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.
