A First Look At Gaim 2.0

surgicaltubing writes to spotlight the progress towards vesion 2.0 for Gaim, the open source, multi-protocol IM client. "The Gaim 2.0 release is nearing its home stretch. The Gaim team released beta 4 last week, with a number of new features and UI improvements." Linux.com and Slashdot are both part of OSTG.

no gg

[Anonymous Coward]

oh noes :/ no gadu-gadu support?

Google Talk Support

[kraada]

The article claims that Gaim 2.0 doesn't have Google Talk support . . . however, in this case TFA is quite wrong.

Google Talk is done on the Jabber protocol.

To set up Google Talk, set up a Jabber account, your S/N is your gmail username, and the server is talk.google.com. I have it set up right now myself, and it works fine.

The gaim people could, of course, make it easier to set up GT, but the support is in fact there.

Re:Beta 4

[HoosierPeschke]

It uses the GTK engine so you could get a new GTK theme [freshmeat.net]. I've never tried it so I'm not sure how well it works.

On a side note, did anyone else notice the "slashdot it" link at the bottom? I understand linux.com is a part of the OSTG but that seems kinda cruel...

Re:Google Talk Support

[Jack Malmostoso]

I think in TFA it is meant that there is no VOIP Google Talk support, that should be implemented later on in the development. You may want to take a look at gaim-vv for voice/video support, but I am not sure it is still actively developed: AFAIK it was meant to be merged back in Gaim 2.0. Note that one of GAIM main developers (Sean Egan) has been hired by Google earlier this year. About Gaim 2.0, I have been using all betas on Linux and Windows for months now, and I find it absolutely great. Best IM ever.

Re:Google Talk Support

[nonsequitor]

The article claimed it didn't have Voice Support for Google Talk. Lack of Voice Support for any protocol (Yahoo, MSN, etc...) is a real drawback to using GAIM for me. The only voice chat that anyone I know uses that's supported on Linux is Skype.

Re:Google Talk Support

[Anonymous Coward]

> The article claims that Gaim 2.0 doesn't have Google Talk support . . . however, in this case TFA is quite wrong.

From TFA:

"Finally, I'm disappointed to see that Gaim still doesn't have voice support for Google Talk. "

Voice support, not Google Talk.

Re:Beta 4

[abscott]

There is still the cut and paste issue where your text appears (only to you) as the font style/colour of what you pasted until you close the chat window. This problems been around since the first 2.0 beta the devs know about it, but it still hasnt been fixed. There are also some UI drawing issues now to beta 4. Like the status drop down box for me has 3-4pxls of white on the left of it.

Re:Weird crash?

[VGPowerlord]

Does anyone else have a problem where Gaim 1 and Beta 2 crash while trying to connect to MSN?

I've not been able to find anyone who can replicate this.

Nope, they definitely didn't have a news article about this problem on the GAIM site.

Oh wait, yes they did [sourceforge.net].

MSN send message intervals

[pugdk]

I have just tested the new gaim (2.0 beta4) and there is one annoying thing they have yet to fix: If you send messages using MSN fast they will get refused at the server level by micro$oft. MSN messenger stores your messages and only sends like one per second I seem to recall. Gaim does not have this feature, thus if you are a fast writer or write small messages and send them quickly after one another they will NOT go through.

This bug has been present for ages. I had hoped this would be fixed in 2.0beta4, but no. I hope this is fixed in the final version! Other than that gaim 2.0 seems very cool!

-pug

Direct IMs and such

[Anonymous Coward]

I've been using Gaim simply because I hate the ads on aim and I like many of its features. However, I have trouble sending files and getting direct IMs. Is this a configuration problem, or is it fixed in 2.0 or what?

Stores passwords in plain text

[BinaryCodedDecimal]

I've been using 2.0.0 beta 3.1 for a while now. I like it.

My only gripe is that it stores account passwords in plain text, on Windows at least, inside the accounts.xml file. (On Windows, this is located in %HOMEPATH%\Application Data\.gaim)

Surely it's not too much of a hassle to encrypt the passwords? Are passwords encrypted in the later versions of the beta?

Re:Stores passwords in plain text

[Anonymous Coward]

Are passwords encrypted in the later versions of the beta?
No they're not, and no they're not likely to be.

The GAIM team explain the reasons behind this on the website [sourceforge.net] and they seem like good reasons to me.

Re:Google Talk Support

[GreatBunzinni]

think in TFA it is meant that there is no VOIP Google Talk support

Once again, that isn't support for google talk. Google talk is simply a Jabber client written by google. When someone talks about google talk's VoIP functionality then that person is talking about Jingle [xmpp.org], which is a Jabber standard element.

So please don't get confused about this one. Google talk is simply the client (like Psi, Gaim, Kopete, etc) while the protocol itself is Jabber.

Let's not jump the gun

[SeaFox]

GAIM 2.0 is not actually out yet. This is only a beta, and as someone who has been waiting for over a year for the software to be released, I don't expect it to show up anytime soon. In fact, it's reminding me of Vista's development. Very little information, and feature scale backs. The merging of the Gaim-vv code into 2.0 was canceled, the results of the Google Summer of Code 2005 were released right around the time the Summer of Code 2006 was ending.

The longest thread on the project's forum page is still a thread asking about the delays [sourceforge.net] even though it was closed at the end of August. And it has it's share of jerks, but it really illustrates what a Debian-like release cycle this has been.

Kopete

[brunes69]

Kopete supports MSN Webcam audio and video, and Google Talk Jingle upport works as well (experimental only)

Re:File Transfers

[selfdiscipline]

From TFA:

"File transfer seems to be improved in this version as well. I've tried file transfer before with Gaim, between Gaim and other folks on the AIM network, and it never has seemed to work. This time around, the file transfer seems to work fine. I logged two accounts into AIM at the same time and sent a few files back and forth, and then tried it with a user on the AIM network using the Windows AIM client. The files went through just fine each time."

So yes, I guess. This is also the feature I'm most looking forward to. I'm not going to hope for folder transfers, because as I understand, that's part of aim's more proprietary featureset.

Oh... I once wrote a plugin (for 1.5) that would allow you to send people files from the commandline. I found it handy to send a list of files, like *.mp3 or `grep -i -l "that thing we talked about" *`

If anyone is interested in this, maybe I'll work on this for the 2.0 release.

Re:Google Talk Support

[Britz]

There is more for Linux. Ever heard of Gizmo?

http://www.gizmoproject.com/download.php [gizmoproject.com]

Re:Auto away

[Lothsahn]

You may have run into the bug: Never Idle [sourceforge.net]

I found that this problem was fixed in Beta4. When I installed Gaim 2.0.0, I would never go idle. I had everything configured to set me Idle, but I wouldn't go idle.

The difference between "Windows Usage" and "Gaim Usage" is that Gaim usage is only the time that you spend in gaim, sending and recieving messages. Windows usage means that if you're typing in Microsoft Word, then Gaim will not set you idle while you're actively using the computer.

Re:no gg

[grev]

Gadu-Gadu is supported in 2.0

Re:no gg

[kc1man]

GaduGadu is an extremely popular IM system in Poland.

Grammar Nazi Time

[Guuge]

It's "Gaim" [sourceforge.net]

Misattributed Quote

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, Makali wrote that. You left out the best part, JWZ's response:

I am fully in support of this proposed audio-cock technology.

See here [jwz.org].