Slashdot Mirror
AOL to Replace AIM with Triton
An anonymous reader writes "BetaNews is reporting that AOL has begun beta testing a replacement for its AOL Instant Messenger (AIM) software. Triton has an entirely new user interface that adds highly anticipated features including tabbed messaging and logging. The client will also be open to third party plug-ins." From the article: "It is no coincidence that AOL is fielding so many betas concurrently. AOL Browser, an Internet Explorer based Web browser; AOL Media Player, a standalone audio and video player; AOL search technologies and AOL's synchronization utilities are all part of what was once a unified communications client called Fanfare."
Sounds familiar
adds highly anticipated features including tabbed messaging and logging
I've been using this for quite a while, though. It's called Gaim.
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
It is worth noting that this is still an early beta.
I installed it this morning and had frequent crashes so I switched back to the regular 5.9 version.
Here's a select quote from the betanews forums:
"Why is it that so many small or independent developers give us so much quality software, often without reward, and huge companies like AOL can only spit out this bloated garbage?"
I have often regretted my speech, never my silence.
-Xenocrates
I think now I'll write a P2P application that runs on top of Triton called Tritonster. When AOL inevitably sues me for trademark infringement I'll claim that my daughter's nickname has been Tritonee for some time.
Sounds like a winning business plan to me!
I'm a big tall mofo.
With the advances in CD/DVD burning and buffer underrun protection, I've not made any coasters in a really long time.
It's like c'mon, what else can I put my cup/glass on? I don't even get the Bell sympatico CDs anymore either.
Cheap bastards. Don't they know their CDs are actually worth something to me?
it'll be like....trillian 0.9B!!
-- http://www.criticalassets.com
Triton was completely re-written from scratch using a new GUI toolkit called "Boxely", which was derived from Mozilla's XUL. As a result, this new AIM is extremely extensible, and hackable.
.box). These contain the code that drives the entire product. You can easily modify and extend AIM, just as you can write extensions for Firefox with XUL. This is no accident, AOL wants developers to build on AIM as a platform.
Poke around in C:\Program Files\Common Files\AOL\AIMBeta\services and you'll find a bunch of javascript and xml files (ending in
When I worked at AOL, I developed Boxely as a fun side project. I left the company a year ago, but they kept my project alive and now seem to be building real software with it. I probably should have open sourced it from the beginning.
On my blog I've written more about Boxely and how it compares to XUL: http://www.joehewitt.com/
Don't even get me started on AIM advertising, how about one day I walk over to my computer and the Java VM is running... odd there isn't a browser open... all thats open is AIM?? last thing I need is aim using up (in addition to the already bloated software that it is) an additional 20MB of ram to run Java...
then of course there is the "mouse over to hear" advertising that comes blaring out of my speakers when I minimize a window and mouse over by accident...
and my gf wonders why i use gaim
The Answer