BeAIM Fixes and Additions History

Alpha 1:
Initial Release.


Alpha 2:

1.  There was a bug that made it impossible for anyone with a screen name under 10 characters in length to sign on. Fixed.

2.  Moved BuddyList.dat to /boot/home. Previously, BeAIM often couldn't find that file unless it was started from a terminal - rather an inconvenience.


Alpha 3:

1.  When someone IM'ed you for the first time, a window would pop open, but BeAIM wouldn't display the IM itself. Fixed.

2.  Once there were enough messages in the window to enable the scroll bars, incoming IM's started being inserted into the conversation window incorrectly. You might see a new IM in the middle of a previous IM, for example. Fixed.

3.  Added auto-scrolling. I'm sure this will be a popular addition.   :-)

4.  BeAIM's IM's consisted only of raw text (instead of HTML), which caused other BeAIM clients to crash. Alpha 3 wraps it's output in HTML. Note that the bug which causes BeAIM to crash is still there, though. I think this has something to do with my HTML parser.


Alpha 4:

1.  Fixed the aforementioned crash bug...  BeAIM now should be able to receive any message, be it in HTML or plain text.

2.  Fixed a truly bizarre problem which made BeAIM somtimes act strangely when it received an IM exactly 8 characters long. Other reports indicate that it was 12 character messages causing the problem... I am fairly certain that this has to do with the version of the client that sent the message. Fixed.

3.  The parser didn't work correctly on messages containing a "less-than" sign. (<) It confused it with the beginning of an HTML tag. Fixed.

4.  Version 3 didn't work with some of the newer AIM 2.0 beta versions available for Windows (and possibly other OS's). This is because those clients have changed the protocol slightly. Fixed - thanks to Invect for putting up with me in testing this one.  :-)

5.  Fixed the HTML parser so it actually displays some styles... right now only bold and italic make a difference though. The parser is actually fairly robust, and displaying font colors/styles should be coming fairly soon. Read more about the supported tags in the readme.

5.  There was a minor bug with the word wrapping when you first opened a chat window... you would allowed to type an inch or two past the right edge, and the texteditor would sort of "scroll." Not a big deal, but rather annoying. Fixed.

6.  Several people have requested that the Buddy List be made a replicant so it will follow them when they switch workspaces. I haven't done that; however, the Buddy List now appears in all workspaces anyway. You can't change this behavior right now... but the next alpha will probably have an option (gee, wally, an option!) to choose whether you want it that way or not.

7.  Some of the same people wanted their chat windows to follow them between workspaces too... don't worry, you can control this one! Each chat window, in its View menu, now has an option that allows you whether you want that window to be shown in All Workspaces or just This Workspace (the default). I really like this option... I seem to be using it a lot!  :-)


Alpha 5:

1.  Added font size/color support to the HTML parser, and an option not to display them. This is because BeAIM can't do text backgrounds. Every once in a while, you run into someone who insists on using some truly obnoxious colors like, say, light pink on dark purple. BeAIM always uses white as a background, and bright pink on white is basically unreadable. This option resets the font color and size to normal size black on white... but only for new messages. It will not go back and make previous messages readable.

2.  Added some basic prefs, so you can control the default settings of the window/workspace options. I also let you specify what server and port to connect to; I don't think this will work as a proxy setting (yet). Proxy stuff is coming but I have to do some research on how to implement it.

3.  Also, a groovy preferences dialog box that lets you SET those cool prefs! Also more to come here.

4.  When someone sends you a URL, it is still not "link-ified," but now it is displayed in a more readable manner (instead of just showing you the raw HTML tag).

5.  Added the long overdue buddy list manager. You no longer have to deal with BuddyList.dat! The new buddylist manager has also been completely rewritten internally, and supports multiple protocols and user groups. It works fairly well so far. Unfortunately, you will have to re-enter all your buddies. Sorry.

6.  Preferences and the buddy list are now user-specific... if you log on with a different screen name, you will have your own buddylist and settings. No more problems with two people sharing the same BeAIM client!

7.  Window positions are still not saved... I'll get this coded in soon. But windows now position themselves in a more intelligent manner.

8.  Users in your buddylist are displayed in a gray font (ala Windows AIM) if they have been idle for longer than 10 minutes. There is still no way to see exactly how long they have been idle; BeAIM has this information, but I haven't coded in any way to display it yet.

9.  Updated the networking code to make it a little more intelligent about when the connection gets dropped... again, the actual AIM code in this release hasn't been updated much, and it is still a tad unstable. This is something I really plan to whump away on in Alpha 6, so don't touch that dial, folks!

10.  Fixed a lot of stuff I can't even remember. It's been waaaay too long since I started coding this alpha.  :-)


Alpha 5.1:

1.  Fixed the "message clumping" bug... this is when BeAIM would "clump" some of your outgoing messages together, and it would look to the other person as though you had sent them all at once. If you ever got the message that you had been sending messages too fast, that was what caused it. It's now been (thankfully) fixed.

2.  Added a Setup button to the Sign On window, so you can get to the connection settings if, say, you're using a proxy server. Right now BeAIM doesn't seem to work through a proxy server, so this won't be all that helpful, but it's there for future releases.

3.  BeAIM now makes a distinction between global prefs and per-user prefs.


Beta 1:

1.  A bunch of bug fixes... actually too many to list here.

2.  An entirely new network protocol rewrite, which will be much easier to maintain and actually works much better.

3.  Sound effects! Woohoo! Thanks to the very cool PlaySound classes of Sean Heber, BeAIM now has some killer sound effects support. It makes a big difference, believe me.

4.  Many, many UI enhancements and updates... such as: working URL links, dialog boxes that cancel when you hit the escape key, right click menus, the ability to IM/Get Info about users not on your buddy list, etc...

5.  A gray bar in every chat window that keeps track of when the last message was sent or received. Since you will always look active to other users, they might send you messages when you are not there... that bar will let you know when the message was received, until I get a real timestamp function implemented.

6.  Added some AIM features, such as search-by-email and Get Info... and buddy list changes are now updated on the server without you having to restart BeAIM.

7.  Sadly, the Pink Thing is no longer there... it has now been replaced with a fairly groovy looking BeAIM logo. Too bad, really... the Pink Thing had class!  :-)

8.  A lot of other stuff... this was actually a HUGE update! And believe it or not, there are some things that I have mostly done that just didn't make it in. Hopefully there will be a point update in a week or two with even more stuff.
