Introducing Yahoo! Messenger 11 Beta!

[Quillz]

Isn't it actually harder to make a UI that looks like this rather than a simpler one that actually makes an effort to conform to Aero Glass standards?

[Boo Berry]

Link to the offline installer: http://xh.yimg.com/gj/msgr/11/client/ymsgr1100_1751_us.exe

[ViperAFK]

Isn't it actually harder to make a UI that looks like this rather than a simpler one that actually makes an effort to conform to Aero Glass standards?

Well the UI has already been like this for ages, so they are actually just being incredibly lazy and not changing anything.

[Neowinuser1991]

:ermm:

[Electric Jolt]

Your comment on the Yahoo! blog is right before mine. :p (Y)

Heh, that's funny. I hope the blog entry is blown up with comments about how they refuse to move on from Windows XP. :) Serves them right! :yes:

[Rappy Veteran]

The only Yahoo Messenger for Windows I ever installed was the WPF Vista version and it was one of the most visually appealing programs I've ever seen. I still have that installer.

yeah I loved it

[Vishal Gupta]

Offline installer link please. Thanks!

Offline Installer (US Version)

Offline Installer (Indian Version)

[TCA]

i wish they would change the UI of it. i still have the vista version installed.

[Pompeius]

I haven't used messenger clients for some time now. Not too useful for my needs - none of my non-internet friends use 'em. I occasionally use WLM, but very sparingly.

[Brandon H Supervisor]

I'll stick with Trillian 5

[bₒₒzₑᵣ]

looks just like the old one.

They messed up. shouldnt have canceled the messenger for vista. Was beautiful!

What yahoo needs to do is fix their chat rooms. 98% of the chatters on there are porn spam bots.

Yahoo! doesnt seem to even want to succeed at anything.

Sticking to Trillian, and/or just adding yahoo contacts to my WLM :D

[MtnDewCodeRedFreak]

Ugh.

[gameboy1977]

take look at this:

[John.D]

Its probably just as bad as the other versions. Most of the time youre blocking and talking to bots

[gameboy1977]

old 8, 9, and 10 keep crashing because of theme skins on Windows vista and 7.

[PGHammer]

Your comment on the Yahoo! blog is right before mine. :p (Y)

You really aren't getting it, are you?

It's precisely those users that refuse to upgrade *from* XP that killed the WPF-based YM (that version required Vista, at minimum, due to the WPF support).

If you won't support XP and develop applications for Windows, you're going to get chewed up and spat out.

A big reason that WLM 2011 is getting hammered (in addition to the ads) is the lack of XP support.

I actually liked the WPF-based YM (and I like WLM 2011 today); however, I run Windows 7 (and was running Vista when the WPF YM was in beta), which garnered me a particularly nasty amount of scorn at the time.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

take look at this:

Adding an Aero window border to it doesn't really make it any less ugly to be honest. Talk about lipstick on a pig.

[Code149]

You really aren't getting it, are you?

It's precisely those users that refuse to upgrade *from* XP that killed the WPF-based YM (that version required Vista, at minimum, due to the WPF support).

If you won't support XP and develop applications for Windows, you're going to get chewed up and spat out.

A big reason that WLM 2011 is getting hammered (in addition to the ads) is the lack of XP support.

I actually liked the WPF-based YM (and I like WLM 2011 today); however, I run Windows 7 (and was running Vista when the WPF YM was in beta), which garnered me a particularly nasty amount of scorn at the time.

What the heck are you talking about?! :blink: Where did I talk about XP?! Yes, in my comment I did mention Aero as the preferred native interface for post-XP Windows, but that's not implying that they have to abandon XP because of that.They can use whatever native UI API that ships with the OS, while keeping both worlds (pro XP and others) happy.

WPF is not exclusive to Vista, let me tell you.Yahoo! could use WPF to develop their messenger for all Windows versions which have WPF support, including the fossil XP.But they have too horrible UI coders to realize that I guess.

Well the UI has already been like this for ages, so they are actually just being incredibly lazy and not changing anything.

Well, maybe not for ages.Version 8 was actually pretty good and used native interface.

[PGHammer]

Adding an Aero window border to it doesn't really make it any less ugly to be honest. Talk about lipstick on a pig.

Then you didn't notice the color/skin-changer in YM (and understandable, since it's both really small and it's tucked in to the left of the Minimize button),

I went with cloud blue (to match my wallpaper and general color scheme).

The Aero support is better than WPF YM as well (performance is better than YM 10, in fact).

The performance increase (despite additional features and code) is, in fact, the biggest surprise (YM 10 tended to hitch when being minimized; this version does not).

I'm really stoked by this new YM.

[+Frank B. Subscriber²]

Then you didn't notice the color/skin-changer in YM (and understandable, since it's both really small and it's tucked in to the left of the Minimize button),

I went with cloud blue (to match my wallpaper and general color scheme).

The Aero support is better than WPF YM as well (performance is better than YM 10, in fact).

The performance increase (despite additional features and code) is, in fact, the biggest surprise (YM 10 tended to hitch when being minimized; this version does not).

I'm really stoked by this new YM.

I've tried YIM 11 beta in a Win7 VM last night. Aero enabled and all.

The performance is ok. No complaints there. The addition of Jumplist support is nice as well.

The look and feel however is not what it could be. Yes, you can change the skin colour and make it fit in with the OS look and feel - but only to a degree. Too many elements of the skin still feel like YIM is an app written for XP in 2004/05. The way the menus are drawn, using Tahoma 8 pt instead of Segoe UI 9 pt as user interface font - small but (imho) important details.

Here's hoping Yahoo! get some of those small details sorted out before YIM 11 goes final.

[PGHammer]

What the heck are you talking about?! :blink: Where did I talk about XP?! Yes, in my comment I did mention Aero as the preferred native interface for post-XP Windows, but that's not implying that they have to abandon XP because of that.They can use whatever native UI API that ships with the OS, while keeping both worlds (pro XP and others) happy.

WPF is not exclusive to Vista, let me tell you.Yahoo! could use WPF to develop their messenger for all Windows versions which have WPF support, including the fossil XP.But they have too horrible UI coders to realize that I guess.

Well, maybe not for ages.Version 8 was actually pretty good and used native interface.

And WPF performance on XP was pretty darn poor without hardware acceleration support (just as compositing in Linux is generally awful when hardware-acceleration support is absent).

Also, did anyone ever think that Yahoo caught such grief from the pro-XP crowd over WPF YM's no-XP requirement (you had to have Vista at that time; 7 was still in programmers' heads) that they went back to the typical "if it ain't broke, don't fix it" for that reason? (Further, Yahoo hasn't exactly been swimming in money to pay developers.)

I have to admit - this is the best-performing YM in quite a stretch (in fact, it performs better than YM 10, despite additional feratures and code). One particularly galling issue (hitch-on-minimize) is gone. Alerts are faster as well. Throw in the color/skin-changer (as I said in an earlier post here, and on the YM blog, I went with blue) and Yahoo actually has improved things since YM 10. So far, it's all win and no lose.

[Adrian0E]

Oh... God... Please allow me to use a native windows skin on your piece of (sh&t) software, Yahoo!

Eh.. anyway, untill that will happen, Digsby is just good.

[Code149]

@PGHammer

It's not only the 'look' (which includes menu coloring, button shapes etc), but also the equally important 'feel'.The current version (10), lacks effects native to Windows such as the minimize animations and shadows.Is the minimze animation addressed?

Also, as you have tried it, does it integrate with Windows 7 features such as jumplists?

[PGHammer]

I've tried YIM 11 beta in a Win7 VM last night. Aero enabled and all.

The performance is ok. No complaints there. The addition of Jumplist support is nice as well.

The look and feel however is not what it could be. Yes, you can change the skin colour and make it fit in with the OS look and feel - but only to a degree. Too many elements of the skin still feel like YIM is an app written for XP in 2004/05. The way the menus are drawn, using Tahoma 8 pt instead of Segoe UI 9 pt as user interface font - small but (imho) important details.

Here's hoping Yahoo! get some of those small details sorted out before YIM 11 goes final.

Hopefully they will allow changes to that in Preferences (as they did with WPF YM). I agree - from a look standpoint, it's more an evolutionary change (how much of that is to avoid horking off the old crowd that are used to YM looking the way it has darn near untouched since YM 9, which is when YM adopted the core of the current design?). The performance changes, however, I definitely like (especially since my biggest gripe, the dreaded hitch-on-minimize, has been banished). If anything, it's faster than YM 10 (add features and code, and performance improves!).

For me, why an IM client earns its place is features and performance, not looks (as good as Trillian looks, performance bites compared to YM) - further, I have never been a fan of multi-protocol IM clients.

I've darn near banished AIM for performance reasons (despite still having friends and family that still use either it or AOL). WLM is therefore (at least in my computer use) YM's only competition (and I use both IM clients for different reasons - my lists on the two have no overlap).

[PGHammer]

@PGHammer

It's not only the 'look' (which includes menu coloring, button shapes etc), but also the equally important 'feel'.The current version (10), lacks effects native to Windows such as the minimize animation and shadows.

I think a great deal of reason for that has been Yahoo's cash-flow situation (application development costs money) - Yahoo likely didn't even HAVE the money for a serious YM revamp until it sold some assets (Zimbra among them)

The lack of minimize animation could be the reason for that awful hitch-on-minimize issue that I was plagued with while using 10 (I have noticed that 11, despite being beta, does not have that problem, which has been my biggest gripe with YM from a performance standpoint).