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Hi guys. There's something that's been bugging me for many years, about Linux: I really can't understand why there is NO instant messaging app that doesn't look like it was made in Paint. I need a IM client that supports the Yahoo protocol, and it seems that I have only Empathy and Pidgin to choose from. Right now, I use Empathy on Elementary OS and I have some issues that I can't get over (the contact list shows the ID's, not the aliases, and the file transfer doesn't work). I made it look a little better by using Adium themes on it, but the issues above are a deal breaker.

 

Pidgin is even worse, although it doesn't have Empathy's issues. Customizing this app is a pain (I'm trying to make it look/sound/work like Yahoo Messenger on Win, that's what I'm familiar with), it looks horrible out of the box (even the tray icon is hideous), sound/video doesn't work, etc. 

 

Anyway, while I'm sure that things CAN be done to make those IM clients look a little better, or even work better, my question remains. There are many beautiful Linux apps out there, but the instant messaging "department" seems to be totally ignored by developers. :(

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Well you can use the web-based version of Yahoo Messenger from your web browser. Other client's include:Jitsi and, as fusi0n said, Trillian, but aside from that Pidgin is probably the most widely used client.

 

Aside from that, I don't really there's much you can do to make a YIM clone for Linux using existing software. I think it's a little unfair to say that IM clients are "ignored" by Linux devs. The ones that exist are perfectly adequate (particularly Trillian and Pidgin), it's just that the interface is different from what you're used to. The applications themselves are perfectly usable.

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This is what I use.. It is awesome.. 

https://www.trillian.im/get/linux/beta/linux.html

Doesn't seem to work on eOS (12.04 LTS Ubuntu).

 

Aside from that, I don't really there's much you can do to make a YIM clone for Linux using existing software. I think it's a little unfair to say that IM clients are "ignored" by Linux devs. The ones that exist are perfectly adequate (particularly Trillian and Pidgin), it's just that the interface is different from what you're used to. The applications themselves are perfectly usable.

 

Not unfair, because the look of these IM clients, compared to Windows or OSX, is absolutely spartan. And, like I said, Empathy has bugs and features that don't work. For example, today I was chatting with a friend and at one point he said "look at what I worked on today", and I was looking at the Empathy chat windows for a few minutes like a dumb ass, waiting for a screenshot or something. He DID send it, but nothing showed up on my end. 

 

I didn't try Trillian on Linux yet, so I can't comment on that one, but I remember that on Windows it was a bloated piece of c**p.

And yes, I agree with you that you can use these apps for CHAT, but come on, the UI and the features matter too. 

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Digsby, Kopete.

 

I used to use Digsby on Windows, but Facebook support would always break.  Switch to Trillian.

Uhmm... "digsby is coming

soon for

Mac and Linux!"

Use WINE if it bothers you so much.

Really? Why don't I use Windows, right? Please, if you don't have something useful to say, don't bother replying. 

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Really? Why don't I use Windows, right? Please, if you don't have something useful to say, don't bother replying. 

I don't know why you don't use windows, and I haven't got the foggiest idea what using windows has to do with using WINE.

You want something pretty like yahoo messenger, great, get wine and install it in that, colourful client and nothing to do with windows.

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Yahoo! Messenger, as far as I know, won't work in Wine. Honestly, Empathy/Pidgin/Trillian is as best as you probably can do. Digsby? Isn't that long dead? :p From what I remember when I used Y!M, file transfers are pretty hit and miss (mostly miss in my past experience). Not sure if Yahoo! ever bothered to fix that, I doubt it. And I don't believe any of the third party clients support alias IDs.

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digsby is coming

soon for

Mac and Linux!"

 

Yeah it's been like that for years. FWIW, the official Yahoo client does work on Linux but it's dated.  Edit: And discontinued. lol

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People still use IM? Haven't used an IM client in years, barely use the internal one at work, seems generally pointless these days

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People still use IM? Haven't used an IM client in years, barely use the internal one at work, seems generally pointless these days

True, yet somehow my YM was the first app that I opened at boot and I still do. I have many friends that still use it and I've been using it for many years, so it's hard to "let go".

 

@ n_K, I was talking about NATIVE Linux apps, not emulated (or "wrapped", like TeamViewer). Obviously, I can run something via Wine, but that's not a solution.

 

Anyway, if those devs are lowering the requirements for dependencies (or eOS gets a new update this century :P ), I'll give Trillian a try, maybe it will be what I'm missing so far.

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People still use IM? Haven't used an IM client in years, barely use the internal one at work, seems generally pointless these days

In my experience, people in tech related fields (at least engineering) still use internal/external IM quite a lot. It's nice instead of using email for some things -- it's quicker and still asynchronous.

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I still IRC too ;)

 

I use pidgin if i need IM (not eto self: check later if can use skype chat in pidgin)

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I use pidgin if i need IM (not eto self: check later if can use skype chat in pidgin)

 

You can't. There are plugins for it, but last time I checked you still needed Skype running in the background for them to work.

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You can't. There are plugins for it, but last time I checked you still needed Skype running in the background for them to work.

But it does work, I've got skype, pidgin, skype4pidgin and a few other extensions running on a headless server via xpra fine.

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People still use IM? Haven't used an IM client in years, barely use the internal one at work, seems generally pointless these days

Tons of people use IM. for example, anyone that uses facebook chat is using IM, whether they want to call it that or not.

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"True, yet somehow my YM was the first app that I opened at boot and I still do. I have many friends that still use it and I've been using it for many years, so it's hard to "let go"

 

That sounds just like my brother!

 

Only way he knows how to get into his Yahoo mail is to open YIM and get it through that thing!

 

Here we go with another complaint simply based on how something looks! Man, if it works as good as Pidgin or Trllian does, just use it, don't set there staring at it! In fact, why is it even visible, except in the tray?

 

Just think you're trying to get to much out of what has been the way it is since the beginning of time! :)

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"True, yet somehow my YM was the first app that I opened at boot and I still do. I have many friends that still use it and I've been using it for many years, so it's hard to "let go"

 

That sounds just like my brother!

 

Only way he knows how to get into his Yahoo mail is to open YIM and get it through that thing!

 

Here we go with another complaint simply based on how something looks! Man, if it works as good as Pidgin or Trllian does, just use it, don't set there staring at it! In fact, why is it even visible, except in the tray?

 

Just think you're trying to get to much out of what has been the way it is since the beginning of time! :)

Except, like I said, it doesn't. Some of the features that I expect from a IM client simply DON'T work, like file transfers, aliases (in my case with Empathy), audio & video call, etc. And somehow I don't think everyone is getting what I'm saying here. I'm simply wondering how is it possible to have such crappy IM clients in Linux (both visual and functional) when there are many other good quality and beautiful apps for this OS (so it CAN be done). This is what I don't get. In the end, yes, I know I have to stick with whatever I get, or use Wine, or whatever, and I already do, with Empathy. But my frustration remains. :)

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Except, like I said, it doesn't. Some of the features that I expect from a IM client simply DON'T work, like file transfers, aliases (in my case with Empathy), audio & video call, etc. And somehow I don't think everyone is getting what I'm saying here. I'm simply wondering how is it possible to have such crappy IM clients in Linux (both visual and functional) when there are many other good quality and beautiful apps for this OS (so it CAN be done). This is what I don't get. In the end, yes, I know I have to stick with whatever I get, or use Wine, or whatever, and I already do, with Empathy. But my frustration remains. :)

Because the official client doesn't run on anything but Windows and none of the 3rd party multi-im clients on any platform have ever worked perfectly or had the same amount of functionality as the official clients per protocol. They all are just built from reverse engineering.

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Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I think Pidgin is quite nice to look at. Nice and standardised. Flashy graphics are nice, but they don't help me chat. I hear what you're saying about missing features, it's definitely frustrating, but you have to consider that most of these clients are designed for multiple message formats, and there's often discrepancies between them. The majority of the IM protocols owned by companies (think, Yahoo, Google, Microsoft) don't release their protocols either, so much of the work is done by reverse engineering, meaning that the unofficial clients can have a hard time working with these proprietary formats.

 

Did you try the YIM web messenger? Not ideal, but I'd imagine that it would be feature complete. Probably the closest you're going to get at the moment. You can try running the client through WINE too, although the Wine website doesn't look promising with regard to running the YIM desktop client (WINE isn't really related to Windows at all, other than the fact that it can read Windows binaries and implements some of the core Windows libraries required for applications to run. There's nothing to say you can't create an application that runs in Wine that doesn't run in Windows).

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