Trillian 5 for Windows Public Beta!

[Punio4]

Working flawlessly here.

A few steps i took to keep it in check:

• Disabled docking the contact list to enable jumplist support
  
• Disabled the system tray icon to make the taskbar icon open the contact list, instead of trying to launch a new instance
  
• Disabled the instant lookup options in chat settings.

MSN, Gmail/Gtalk, and skype work out-of-the-box as intended.

[stevember]

Yes downloaded it earlier, I have used many programs that do the same stuff, but this version is quite an improvement over everything I've tried in the past.

So far I'm very happy user, it also seems quite stable. Digsby has gone for now anyway.

[LiquidSolstice]

Yes downloaded it earlier, I have used many programs that do the same stuff, but this version is quite an improvement over everything I've tried in the past.

So far I'm very happy user, it also seemed quite stable.

It certainly is super stable. There's a bunch of stuff coming in the next few builds, including the new theme and our first look at full blown chat history syncronization, which will be nothing short of awesome for me once the Android App hits.

[LiquidSolstice]

This is a beta...there should be no pro version. Let people pre-order if they want by all means, but to ask your paying customers to have to pay again to use a beta? That's just ridiculous, it's like asking you to pay for testing their software.

During the Astra beta everyone had pro accounts.

Wrong, wrong wrong.

New Astra users, like users brand new to the concept of Astra and all 4.x+ products get 30 days of Pro for free to see if its worth it, then it reverts.

As for the guy whining above about the lack of upgrade, no, you did not "just" buy Astra, that was quite some time ago, and is well outside of Trillian's 1-month grace period. They make it quite clear that a license only covers incremental upgrades and not new major version numbers, if you didn't read that it's your fault. I saw your post on the CS forums, and honestly, that's kinda sad.

Cerulean Studios is a five-person team. That's it. Not like Microsoft, which is so humongous that they had a much longer grace period for Office 2010 if you bought 07. Give them a break, will ya?

Yeah I did, just looked again and some avatars are showing while most aren't.

Are you sure all your buddies have avatars? I know a lot of mine don't.

How do I get GMail working with this?

Thanks

Add your GTalk account to the accounts section. It's not a full fledged email client, but it can check and preview your email for you, as well as mark it as read, spam, or archive it.

[Nagisan]

How does the voice chat quality compare to Skype?

I have tried Google Talk, Nimbuzz and Skype. Both of the first two have major issues (30+ minutes) where they cut out every other word said and just sound like crap (virtually impossible to understand the person on the other end). Skype however is much better, almost never cutting out (it does, but only for a word or two every now and then, not cutting out whole sentences like the first two) with much better sound quality.

How is Trillian 5 on both voice quality and overall call quality?

[protocol7]

Installed it last night. Spent a bit of time configuring it to the way I like and have to say I'm impressed. Coming from Digsby it feels a lot nippier and I like the look of the contact list.

The only thing I'm not mad about are the two choices for the chat window style. Simple is too simple and Bubbles is lame. Also the grey-on-grey-on-white colours in Bubbles make it a bit hard to see. Other than that, the only other thing I could do with is foobar2000 integration so I can continue to spam my friends with my awesome musical taste.

[Colin-uk Veteran]

topics merged.

[Nagisan]

So, how does the voice quality compare to Skype (out of the voice chat programs I have tested, Skype wins hands down, but I have not tried Trillian).

[Mr. Gibs]

Wrong, wrong wrong.

New Astra users, like users brand new to the concept of Astra and all 4.x+ products get 30 days of Pro for free to see if its worth it, then it reverts.

As for the guy whining above about the lack of upgrade, no, you did not "just" buy Astra, that was quite some time ago, and is well outside of Trillian's 1-month grace period. They make it quite clear that a license only covers incremental upgrades and not new major version numbers, if you didn't read that it's your fault. I saw your post on the CS forums, and honestly, that's kinda sad.

Cerulean Studios is a five-person team. That's it. Not like Microsoft, which is so humongous that they had a much longer grace period for Office 2010 if you bought 07. Give them a break, will ya?

Wrong, wrong wrong.

Astra BETA every single person in that beta had a pro account (valid only for the length of the beta period and only on Astra). Near the end of the beta, RC stages, were the pro differences made clear and people who didn't pay got reverted to the basic.

Almost every company who gets people to beta test their products gives them full access without charging for it. I don't care if its a pre-order, keep that separate (you could pre-order Windows 7 but still use Win 7 RC ultimate edition).

[Ryster]

What I find amazing is that Astra was in development for literally years, with only a closed beta that was only available to the elite few. Then it was released, now not long after v5 is straight out with a public beta. What changed between 4 and 5? How come it took you so long to get Astra out, and yet you're coming out with this version relatively quickly?

[Darrian]

I adore it, it is everything I'd expected and more. Granted, my expectations weren't very high. I've been a Trillian supporter for years, but let's face it, until Astra came out development was very, very slow and some features didn't work as well as or in the manner as advertised. I was happy when I got into the Astra beta but the new UI is much more streamlined, Facebook integration seems to actually work (in Astra it'd stop updating the feed, if it even updated it at all after the intial program startup, and often I couldn't actually communicate through the chat; they wouldn't get the messages or they'd send me messages and I would never get them). I love the new "no skin" appearence. The only glitch I've encountered so far is that, even though I tell it to hide my AOL inbox (why the hell I even have an AOL mail account I have no idea; I've only ever used the chat app) it still shows up every time I start Trillian. It's no big deal, I just right-click on it and select hide again, but hopefully they'll get that fixed before the final release. Of course I adore it now that it's shiny and new, we'll see how it holds up after I've been using it for a few weeks.

[LiquidSolstice]

Wrong, wrong wrong.

Astra BETA every single person in that beta had a pro account (valid only for the length of the beta period and only on Astra). Near the end of the beta, RC stages, were the pro differences made clear and people who didn't pay got reverted to the basic.

Almost every company who gets people to beta test their products gives them full access without charging for it. I don't care if its a pre-order, keep that separate (you could pre-order Windows 7 but still use Win 7 RC ultimate edition).

I'm quite sure I remember using the very first beta build that was available to the public, and it would revert to basic after 30 days. I don't believe the Pro status was available for the duration of the beta; lest you forget, the Beta lasted for a REALLY long time. CS needed support to cope with that long dev time.

As for your second point, I'm sorry, but that's complete bull-crap. So, what you're saying, is that a tech news site that gets hundreds of thousands of hits every day, like, oh, I don't know, Lifehacker, happens to point out this software is in beta, and assuming that CS uses your logic of having the beta be fully unlocked during its dev period, Lifehacker makes that point clear that all features are unlocked, what will happen is hundreds of thousands of people will go and get Trillian and use its full features even though its in Beta, and CS has to cope with all the support requests, bug fixes, and potentially angry users, and all of that time, not get paid for it at all? Who will buy 3.1 when 4.0 is huge, is the future, and being tested? Who will be motivated to purchase any sort of license if the whole Beta (which goes on for a notoriously long time) has no limitations?

Why does no one else seem to understand that CS is made of 5 people, and that's it? They're human beings. If you're not going to bother getting a 5.0 license, they shouldn't have to support you through you Beta testing the pro features, because if you're going to be a free user, you should be beta-testing only the free parts.

[LiquidSolstice]

What I find amazing is that Astra was in development for literally years, with only a closed beta that was only available to the elite few. Then it was released, now not long after v5 is straight out with a public beta. What changed between 4 and 5? How come it took you so long to get Astra out, and yet you're coming out with this version relatively quickly?

I don't think you know much about Astra's timeline. It was in closed beta for not as long as you think, and was in open beta for much much longer. Also, you're failing to remember that 4.0 was just the first part of Astra. 4.1 and 4.2 were the next milestones, and they had big features in them. After 4.2, they started to speed up development because they don't want to run into the long beta period like last time, and lets not forget, they're subsequently developing a Blackberry Beta, an unreleased Android alpha, AND a public Alpha Mac Release, all the while still maintaining the iPhone STABLE.

Holy crap. Why is everyone being such jerks about CS? Does NO ONE understand what it means to have all of the above on your plate with just a 5-man team? I don't even know if CS is their full-time job. And on top of this, there are self-entitled people who believe that it should be entirely free during its beta, people who don't understand that many people using the Beta will never pay for it.

Honestly. People used to be compassionate and appreciative of hard work. Now everyone is a software analyst who "knows" what's right and what should be done during a dev process.

[Darrian]

I don't recall any significant changes between 4.0-4.2. They were also free updates, so there you go. I think CS is doing a great job, but if you want to support them just give them your $10 for the upgrade license like I did. You don't have to get all fanatical about it. :p

[LiquidSolstice]

I don't recall any significant changes between 4.0-4.2. They were also free updates, so there you go. I think CS is doing a great job, but if you want to support them just give them your $10 for the upgrade license like I did. You don't have to get all fanatical about it. :p

I've been a supporter of Trillian and have no issues with that. I know that 4.x updates were free to 4.x license holders, but that's not the point I'm making. The point I'm making is that there was still a significant amount of work going into finding and killing bugs and adding new features between 4.0 and 5, on top of all the other platforms that are being built.

[pickytech]

It's significantly faster than Trillian Astra (v4).

[Mr. Gibs]

I'm quite sure I remember using the very first beta build that was available to the public, and it would revert to basic after 30 days. I don't believe the Pro status was available for the duration of the beta; lest you forget, the Beta lasted for a REALLY long time. CS needed support to cope with that long dev time.

I was a beta tester for a lot longer than a mere 30 days. Think along the lines of many months. I was part of the closed beta pretty much from the day it came out, and every single one of us were given pro licenses for the duration. Later on they opened up the beta for more people, especially those with 3.0 / 3.1 pro and gave them 4.0 alpha/beta pro licenses too.

As for your second point, I'm sorry, but that's complete bull-crap. So, what you're saying, is that a tech news site that gets hundreds of thousands of hits every day, like, oh, I don't know, Lifehacker, happens to point out this software is in beta, and assuming that CS uses your logic of having the beta be fully unlocked during its dev period, Lifehacker makes that point clear that all features are unlocked, what will happen is hundreds of thousands of people will go and get Trillian and use its full features even though its in Beta, and CS has to cope with all the support requests, bug fixes, and potentially angry users, and all of that time, not get paid for it at all? Who will buy 3.1 when 4.0 is huge, is the future, and being tested? Who will be motivated to purchase any sort of license if the whole Beta (which goes on for a notoriously long time) has no limitations?

Amazing how it worked for Astra right? I didn't hear of people complaining. CS made it very clear that pro features would be added in near the end of the beta, and people understood. I'm sorry but I paid for my 4.0 license the instant they gave me an option.

As it stands theres no reason for me to go pay for another license when my current one is still valid on 4.0. When 5.0 comes out and is final I may consider buying it, but not during the beta. I'm not going to pay to be able to test your product, sorry but thats not how it works. At the very least current 4.0 pro users should be given a beta pro license, and then given the option at the end to either continue using it as a pro by paying for it, or reverting back to free.

[Darrian]

People are just upset because they recently shelled out $15-25 for Astra depending on whether or not they got it when it was on sale and now they have to shell out $10 more to keep the pro features in 5. I think that's an understandable outrage. I also think that $10 isn't that much money and they should suck it up or stick with 4.x, but I freely admit that I'm an ###### so maybe not everybody is going to agree with me there. ;)

[LiquidSolstice]

I was a beta tester for a lot longer than a mere 30 days. Think along the lines of many months. I was part of the closed beta pretty much from the day it came out, and every single one of us were given pro licenses for the duration. Later on they opened up the beta for more people, especially those with 3.0 / 3.1 pro and gave them 4.0 alpha/beta pro licenses too.

Amazing how it worked for Astra right? I didn't hear of people complaining. CS made it very clear that pro features would be added in near the end of the beta, and people understood. I'm sorry but I paid for my 4.0 license the instant they gave me an option.

As it stands theres no reason for me to go pay for another license when my current one is still valid on 4.0. When 5.0 comes out and is final I may consider buying it, but not during the beta. I'm not going to pay to be able to test your product, sorry but thats not how it works. At the very least current 4.0 pro users should be given a beta pro license, and then given the option at the end to either continue using it as a pro by paying for it, or reverting back to free.

And you've outlined the issue yourself. There's no guarantee that you'll use Trillian 5 Pro, so therefore, you'll use Basic unless you guarantee that you'll be a Pro user, otherwise, your take on Pro features is not needed to them, and therefore, they assume that you will be content with Basic features because they assume you will use Basic when it comes out.

This is not rocket science. This is a balanced profit-model that weeds out the hit-and-runners who want free software while they can get it and go run off to other free choices, and all the time and effort spent on people who were never going to pay for pro features is left to be pondered.

Money doesn't grow on trees. If you're not going to pay CS to test the Pro features of their product, then test the Basic one and give feedback, or leave it alone. But don't bother trying to make it seem like its some sort of injustice, because it's really not.

[LiquidSolstice]

So you will consider buying it when its out of beta but not when in? What the hell is the difference? If you buy it now you can get the pro features you want and can stop whining about it. It's not like you are at any disadvantage by buying it now instead of later.

And this is my point. Inevitably, due to their terms of license, you will end up purchasing a 5.0 license in the future if you want to use the 5.0 program with Pro features. If you want to be a part of the development of the 5.0 Pro features, you go Pro. If you're going to get mad about it, then leave it alone.

[Colin-uk Veteran]

I think it's stupid they're charging people for v5 for people who bought Astra.. I mean I seriously JUST BOUGHT Astra. :angry:

http://forums.ceruleanstudios.com/showthread.php?p=815233#post815233

i found this on their forums, dunno if it applies. $5 isnt really a lot.

You are entitled to anything that is released while your subscription is current at no extra charge. If your subscription has expired, you can purchase any upgrade for as little as US$5.

[LiquidSolstice]

i found this on their forums, dunno if it applies. $5 isnt really a lot.

Actually, it's $10 to upgrade. I think that might be a very old link you found.

[Mr. Gibs]

Actually, it's $10 to upgrade. I think that might be a very old link you found.

Oddly enough its $25 for me to upgrade, and yes my 4.0x license is still very much active.

[arrrgh]

Oddly enough its $25 for me to upgrade, and yes my 4.0x license is still very much active.

I only had 3.1 license and going through https://www.trillian.im/buy/index.php/introduction it cost me $10 to upgrade.

[LiquidSolstice]

Oddly enough its $25 for me to upgrade, and yes my 4.0x license is still very much active.

@_@ Are we even talking about the same Cerulean Studios?

Big Big letters on the "Store" page.

I don't buy that $25 thing at all, sorry :/