Adium

Archive for 2013

Updated documentation #1: Events, notifications and passwords

Sunday, July 7th, 2013

Hey folks,

just a quick note to inform you about some updates to our documentation. We’ve added articles about the following topics:
– Adium’s “Events” system
Visual notifications (Notification Center, Growl)
Password-protecting Adium
Email notification

We hope they’re useful to you.

Adium 1.5.7 released

Tuesday, July 2nd, 2013

We are happy to announce the release of Adium 1.5.7. Changes include the update of Twitter support and the removal of StatusNet support. Update via “Check For Updates” from the “Adium” menu or download 1.5.7 here. You can find the full list of changes here.

Updated Twitter support
We are glad to report that the required changes to continue our Twitter support have been finished with the release of Adium 1.5.7. Thanks to Frank Dowsett we are now using STTwitter, which supports version 1.1 of Twitter’s API. While this means the core of Adium’s Twitter support has been completely rewritten, transition should be automatic and quick. You will also notice some extra features like better support for displaying retweets and expanding t.co links.

StatusNet support dropped
Sadly, dropping support for version 1.0 of that API also caused us to lose support for StatusNet. Our statistics indicate only a handful of people used this feature, and considering StatusNet is deprecated in favor of pump.io we decided to not put any effort in adding StatusNet support to STTwitter. If you want us to add pump.io support, we invite you to upvote our ticket #16380. And if a contributor were to step forward and add pump.io support, that would be all the more welcome.

Continued support for Twitter in Adium

Wednesday, March 6th, 2013

Twitter announced a while ago they will retire version 1 of their API this year. This means applications that interface with Twitter using this method, like Adium does, will stop working. They have begun some so-called “blackout tests” where certain functions stop working in applications relying on API version 1. Users reported that sending Twitter direct messages (DMs) from Adium didn’t work temporarily. According to Twitter, we will be seeing more and more of these temporary blackout tests.[1][2]

Adium support for Twitter was initially added in version 1.4, released in 2010. Aside from some bug fixes, it hasn’t seen many changes since. Twitter support has been good enough for quite a few people (including many current and former Adium developers) to keep it in Adium.

Twitter’s plans have made us consider the future of our support for Twitter. Fortunately, our very own Frank Dowsett has stepped up and will make the changes required to keep Twitter working in Adium. Updated Twitter support is targeted for Adium 1.5.7.

It’s no secret that Twitter has been moving to discourage third-parties from developing Twitter clients. We don’t know what shape this might take in the future, but we do know that many of you use, and even enjoy the ability to interact with Twitter via Adium. We will do our best to continue to support it.

Adium leadership changes

Friday, February 1st, 2013

Adium team and community,

It’s been an amazing decade working with you all to bring from infancy to awesomeness the world’s best multi protocol instant messaging client. I can’t even begin to enumerate our shared accomplishments, the things I’ve learned, and the friends I’ve made along the way.

I’m proud to be able to pass the torch of leadership to someone I know has the skills and drive to continue excellent Adium development and encourage you all — and hopefully new collaborators beside – to do the same. Thijs Alkemade has agreed to serve as Lead Developer, and I look forward to watching his progress in the role.

I love Adium too much to just say “Goodbye and good luck!” even though, with my first child due in May, I know that it’s not just and that will be demanding my attention soon. (I can’t believe that I first joined Adam Iser and the rest of the young Adium community as a college sophomore back in 2002 — look how far we’ve all come!) I’m assuming the title of Lead Developer Emeritus and will continue to be a part of the development and user community as much as time permits.

Zac West has made great contributions before and after becoming co-lead developer in mid-2009. He has recently joined startup HereLabs and will be focusing his efforts there and on Prowl, so is announcing his retirement from active development, as well.

My sincere thanks to all of you, with a special shout-out to Eric Richie and Robbie Vehse who have done a fantastic job keeping Adium moving forward in the past years while my time became increasingly scarce.

Adium iPhone Cases and free merchandise shipping

Sunday, January 27th, 2013

We’ve just added Adium-themed iPhone 5 (#1, #2) and iPhone 4/4S cases to the Adium merchandise store. We’ve also added some standard-weight Adium t-shirts to augment the American Apparel shirts we were previously offering; these new shirts are less expensive, which hopefully will let more people sport everyone’s favorite duck.

Use coupon code FREELOVE for free shipping in the United States January 28-30.

Microsoft will be dropping MSN for Skype

Friday, January 18th, 2013

It has been reported that Microsoft will be dropping MSN Messenger in favor of Skype.[1]

From what we’ve been able to gather, it should be possible to use MSN in Adium until March 2014.[2] As of this moment, it is not legally possible for us to integrate Skype support (more information: [3], [4]).

Historically, Microsoft has not necessarily encouraged third-party clients connecting to MSN, but they have been tolerated. Not long ago, Microsoft added an XMPP interface to connect to MSN, however it was lacking features and it will be shut down in October. While it’s possible that they could someday add one for Skype, they haven’t provided any indication of doing so.

We know that many of you rely on MSN and we understand that this news is frustrating. It’s frustrating for us as well because, as of right now, we aren’t left with any options. We’ll have to see how this all transpires over the next year. If we find a solution, you can be sure that we’ll let you know.