Just got back from a business trip. I highly recommend flying business class, especially on Lufthansa.
Last Friday, AIM released an updated beta build of AIM 6.8. I am calling this version of AIM “Plugin-Central“. AIM has added more plugin functionality than ever before including support for these new AIM Module (AMO) plugins that are HTML/CSS and JavaScript based. If you want to see how an AMO plugin works simply rename the “.amo” file to “.zip” and peek inside. I will say more on how you can write your own AMO in a future post.
I highly recommend that you give this beta a shot. You can even find my first ever AMO on gallery.aim.com under the pen name of “IM Freaq”. “IM Freaqs” is a simple little plugin that shows the ten most frequent buddies you interact with. It’s my personal favorite so far. Here is the about screen shot of IM Freaqs (courtesy of AOL):
As Greg mentioned in his post, I also helped out with the twitterMan 4.0 plugin. Writing an AMO is pure fun.
With AIM 6.8 you can easily manage your pluigins. Just click on the “Manage” link at the bottom of the Buddy List to open the plugin manager. From there you can enable, configure, re-order, and uninstall any plugin without having to sign off. Existing AIM plugins, that are not AMOs, can also be uninstalled if they support this new feature. My RX-Plugin, IM Tweaks, and CoreWitness plugins support AIM 6.8, including the ability to uninstall them from the plugin manager.
Let me know if you have any questions or comments on AIM 6.8 and IM Freaqs, etc. I appreciate all feedback.
Thanks and enjoy.
Tags: AIM 6.8, AMO, IM Freaqs, TwitterMan
Hey Gus, this sounds like a great plugin. I can’t get it to work though. I’m running AIM 6.8.5.17 Beta 3 and the IM Freaqs window comes out blank in both the docked and undocked modes.
Here’s how it looks: img241.imageshack.us/my.php?image=freqku2.jpg
Also the Twiiter 4.0 plugin doesn’t work for me either. It lets me log in and says its active but change my status doen’t update my Twitter page. Also when I press the button to hide the module, the window seems to undock, as I can see Twitter Man in the taskbar and there’s a window in the center of the screen that doesn’t seem to be rendering anything.
And how that looks: img241.imageshack.us/my.php?image=68012743ll0.jpg
Hey Nathan. Thanks for the feedback. I have a fix for the blank window problem in IM Freaqs. I should have it up on gallery today.
Check the TwitterMan window when you set your first status. If your user name or password fails to authenticate we revert to the signon view.
This beta has a ghost window bug that will be fixed in the next release. Ghost windows will only appear in AMOs that run while hidden.
The fix on Freaqs works great, thanks for the update.
Great, I just tried Beta 4 and no more ghost windows on twitterman!