Re:"serverless messaging" compatible w/ Apple iCha
on
Trillian 3.0 Released
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· Score: 1
The Mac app Proteus has an implementation of iChat-compatible Rendezvous messaging. It uses libgaim underneath, and much of its core is open source (last I checked), so either it's already in libgaim or you could check out the Proteus imservices source for the code you're looking for.
There's not a Mac user out there who would possibly want Trillian when there's both Proteus, Adium and Fire.
I've always found Trillian to be really bloated, lacking in features, incompatible and generally just an embarrasing piece of software. It didn't even have server contact list syncing! The new version looks promising though. I wonder if their Rendezvous chat is compatible with Apple's (it'd be quite silly if it isn't).
-- Tested it-- Figures, Rendezvous is Pro only. And yay, surprise, the interface is still bloated and designed by someone who should stay away from an interface editor. What the hell is up with a minimum height of about 100 pixels just for toolbar with useless icons, a tab bar that I don't want, a titlebar for a *window in a window* (who the hell came up with that stupid window-in-window idea, anyway?), and twenty pixels of font editing buttons (really, I don't edit my chat text often enough to need buttons available at all times)?
Not only that, the View menu can only enable and disable UI elements that should be automatic (or disablers that are redundant - why would I want to disable the part of the interface where I read messages? The part where I write text? Wouldn't it then be smarter to open whichever chat part you're actually using (video, audio) in a separate window? (Think iChat)), and the Options menu presents me with *twelve* submenus (Who forbade option dialogs?).
Congratulations, Trillian team. You have successfully written an app with an interface that is even worse than MSN Messenger's. Again.
(btw, on Gaim -- Gaim has a nice share of features. I got my hopes up when I saw that its interface had been updated. However, that interface, too, is either bloated or just plain space-wasting, depending on how you configure it. That leaves us with zero (0, nil, none) chat clients with a decent interface on Windows (that I know of). Does anyone know of any reasonable apps? (Don't you dare mentioning Miranda) )
TouchSTAR slipCOVER, touch screen slip-on screens for Powerbooks. Only the 17" version available atm, but they're coming for the 15" and 12" too. The iBook 12" and PowerBook 12" have almost the exact same form factor, so the one for the 12" should fit nicely on an iBook too.
You ask the filesystem what's in a folder and it tells you
Yes, that's what happens, on an arcitectual level, but the average user isn't on that level. The thing about spatial browsing is that a single folder goes together with a single window. [The folder] and [its window with its contents and metadata] is one and the same thing. This is very logical to the user -- when he opens a physical folder, he can see the documents within the folder. He cannot open two folders and find the same documents. If the user arranges the papers in folder in a certain order, the next time he opens the folder he'll find the papers in the exact same order. A browser breaks this connection: suddenly, two windows can show the same content. Also, going "up a level", which suddenly changes the content of the window, is far from as visually clear as opening a folder and seeing its content 'come out of it' in the form of a new window.
And what is this, "An open folder is a window; a window is an open folder"? So, all windows are folders? Tell that to all the other programs on the system! You might say that they aren't the Finder, but the windows look just about identical, so no one cares. It's the same with any other browser, anyway: A window of a folder is an opened folder.
Of course not, he's only saying that a folder and its window goes together with a one-to-one relationship. I don't see what you're getting at. Outside the 'file manager', it's rare that a window represents a folder.
That was one of the most singularly bad arguments for spatial browsing that has ever been presented. Maybe the rest of there comments are of at least some value, but what you quoted has quite inspired me to assume they are incompetent and not waste my time reading them.
And yet it's the argument propulsed by many great interface engineers, including Bruce Tognazzini who pretty much formed the old Mac user interface. But great! Good for you! For ignorance is truly bliss.
However, if you change your mind and feel curious enough to figure this 'spatial' thing out, I do recommend reading Siracusa's article.
In the classic Finder, there is no abstraction between the actual file system and the view of the file system presented on screen. A folder is either open or closed. If it is open, it is represented on screen in its own window. The size, position, and viewing options for an open folder's window are always remembered, and are unrelated to the size, position, and viewing options of parent, sibling, or child folders.
There is a clear, cohesive paradigm at work. An open folder is a window; a window is an open folder.
This is the idea put forth in the scifi The Golden Age by John C Wright. It is a really, really recommended read, and his ideas and visions are really mind-boggling.
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The Mac app Proteus has an implementation of iChat-compatible Rendezvous messaging. It uses libgaim underneath, and much of its core is open source (last I checked), so either it's already in libgaim or you could check out the Proteus imservices source for the code you're looking for.
There's not a Mac user out there who would possibly want Trillian when there's both Proteus, Adium and Fire.
I've always found Trillian to be really bloated, lacking in features, incompatible and generally just an embarrasing piece of software. It didn't even have server contact list syncing! The new version looks promising though. I wonder if their Rendezvous chat is compatible with Apple's (it'd be quite silly if it isn't).
-- Tested it--
Figures, Rendezvous is Pro only. And yay, surprise, the interface is still bloated and designed by someone who should stay away from an interface editor. What the hell is up with a minimum height of about 100 pixels just for toolbar with useless icons, a tab bar that I don't want, a titlebar for a *window in a window* (who the hell came up with that stupid window-in-window idea, anyway?), and twenty pixels of font editing buttons (really, I don't edit my chat text often enough to need buttons available at all times)?
Not only that, the View menu can only enable and disable UI elements that should be automatic (or disablers that are redundant - why would I want to disable the part of the interface where I read messages? The part where I write text? Wouldn't it then be smarter to open whichever chat part you're actually using (video, audio) in a separate window? (Think iChat)), and the Options menu presents me with *twelve* submenus (Who forbade option dialogs?).
Congratulations, Trillian team. You have successfully written an app with an interface that is even worse than MSN Messenger's. Again.
(btw, on Gaim -- Gaim has a nice share of features. I got my hopes up when I saw that its interface had been updated. However, that interface, too, is either bloated or just plain space-wasting, depending on how you configure it. That leaves us with zero (0, nil, none) chat clients with a decent interface on Windows (that I know of). Does anyone know of any reasonable apps? (Don't you dare mentioning Miranda) )
TouchSTAR slipCOVER, touch screen slip-on screens for Powerbooks. Only the 17" version available atm, but they're coming for the 15" and 12" too. The iBook 12" and PowerBook 12" have almost the exact same form factor, so the one for the 12" should fit nicely on an iBook too.
This is the idea put forth in the scifi The Golden Age by John C Wright. It is a really, really recommended read, and his ideas and visions are really mind-boggling.