Thursday, January 10. 2008
KMess 1.5 released!
I'm pleased to announce the release of KMess 1.5, a MSN Messenger client for KDE.
After a long time of development from version 1.4 first, and the 1.5-pre series after, we've been able to obtain a very stable and feature-filled version.
Changes
Users of KMess 1.5-pre2 will might notice that file transfers have become stable while operating full-speed. The ugly popup balloons are gone and you can send custom emoticons now. A lot of bugs are squashed in the process, and the overall application got the polish it deserves.
Users of the last official stable release (1.4.3) will notice the quite some new interesting features. Most parts of the user interface have been improved. Combined with rich colorful chat styles it's a refreshing breeze for the eyes.
This release brings the MSN support to a level we're happy with. During the development of KMess 1.5-pre1 and pre2, we've added support for the things you'd expect from a MSN Messenger client. That's nudges, now playing information, custom emoticons, personal messages, fast file transfers and automatic download of display pictures. To make sure you don't miss something in a conversation, Winks and offline messages can also be received, being able to send those as well is still a todo.
Looking back
Making the release of KMess 1.5 took a lot of time. Much more time then I anticipated. The introduction of a new developer (thanks Valerio!) helped a lot here. Looking at the changes I'm really stunned how much we've been able to polish.
It was quite difficult to get the direct connections stable. They've been a source of many crashes and lockups. Seeing it work out all smooth now is just unbelievable. It just works, like every user expects it to be. But after so much trouble I'm filled with excitement each time I see that progress bar rush to 100% in no-time. It amazes me every time.
What felt as a little project with the 1.4 / 1.5-pre1 release, seams different now. With the new website, trac installation for developers (tickets and wiki pages), announcement writing, and rock solid release it feels this little project has matured a lot. It gives me confidence we'll be able to pull up a lot more nowadays. 
Future plans
KMess 1.5 will be the last version based on Qt 3 and KDE 3. The next major version will be based on Qt 4 / KDE 4. Originally I'd planned to get a release done before the KDE 4 beta's, but it took far more time to get the file transfers stable. It means there won't be a KMess 1.6, but a 2.0 version since KDE 4 will likely be adopted (e.g. with 4.1) by the time we're ready with 2.0.
I had some plans to collaborate with other projects before, but never really gotten to it yet. Since everyone is going for Decibel lately, I'm curious how we work towards that goal as well. I'm curious how it will work out, because I don't want to loose the specific MSN protocol features we have.
For now, enjoy the release!
in that case, you might like the kmess-commits list or new trac installation too!
Yes, we do want to look at this. I can't promise if it will actually work out for us. We constantly push for new MSN features (iirc there are "msn extensions" in Telepathy), so we'll have to find a way to make that work with Telepathy as well.
One other option I've been thinking about it keeping KMess linked to it's own protocol code, and release a telepathy connection manager separately.
> Otherwise it seems a duplication of efforts
> (and another icon in the taskbar
)It doesn't yet feel like this at all. Sometimes you need an alternative route to get things done faster. If KMess gives developers the necessairy environment / breeding ground to work on the MSN protocol faster - e.g. compared to a project where developers are limited by certain constraints like project vision, user interface rules or architecture - everyone benefits. You can analyse our progress in the source and commit logs after all. If we were far behind that would be a different story, but I don't think that's the case here.
Can I use this in Kopete so I can see the msn goodies in the same interface as my Jabber/ICQ goodies?
The reason I simply didn't start on this yet is because.. we needed a stable release first. For the time being we'll have fun again implementing new stuff (compared to bugfixing) and slowly clear the way to work on mid-term goals.
So far this is only vision, but I want to see how we can make that a win-win situation. Nobody bennefits if we loose momentum by shooting ourselves in the foot.
Again congrats on the release; and I hope you have lots of fun coding Qt4/KDE4 soon
I'm not knocking your work; you're free to work on whatever you want. But I just don't understand it, and I groan at yet another reinvention of the wheel.
> Kopete would be even better, and the fruit of the effort would be much more useful.
Back in 2003 I actually filed some Kopete bugs because I wanted Kopete to improve. From a "msn messenger" point of view it was hard to figure out who you're actually chatting with, and what your online status was. I figured some bug reports could fix that, but this resulted in long discussions about whether a ~48 pixel sidebar would take too much space, and a 4x4 pixel indicator (on a 16x16 image) was good enough to see your status. That turned me off and I fell in love with KMess because it had exactly what I was looking for.
> What's the point of a single-protocol app nowadays?
I use MSN only so I want an application that does this the best for me. I want specialized features, no compromises because of other protocols. All-in-one applications are not always the solution here (think Dolphin vs Konqueror).
> And what's the point of KMess when we have Kopete?
Have a breeding ground where people can implement MSN support because they're totally free to do so.
So in the end, my work could still benefit Kopete. KMess allowed me to unravel the MSN protocol faster. The code is there. Our mid-term plans include trying to make a library from our protocol code, and look at Decibel if possible.
I'm sorry that you got turned off from Kopete by that, but that's been 4-5 years ago...maybe their attitude has changed a little since then. I'd love to see Kopete benefit from your expertise and work on KMess. Hopefully someday it will, in one way or another.
