Archive for the ‘AIM Beta’ Category

AIM 7.0 Beta 2 Now With AIM Lifestream

Monday, July 6th, 2009

AOL released the second beta of AIM 7.0 for Windows today. This build has a lot of changes since the first beta. While some are very noticeable like the new color/theme chooser and the Lifestream and Me tabs, others might not be so noticeable like the total footprint on disk was reduced by 3MB between the two betas. AIM 7 now installs in under under 15MB of disk space. By comparison (chosen totally at random), Digsby takes up 67.7MB on my PC.

Here is my Buddy List using the new “Grass” theme:

AIM Buddy List with Grass theme

There are a lot of cool and very new things to try out in this beta. AOL needs your help. If you find any issues or have some suggestions, be sure to click on the “Beta Feedback” link and leave a comment. The IM window has a handy “Beta Feedback” link at the top as shown here:

AIM Beta Feedback

Clicking on that link will open a browser window where you can leave your comments. Here is a screen shot of me leaving some feedback.

Sample AIM Beta Feedback

Remember, like saved away messages, you have to ask for the features you want in order to give them the attention you believe they deserve. Just make sure you ask for something you really want. Please comment early and often. The more details the better.

If you have not tried the first beta, be sure to try this one today.

Could it be the fastest AIM client yet?

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Posted in AIM, AIM Beta | 5 Comments »

AIM 6.9 Beta 2

Tuesday, October 21st, 2008

AOL released the second beta of AIM 6.9 today.

This new build has some interesting changes as mentioned on the AOL beta site release notes:

  • Sign in as invisible is now an option in the sign in window — This check box is not sticky so you can’t check it and expect it to be checked the next time you sign in or out. This is a feature that was previously only available in my IM Tweaks plugin.
  • The UI has been streamlined. We have removed some of the redundant menus and options — Less is more or less :). Be sure to send feedback on what you like or don’t like here.
  • The buddy find feature is now similar to FireFox. Just press Ctrl+F from the Buddy List® window and begin typing the name of your buddy. You can close the find box to give yourself more room to show your Buddy List by clicking on the X button next to it.
  • Search the web from your IM window. Just enter a query in the search box to open your browser and see the results. AIM Search is “powered by AOL search” and “enhanced by Google”.
  • The AMO API continues to be improved in this version. Most of the changes are internal with a few API extensions. AIM 6.8 AMO plugins are also supported in AIM 6.9. I will cover some of these new API additions in a future post.
  • One new feature not mentioned in the official release notes is a new option in the context menu of the IM compose box (Ctrl+D) that allows you to “paste as plain text”. This makes it ultra-easy to paste web content without messing up your fonts.

Here is a screen shot of AIM 6.9 beta 1 and beta 2 Buddy List windows with some of the highlighted changes. As you can see we moved the IM, Buddy List config, and Actions menu to the top under the main menu bar and gave them new icons. All plugin commands that were in the Actions menu are now in the menu with the gear icon.

You can download the latest AIM beta here. Let me know what you think.

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Posted in AIM Beta | 2 Comments »

Save your Buddy List using the AIM 6.8 Beta

Wednesday, May 21st, 2008

According to Google Analytics, the #1 in-bound link for May is my comment on Big Blue Ball. I wrote that referenced post back in December of 2006 when I discovered how often people asked how they could save and load their Buddy Lists.

Today, I can finally tell you that AOL not only integrated this feature in AIM 6.8, they made it even better. No plugin required. You can now save and load your Buddy List by going to the AIM menu of the Buddy List window and selecting the desired option as shown here:

New Save and Load Buddy List Menu Options

If you click on the “Save Buddy List…” option, you will see the following dialog:

Save Buddy List Dialog

This dialog lets you specify what groups you want to save and what details you want to include. So now, you can save all your buddies or just certain groups and optionally save your notes and nicknames for each buddy. Clicking on “Save…” will let you specify the target file name. You can send your Buddy List by dragging the file and dropping it in an IM window.

AIM 6.8 also gives you more control when you import from a saved Buddy List. You can now double-click on a .BLT file or use the “Load Buddy List” option from the AIM menu and select the file. When you do that you will see the following dialog:

Load Buddy List Dialog

This dialog lets you load all or just certain groups from the saved Buddy List. Just check the groups you want and click on the ‘Load’ button. Check/uncheck the Buddy List checkbox to check/uncheck all groups.

Please give this beta a try. Download the AIM 6.8 beta here.

As always, your feedback is greatly appreciated. Just use the “Feedback…” option in the Help menu of the Buddy List window.

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Posted in AIM Beta | 2 Comments »

AIM 6.8 Beta—AIMing with AMO

Monday, May 19th, 2008

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):

About IM Freaqs

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.

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Posted in AIM Beta | 4 Comments »

New Call Alerts in AIM 6.5 Beta

Tuesday, September 18th, 2007

Attention AIM Phoneline users! You can now try out the new call alerts in the latest AIM 6.5 Beta.

We have integrated the incoming call alerts in the IM window. Each new call will appear as a new tab in this window if you enable grouped IMs. Here is a sample call alert for a Free AIM Phoneline user:

AIM Phoneline Call Alert

Free AIM Phoneline users (Did you know that you can get a free phone number from AOL?) can use the call alert to take the call or send to voice mail. If you miss the call, you can also use the alert to listen to the voice mail. NOTE: You cannot place calls from a free AIM Phoneline account, just receive them.

Unlimited AIM Phoneline ($14.95/mo) subscribers can take advantage of the extra features in the call alerts like: Forward the call, and special greetings. You can also listen in and pickup the call while it’s in voicemail. Here is a sample call alert for and Unlimited AIM Phoneline call alert:

Unlimited AIM Phoneline Call Alert

Here is what the “Tell Caller…” menu shows:

Unlimited AIM Phoneline Call Alert “Tell Caller…”

Please help test this out since it is a brand new feature in the AIM 6.5 Beta. Let me know if you have any problems, questions or comments on this cool new feature.

Don’t forget that AOL offers free AIM Phoneline accounts. It takes about 5 minutes to get a phone number. You can even get one in any area code in the country where AOL offers this service so you can let your long-distance friends call you on a local number near them and talk all you want for free without restrictions.

Posted in AIM, AIM Beta | No Comments »