What Makes a Good IM Client?

thesaint05 asks: "So I was sitting here at my job where and IM is a pretty integral part of communicating intra-office. However, I have 3 different clients installed, and each has a different user base. Within the office we have an SIP server and use Windows Messenger. The Google Talk client is for colleagues and friends on the cutting edge, and AIM is used by pretty much everybody else (including a bunch of clients). So, after holding 3 different conversations simultaneously on all 3 clients (Windows Messenger with a colleague, AIM with my girlfriend, and Google Talk with a friend at a different tech company) I got to wondering, what are the strengths and weaknesses of all of these clients? Which do you use and why? If you could combine features from all of the IM clients out there, what would they be?"

Comments

Each Protocol Has Its Good Points

[duerra]

I was asked this question a few days ago, my response was that there is a little something from every network that I would like to combine for use into one standard.

MSN - Ability to change your nick. Ability to accept or decline others from adding you to their buddy lists.
AIM - Ability to set auto-reply messages. Direct connect for quicker file transfers.
Yahoo! - Ability to send messages to people that are offline that they will receive next time they sign on. Ability to go invisible.

There's stuff I'm missing, no doubt, and I didn't cover every protocol out there, but those are the major things for me.

I'm not sure of all of the Jabber specifications, but I know there's things in there that specify encryption stuff, among a number of other nice things.

Right now, I think strong encryption (like with the gaim-encryption plugin) between client to client (not client to server) is one big thing that all of the major players need to address.

Re:Each Protocol Has Its Good Points

[cheezus_es_lard]

I'd like to see the ability for you to have speech recognition, but also text to speech... I mean, if you're using the same client, you can train your client to recognize your voice, and also record the information on it; timbre, pitch, tone, etc... store that in a profile and have the client transmit it automatically (if desired) the first time your buddy tries to text-to-speech your incoming IMs. The recieving client could apply the settings from your profile to your incoming messages, reading them in a voice similar to your own (I'd expect eerily similar as the technology developed). I can't imagine this being that difficult, and with modern processing capabilities, rendering speedy text-to-speech isn't that hard, so I don't see why it couldn't be reasonably usable.

Aside from the obvious creep-out and privacy invasion issues, are there any technical reasons this would be hard, and is anyone working on something like this?

just curious ;-)

One Simple Thing - Social Networking

[under_score]

I actually haven't seen this in an IM client, but it would be cool. Tie in to a networking system like LinkedIn or build in the capacity so that if you choose, you can browse and create connections through your friends list.

Re:lol

[duerra]

Yeah, it's too bad that ICQ has that stupid number instead of a username, though. Numbers are hard to remember, hard to give to people on a whim, etc.

ICQ was so close to being perfect!

Adium, Adium, Adium

[illtron]

A good client will handle multiple protocols.
A good client has a beautiful, well thought out interface (including the prefs)
A good client does not have games.
A good client does not have a stock ticker.
A good client does not have a giant SUBMIT button (Everybody knows enter/return sends).
A good client will let you organize/arrange your contact list to suit your needs (Sorry iChat -- yes, even in Tiger)
A good client is extendable.
A good client has a no-brains-needed logging feature.
A good client plays well with others (Growl, baby)
A good client has tabs (Nobody wants a dozen chat windows).
A good client will not try to reinvent the wheel (Why does control+Z minimize the chat window in Gaim?)
A good client will let me effortlessly send files (uhhhh....)

I'm thoroughly sold on Adium, but since I'm stuck on Windows at work, I use Gaim there, because it is the simplest. Trillian is extremely overrated. AIM is absolute adware garbage.

On the Mac side, only iChat lets me transfer files without issue (official AIM might, but I won't install it to find out).

Proteus and Fire are nice, but Adium is *nicer.* I won't fault anybody for trying the others, but I think it's worth anybody's time to give Adium a day or two to win them over.

Re:Adium, Adium, Adium

[John Nowak]

This isn't at all a reason. When you port software, there should be a basic effort made to follow the conventions of the target system. The truth is Gaim is just a mess in this regard on every platform, even Gnome. Trillian also craps all over conventions. The only solid AIM client out there that behaves itself is Adium, and it goes so far beyond that is well. Things like Adium, Quicksilver, etc, will keep me on the Mac platform for a long time.

Did we read the question?

[hubbah]

I think the poster is asking what makes a good IM client, not which IM client we happen to prefer. Related questions to be sure, but not the same.

Contrary to folk wisdom, IM clients can be specialized, they're not all trying to outdo each other at the same tasks. So it's important to ask yourself what you're looking for. Fun & features? Try Yahoo's 'IMvironments' (or whatever silly thing it's called), sharing pictures? 'Hello' has some picture oriented, well-designed UI affordances in their chat client.

Personally, I look for the following things in a client:

- Simplicity (I want to think about IMs as little as possible)
- Universal compatibility (I don't want to run more than 1 client, I don't want to ask my friends to get xyz client in order to talk to me)
- Configurability
- No ads

I haven't tried every available client, but Gaim fits the bill for me. It's small, simple, highly configurable and speaks pretty much every lingo out there. It's not strong in its file-transfer capabilities and its ability to send pictures, but those features are not as important to me.

Plus, it's open source.

Hubbah

Re:well...

[zootm]

Thing with Gaim is that the interface isn't as polished as that of Adium — it could use a bit of work. The back-end (which, as you say, Adium uses) is top-notch, though.

Bitlbee changed my life

[Crimsane]

Bitlbee is an irc gateway to all the messenger clients. This means that I can communicate with my MSN contacts over (what appears to me to be) irc.

This means I can run screen+irssi+bitlbee on my home server, and will never disconnect from any of my msn,aim,irc,etc and will be able to rejoin my clients from wherever in the world I am (very important for a laptop user like myself).

It organized all of my streams of communication into one single, easy, clean interface (irssi, really, but still) and allows me to manage my time much more efficiently then before. (not to mention the benefits of never logging off, so people can send you messages and you can pick them up without having to be "on line" at that moment.

I'm looking forward to naming my firstborn after it.

AIM steals focus

[British]

The worst aspect of AIM was the "focus stealing" aspect, also present in MSI Installer. NO program EVER should pop up a window and instantly put focus to it. Never, No. Flash it, but don't come up to the front.

Imagine you are talking dirty to your girlfriend in a long typing message, and then an unexpected IM from your grandma pops up, and it's too late, you hit enter. Your message of "....and I'm gonna lick your clit" ends up being sent to grandma.

Yeah, it's never happened to me(happened to someone on bash.org), but a good IM client wouldn't let you do that.

One feature none of them has (as far as I know)

[Atario]

A filter that slaps you in the face if you start typing in IM-speak.

"u" for "you", "4" for "for", etc.
More than one instance of "lol" per minute
More than two exclamation points (possibly mixed with ones) in a row
Smileys on more than one quarter of your messages
And so on.

Jabber is Underrated

[vga_init]

Granted, I've always been a huge jabber advocate, but I honestly don't see why more people here don't recommend it. A lot of features that are cited in other posts that are foudn in the more popular protocols that make them unique from one another are already present in jabber: permissions, offline messages, various status options, logging (not really a protocol feature). The protocol is easy-as-pie XML, and the is open and standard so that the sky is the limit as to how clients can choose to interact with one another. I've always found the protocol to be very flexible, and there are a lot of tiny little features that make it a pleasure to use (subscription management, anonymous chatting, etc etc).