit and insert modes (which OS X allows you to do 'out of the box' - I do love my vim! :)

Adium is a good OS X jabber client, give it a try.

I just got interested in Adium becuase I use AIM for work and i have friends on both AIM and Y!. Today, I find that it cannot connect to the Y! server. I tried the Y! client I used before I found Adium, and it connected first-try!

For what it's worth, at this writing, my system has Adium version 0.60.1 and Y! IM version 2.5.3 (build 1062). SOMETHING is going on, and I am not inclined to think that it is just "protocol upgrades".

Adium users though. Nor you like Adobe stuff -- you know, Photoshop and Illustrator and Acrobat and all that.

I'm running Privoxy, and I've created specific exceptions for those, but it's still a bit annoying.

One program that I use daily that does not get a lot of mention is Adium, a GPLed AIM client on the Mac.

The older version, v1.6.x series, has a few cosmetic problems under Panther (works perfectly under Jaguar), but in general is outstanding. Why anyone would use the AOL client under OS X with Adium and iChat available is beyond me. The only thing that iChat has going for it over Adium is the video conferencing feature.

Highly configurable, easy to use, and has a great feature set.

v2.0, now in late-alpha, looks to be even better, going to a modular protocol backend, meaning it can do AIM/MSN/etc.

I have used VideoLan Client on OS X and really like that, as well. It opens about 98% of the files that MPlayer can handle, and has an interface that is leaps and bounds beyond MPlayer (for a good example of how *not* to write an OS X interface, check out MPlayer for OS X).

iChat is not the Mac version of AIM. iChat is Apple's AIM clone. Other AIM clones include Fire and Adium.

Personally I think iChat sucks, compared to AIM, with the obvious exception of videoconferencing, but I don't know anyone with a FireWire camera anyway. Hopefully this news means by the time I do, AOL will have added videoconferencing support to AIM, and it will interoperate with iChat. That would rock.

In the mean time, Yahoo! Messenger is the best free videoconferencing app I've found, although it just does video, no sound.

Adium makes a good replacement for iChat.

Far quicker. Far more stable. Uses virtually no CPU cycles.

Adium already does this. If you're using OS X, give Adium a try. I'm very impressed with it, so far.

• Adium (my preference)
• Fire

I couldn't find a program for Mac that let me alias screennames.

Look harder. Adium, an OS third party AIM client does that.

You're right about Proteus and Fire having a bit too much junk. Just thought I'd suggest an alternative.

Too bad you're a MSN Messenger user... all my contacts use AOL Instant Messenger, so I get to use Adium... very, very slick and efficient.

Adium is a wonderful cocoa replacement for AIM.