Just in time for 2012 I am very pleased to announce Smuxi **0.8.9** codenamed **"One Giant Leap"**. During the development 56 bug reports and 33 feature requests in 593 commits were worked on making this release a _major milestone of the Smuxi project_. At the Chaos Communication Congress (28C3) in Berlin I was doing the final development print to get 0.8.9 done, which was a very intensive and refreshing experience. Here are the highlights of this release: ### Development Builds / Rolling Releases ### After the 0.8 release it became clear that a continious and short development -> test cycle is important to keep the project going quickly. At some point I have received requests if the project is dead while it was more active than ever. The lack of new releases (for about 15 months) lead to this wrong impression. Thus Smuxi can be obtained from development builds now. This includes daily builds for Debian (Squeeze, Wheezy, Sid), Ubuntu (Lucid, Maverick, Natty, Oneiric, Precise) and Windows. Thanks goes to Hannes Tismer for providing the Windows autobuilder and to Canonical for the PPA autobuilder. We invite everyone to use these daily builds to keep track of the latest development of Smuxi. Issues and regressions are fixed in a very short period (usually the same day). Thanks to our users who ran development builds and reported issues which led to many bug fixes prior to this release. Development builds: http://www.smuxi.org/documentation/running-from-git/ On the other hand one of my New Year's resolutions are to "release early, release often" :-) So there should be [no nerd left behind]... ### Mac OS X support ### With the help of Steven McGrath (Steve[cug]) who created the initial Mac OS X installer for Smuxi we now have official support for Mac OS X. The download page contains the instructions how to obtain and install Smuxi on Mac OS X. This makes the 4th platform where Smuxi can be used on besides Windows, Linux and *BSD. For now Smuxi 0.8.9 doesn't feel as native as it could as it relies on the GTK+ port. We are looking into enhancing the experience though, just stay tuned. Screenshot: http://www.smuxi.org/screenshots/smuxi-0.8.9-dev-osx.png ### Chat History on Disk (Beta) ### The most exciting feature in this release I think are the "persistent message buffers". With this feature I could solve one of the biggest drawbacks IRC ever had: IRC does not retain any messages you have sent or received. All messages are only relayed to all users. The issue is that if you close your IRC client or even just leave a channel, all your received messages are _gone_. One workaround in most clients was to create text log files which then contains the chat history, but it is annoying and not user-friendly to open some text file somewhere from your disk to read the history *outside* if your IRC client. Now with Smuxi 0.8.9 you no longer have this issue, all chat history gets automatically written and read to a message database when you start Smuxi, join channels or open queries! As this feature is not fully stable yet it is _not_ enabled by default. If you want to try it go to: File -> Preferences -> Interface and change "Persistency Type" from "Volatile" to "Persistent", hit OK and restart Smuxi. Now all messages are saved into the database and will automatically be shown. Screencast: http://www.smuxi.org/screencasts/persistent-message-buffers/ ### Jabber / XMPP Support (Beta) ### You probably have friends not on IRC and Twitter, say on Jabber, gTalk or Facebook? This is where the new XMPP engine of Smuxi comes into play. You can send and receive messages to/from them now! The implementation is far from complete, though. It has no buddy list for example and needs only to be treated as a _technical preview_ of what will be coming in future Smuxi releases. Screencast: http://www.smuxi.org/screencasts/jabber/ ### Text Interface (Alpha) ### This is the first release that contains a text frontend based on the [STFL library]. STFL is a library that uses ncurses to draw text based user interface using a markup language (like Glade for GTK+). This frontend is in early alpha state and lacks a lot of interface features and likes to crash. It is still included to attract potential developers who want to enhance this frontend. The frontend can be enabled by passing --enable-frontend-stfl to the configure script and then by executing smuxi-frontend-stfl. Screenshot: http://www.smuxi.org/screenshots/smuxi-0.8.9-stfl.png ### NetworkManager Support ### Everyone with a laptop knows how annoying it can be to suspend and resume when network based applications suddenly go crazy because they have lost the connection and either spew errors or take forever to get back in shape. Smuxi will now detect the network state right away with the help of the new [Network Manager support][#205]. It automatically reconnects when needed right away for you. ### Next Generation Internet Support ### You can now connect to IRC servers using the [IPv6 protocol][#22] ### Enhanced Find Group Chat Support ### Users had real issues to find out how to search for channels, thus Bianca Mix added a neat feature. The /list command will now simply open the Find Group Chat dialog for you. This way everyone used to IRC will find it in no time. Searching for channels on freenode wasn't working correctly, this is now fixed. Smuxi also supports the SAFELIST feature of the IRC protocol now which allows to retrieve a full channel list and do client side search which makes consecutive searches much faster. ### Enhanced Windows Experience ### For a long time you could not use Smuxi with the latest GTK# version of 2.12.10 on Windows. The issue was that Smuxi relied on SVG support which 2.12.10 no longer had. Smuxi is no longer using SVG instead it uses pre-scaled PNG images thus it works just fine with [GTK# 2.12.10 on Windows][#619] now. At the same time the issue that the maximized state of the main window was left when restoring from task bar is [fixed][#619] with GTK# 2.12.10. Screenshot: http://www.smuxi.org/screenshots/fixedsys-vs-consolas.png Smuxi used by default the FixedSys font on Windows to give it the typical IRC look most people are used to. Since Windows Vista there is a better console-like font available called Consolas. Smuxi will now [use the Consolas font][#216] instead on Windows Vista or later. Another important enhancement is that Smuxi no longer has issues with [multiple GTK+ installs][#551] on the same computer, which was getting more common with more popular ported GTK+ applications such as GIMP or Pidgin. ### SSL for IRC fixed ### IRC with SSL was only working with the default port of 6697. Thanks to Jo Shields now any port can be used with SSL. ### Crash Related Issues ### Desktop notifications could crash Smuxi in case of errors related to the notification system or an absent notification daemon. There was a chance that the crash dialog simply disappeared which made reporting bugs more difficult no longer happens. Rapid use of ctrl+w, /window close (Jimmie Elvenmark) and opening the Find Group Chat dialog on the Smuxi tab do no longer crash. Also number-only network names, /network switch freenode and GTK+ install without SVG support no longer lead into a crash. ### Enhanced Notice Handling ### Notices will no longer open query tabs for you instead it will show them on tabs you share with the person who sent it with the server tab as fallback. This also avoids ChanServ, NickServ and spammy IRCop tabs. ### Twitter fixes ### Twitter made some changes to their API which broke the Twitter support of Smuxi 0.8. This was taken care of and also a few other issue were solved allowing Smuxi 0.8.9 to work smoothly with Twitter again. ### Extended Keybindings ### Smuxi allows now to use the ctrl+tab / ctrl+shift+tab and ctrl+n / ctrl+p keys to switch tabs. The keybindings still work even with a hidden menu bar now. ### Smuxi Server specific highlights #### #### More interactive and much faster synchronization #### When connecting to a smuxi-server you had to wait till Smuxi finished the synchronization before you could use the interface. Also you could not tell how far the synchronization was and just had to wait till it was completed. With Smuxi 0.8.9 the connect just takes a few seconds and all chats are synchronized in the background with a progress bar so you can use the interface from the first moment on and know how far it is. The speed how much it takes to synchronize all chats also reduced drastictly by 400%! Screencast: http://www.smuxi.org/screencasts/smuxi-server-connect/ #### More background communication #### When using a smuxi-server the interface sometimes had load times like when opening the preferences or when using the nickname completion (Andrew Kannan). These operations are done in the background and no longer blocks the interface. Also when the communication is lost to the smuxi-server the frontend will now automatically reconnect to it in the background. #### Low Bandwidth Mode #### When it comes to mobile internet connectivity such as UMTS/HSDPA, Edge and GRPS it can be a real pain to connect to the smuxi-server as it has to transfer all the messages over that. If you just want to ask someone you know then you don't need any old messages to do that. With the ["Low Bandwidth Mode"][#591] you can now connect to the smuxi-server without loading old messages which makes the connect very quick. You find this option in the engine connect dialog. #### Stable Protocol #### Initially I didn't plan to make the protocol of Smuxi stable before the 0.9 release, but as it turned out the 0.8 protocol was good enough to still use it and for that reason Smuxi 0.8.9 is still compatible with 0.8. The 0.8 protocol will see no breakages, instead the next protocol will be on-top or opt-in of the current one. This means feature Smuxi versions stay compatible with it. #### Shutdown Command #### You can now shutdown the smuxi-server if you like using the /shutdown command. It it safe to use the command, it will do a clean shutdown sequence for you. For example it makes sure all messages are written to disk in the case of enabled persistent message buffers. If you have your smuxi-server daemon monitored (e.g. with runit) it can also automatically be restarted and upgraded this way. #### Built-in SSH Keyfile Support #### It is no longer needed to fiddle with the .ssh/config file or pagent to get SSH key authorization working. You can now simply tell Smuxi which SSH keyfile you want to use to connect to your smuxi-server. ### Updated Translations ### * Catalan (Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals) * Danish (Joe Hansen) * Finnish (Kalle Kaitala) * French (Clément Bourgeois) * German (Bianca Mix) * Italian (Vincenzo Campanella) * Portuguese (Americo Monteiro) * Spanish (Castilian) (Ricardo A. Hermosilla Carrillo) ### New Translations ### * Chinese Simp (Dean Lee) * Slovak (Tomáš Vadina) * Swedish (Jimmie Elvenmark) * partially Russian (Aleksandr P) * partially Turkish (Umut Albayrak) * partially Urdu (makki) ### Contributors #### Contributors to this release are the following people: * Mirco Bauer (497 commits) * Tuukka Hastrup (10 commits) * Bianca Mix (10 commits, translations) * Clément Bourgeois (8 commits, translations) * Andrius Bentkus (5 commits) * Carlos Martín Nieto (3 commits) * Jimmie Elvenmark (3 commits, translations) * Hannes Tismer (1 commit) * Jonathan Pryor (1 commit) * Jo Shields (1 commit) * Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals (translations) * Dean Lee (translations) * Aleksandr P (translations) * Americo Monteiro (translations) * Andrew Kannan (translations) * Joe Hansen (translations) * Kalle Kaitala (translations) * makki (translations) * Ricardo A. Hermosilla Carrillo (translations) * Tomáš Vadina (translations) * Umut Albayrak (translations) * Vincenzo Campanella (translations) Thank you very much for your contributions to Smuxi! After reading this whole pile of text, head over [here][download page] and grab this smexy stuff! What is it? =========== Smuxi is an irssi-inspired, flexible, user-friendly and cross-platform IRC client for sophisticated users, targeting the GNOME desktop. Smuxi is based on the client-server model: The core application (engine) can be placed onto a server which is connected to the Internet around-the-clock; one or more frontends then connect to the core. This way, the connection to IRC can be kept up even when all frontends have been closed. The combination of screen and irssi served as example for this architecture. Smuxi also supports the regular single application mode. This behaves like a typical IRC client; it doesn't need separate core management and utilizes a local engine that is used by the local frontend client. The project website can be found at: http://www.smuxi.org/ References ========== [download page]: http://www.smuxi.org/page/Download [osx-port]: http://live.gnome.org/Smuxi/Porting/Mac [28C3]: http://events.ccc.de/congress/2011/wiki/Main_Page [no nerd left behind]: http://events.ccc.de/congress/2011/wiki/No_nerd_left_behind [STFL]: http://www.clifford.at/stfl/ Changes ======= [#22]: /issues/show/22 "#22: IPv6 support" [#38]: /issues/show/38 "#38: send notices from users to channels and querys where useful" [#216]: /issues/show/216 "#216: Consolas font for Windows" [#494]: /issues/show/494 "#494: Notices shouldn't open a query" [#429]: /issues/show/429 "#429: Using database for logging" [#472]: /issues/show/472 "#472: Theme sensitive application icon" [#205]: /issues/show/205 "#205: NetworkManager Support" [#574]: /issues/show/574 "#574: Smuxi crashes with \"0 is not a valid notification ID\"" [#590]: /issues/show/590 "#590: Twitter timestamp always wrong" [#619]: /issues/show/619 "#619: Maximizing on Windows" [#655]: /issues/show/655 "#655: Find group chat not working correctly on freenode" [#504]: /issues/show/504 "#504: PPA with daily snapshots" [#548]: /issues/show/548 "#548: Support for SAFELIST (RPL_ISUPPORT)" [#551]: /issues/show/551 "#551: Set PATH before starting Smuxi on Windows" [#554]: /issues/show/554 "#554: Hide Chanserv and Nickserv messages" [#591]: /issues/show/554 "#554: Low Bandwidth Mode" [#597]: /issues/show/597 "#597: Sync config cache when connecting to smuxi-server" [#600]: /issues/show/600 "#600: smuxi-server should not need to perform a version check" [#616]: /issues/show/616 "#616: Engine-less nickname completion" [#624]: /issues/show/624 "#624: Count and show still pending chats which need to be synchronized" [#644]: /issues/show/644 "#644: New Twitter API key with Direct Messages permission" [#647]: /issues/show/647 "#647: Shutdown sequence for persistent message buffers" [#653]: /issues/show/653 "#653: SSH key authorization support" [#659]: /issues/show/659 "#659: Imitate mIRC channel window change (with CTRL+TAB)" [#505]: /issues/show/505 "#505: Move on to the next/previous window when pressing ctrl+n and p respectively." [#623]: /issues/show/623 "#623: Smuxi no longer shows Direct Messages of Twitter" [#464]: /issues/show/464 "#464: Twitter pin command should be more forgiving" [#649]: /issues/show/649 "#649: Verify Twitter OAuth tokens, invalidate and re-request when needed" [#638]: /issues/show/638 "#638: Crash dialog closes without user interaction" [#507]: /issues/show/507 "#507: Crash on startup when no Notification Daemon is running" [#512]: /issues/show/512 "#512: Smuxi crashes when spamming the notification daemon" [#518]: /issues/show/518 "#518: Crash when closing multiple chats using ctrl+w" [#523]: /issues/show/523 "#523: Crash when executing /window close on Smuxi tab" [#532]: /issues/show/532 "#532: Crashed on Ubuntu 10.04" [#533]: /issues/show/533 "#533: Crash at startup (notification related)" [#573]: /issues/show/573 "#573: Use of number in network name make the server crash" [#610]: /issues/show/610 "#610: Crash with /network switch freenode" [#630]: /issues/show/630 "#630: Crash on highlight" [#304]: /issues/show/304 "#304: Startup Crash on OpenSUSE: GLib.GException: Unrecognized image file format" [#462]: /issues/show/462 "#462: Keybinds doesn't work when hiding menubar" [#536]: /issues/show/536 "#536: /list command should open the Find Group Chat dialog" [#549]: /issues/show/549 "#549: Cannot configure/connect to an IRC server with SSL on a port other than 6697 via GUI" 1 January 2012 -- Regards, Mirco 'meebey' Bauer PGP-Key ID: 0xEEF946C8 FOSS Developer meebey meebey net http://www.meebey.net/ PEAR Developer meebey php net http://pear.php.net/ Debian Developer meebey debian org http://www.debian.org/ |
