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Well it's not a surprise that a 3rd party IM network client is a bit behind on features, because they need to find out how those new features work when a new one is released. UI upgrades in this kind of clients can easily be done by adding plugins and installing other skins.

I have only been working with astra for about a day, so I probably cannot give a full view yet, but it feels better than Trillian Pro. The features I wanted in my IM client, are all in Astra at the moment (and a few more). I have been using MirandaIM lately, because Trillian Pro was not receiving/sending some MSN messages for me, and compared to Miranda it feels way more solid and stable.

About leaking : I dont think this can be easily because your account needs to be authorized to actually use Astra... With MSN 7 they released some kind of loader, but then all MSN 7 were disabled.

I am personally not too fond of the name "Astra." But who knows they may change that too. Go CeruleanStudios.
"...denied it categorically," said the radio. "Next month's Royal Wedding between Prince Gid of the Soofling Dynasty and Princess Hooli of Raui Alpha will be the most spectacular ceremony the Bjanjy Territories has ever witnessed. Our reporter Trillian Astra is there and sends us this report.'

Arthur blinked.

The sound of cheering crowds and a hubbub of brass bands erupted from the radio. A very familiar voice said, "Well Krart, the scene here in the middle of next month is absolutely incredible. Princess Hooli is looking radiant in a..."

The prophet swiped the radio off the bench and on to the dusty ground, where it squawked like a badly tuned chicken.

"See what we have to contend with?" grumbled the prophet. "Here, hold this. Not that, this. No, not like that. This way up. Other way round, you fool."

"I was listening to that," complained Arthur, grappling helplessly with the prophet's hammer.

"So does everybody. That's why this place is like a ghost town.' He spat into the dust.

"No, I mean, that sounded like someone I knew."

"Princess Hooli? If I had to stand around saying hello to everybody who's known Princess Hooli I'd need a new set of lungs.'

"Not the Princess," said Arthur. "The reporter. Her name's Trillian. I don't know where she got the Astra from. She's from the same planet as me. I wondered where she'd got to."

What's Trillian? :shiftyninja:

Trillian is a multiprotocol instant messaging application for Windows created by Cerulean Studios that can connect to multiple IM programs, such as AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Bonjour, Jabber, and Skype networks (the latter four with Trillian Pro which allows for additional plugins).

For more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillian_%28i...aging_client%29

While this does look cool, I stopped using Trillian the moment they got greedy and started charging for it.

I am not saying that they don't deserve money, but they were shady, IMO, with the way they handled the transition to the subscription model. Trillian was very useful and they took features out, put them in their pro version and made you pay to get the same stuff. I know you can get the non-pro version, but I need the plugins that they only make available to the pro version.

I can get all of the stuff I need with GAIM for free and I have been using it ever since I dropped Trillian.

One thing that I need to know (this is the only reason that I don't use Trillian/Miranda at home), does it support MSN custom emoticon?
Just tried it out, but no, it doesn't seem to support them. I will add a feature request for it in the bug system.

I rarely use custom emoticons, but sometimes it's nice.

The subscription model isn't that weird. You pay 25 for a year full of upgrades and fixes. After that you receive the minor updates for free, but if you want a major update after that you just pay $5 for another year of full support. It doesn't matter if your subscription ran out like 2 years ago (like mine did). Also, if they were really greedy, they would never let me beta-test this sucker, because as I said, I haven't paid for Trillian in at least 2 years.

well I have seen allot of pretty pictures and read allot of talk. I have used trillian on and off for many years now and I took it off my computer because it never did work correctly.

Now we have Astra coming along and we hear allot of nice words to please the ears and see allot of eye candy and still no software to be had. It has always taken them forever to do anything and their tech support is less than desireable to say the least. They do allot of nice talking, but they do not do allot of nice producing and what they do produce takes them forever and a year or more.

While it is nice to try and convince people that their software is the best and even better is coming out, I have found that to be exactly not the case at all. Will they continue to produce better software after Astra comes out, or is this all hype and after people put their faith in this new product only to find out, what happened, no updates, is astra all there is and no one hears a words, then all of a sudden a new one will be out which will cost more money, $5.00 or not, upgrades are a essential part of software making and if those upgrades come far and inbetween, what good is it? What good is tech support if you never hear from them? What good are pretty pictures if they do not render correctly and what good are plugins if they do not work correctly? I should think, that after reading all this blog that those at Cerulean studios would wake up and see the light. Well where there is life there is hope, maybe this time, hmmmmm, seems I though this same thing last time.

Trillian is a multiprotocol instant messaging application for Windows created by Cerulean Studios that can connect to multiple IM programs, such as AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Bonjour, Jabber, and Skype networks (the latter four with Trillian Pro which allows for additional plugins).

For more:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trillian_%28i...aging_client%29

Apparently you didn't notice the :shiftyninja:

Here's a quick preview of a skin I have in development at the moment for Astra

bleaches.png

It's currently about 85-90% complete.. The main colours are the black and white, the other bright ones were for testing the theme options - I'll probably keep them in there as options though.

juz

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