Announce
Announces of new releases
Major update to Instantbird 0.2
As no critical issues have been reported in the recently released Instantbird 0.2, we have turned on major updates for users of Instantbird 0.1.2 and 0.1.3. If you are still using one of these old versions, you will receive a major update offer to get the newer Instantbird 0.2. It will look like this:
Unfortunately, due to a bug of the updater that shipped in the Windows version of Instantbird 0.1.3.1, the update won't be automatic for these users, who should download the full installer themselves. We are sorry for the inconvenience.
Instantbird 0.2 released!
After months of development and a few pre-release versions, we are happy to announce that Instantbird 0.2 is now ready to be put in the hands of the general public.
Instantbird 0.2 is now available in 5 languages thanks to the great work of our translators.
If you have tried Instantbird 0.1 back in 2007 when it was first released, Instantbird 0.2 may feel like a completely different software to you. The most dramatically changed area is the conversation window (for example, new tabs and message styles), but there are notable changes in almost every window. For a list of changes, see the release notes.
Let's stop talking, so that you can discover Instantbird 0.2 now!
In the next few days, we will talk about our plans for the future, and especially Instantbird 0.3. Stay tuned!
Our goals: toward Instantbird 0.2 and beyond
As you may already know, Instantbird 0.2 will be released soon. The development of this version has been going on for more than a year already! While we have been busy adding new features or polishing existing ones, we may have missed a few opportunities to communicate about what we were doing, what we had already done, where we are going, and why. And when we did write something about our new features, the announcements lacked screenshots, and probably didn't convey much of our enthusiasm.
The last few days before the 0.2 release are an opportunity for us make up for our lack of communication.
The way toward Instantbird 1.0
Let's begin with a clarification about the way we are slowly but surely going to our future 1.0 release. Our initial roadmap contained the somewhat misleading claim that our goal for 1.0 was to reach "feature parity" with Pidgin. This led some people to believe that we were basically copying the Pidgin graphical user interface and reimplementing it in XUL. Although this could have held some truth for the earlier goal of Instantbird - which was to provide the extensibility that is loved in Firefox and features similar to those found in Pidgin - this is no longer the case.
When we implement a new feature in Instantbird, we carefully consider how it is likely to be used. We think about the use cases. We look at how the same problem has been handled by other existing IM clients, so that we can benefit from what others have done before us. Sometimes we take inspiration and implement something in a similar way to another client (for instance the message theme system that we have borrowed from Adium), but sometimes things don't look satisfying and we have to look for a better solution. We especially try to avoid exposing the user to new popup dialogs that interrupt the user but don't seem absolutely necessary.
Once something is implemented, we do our best to take advantage of the early feedback we get from our nightly testers.
So why are we doing this? Copying the interface of an existing application as quickly as possible would be easier, and would lead to a fast result. But it would be worthless. We don't need another Pidgin, Adium, ... (insert the name of your favorite multi-protocol IM application here). These applications already exist and are mostly great, there's no point in cloning them. What we do care about is our users: our current users of course, but also future users. We believe instant messaging should be less frustrating. We want to build an all-in-one instant messaging application that is as easy as possible to use, yet powerful. We value simplicity and ease of use in the default configuration, and at the same time we want to allow advanced customizations. Developers with an idea should be able to easily customize their IM client, like they can already do with their web browser.
We value privacy, and respect your data. Instant messages often have confidential or intimate content. We believe that our users should have the power to decide how this information is used, and where it is stored. This is the reason why even though more and more users decide to use web applications like Gmail, Facebook or Meebo for their IM needs, we believe that it is still relevant in 2010 to build an IM application that runs directly on the computer you own.
We don't know yet how Instantbird 1.0 will be, it will need to be discussed. With You. At this point we are discussing which improvements will compose the 0.3 release. If you want to take part in this discussion or have questions related to our long term goals, don't hesitate to get in touch with us.
What's next?
We are confident that if you have tried a release from the Instantbird 0.1.* series, you will see Instantbird 0.2 as major improvement. And if you haven't used Instantbird before, then the 0.2 release is a great time to start! In the next few days, we will detail a few of the features that already make Instantbird 0.2 a very usable instant messaging application, despite its low version number.
Instantbird 0.2 beta 2 released in 4 languages!
Instantbird 0.2 beta 2 is now available in English, French, Polish and Russian. If you want to help with the translation for another language, contact us.
The new features of this second beta include a better handling of statuses, cool new default message and emoticon themes, a basic log viewer, actions on buddies from a buddy list context menu, and a lot more! Read the release notes for the details.
Windows users will be pleased to notice that this release is provided with an installer.
You can download the beta and read the release notes from here.
The development of Instantbird 0.2 is nearly finished and this beta will be the last one before the final 0.2 release which is expected to come relatively soon.
Translations
We have been contacted by lots of individuals who volunteered to translate Instantbird into their native language and were eager to start working on it. As we were not ready to host the translations, we asked people to wait before starting their work on localized versions of Instantbird.
As we plan to release the next beta of Instantbird 0.2 in several languages, we feel that now is a good time to start translating the UI of Instantbird. Please note that the development work is not finished yet, and that there will still be string changes before we are ready to release this next milestone.
You will find information on the translation process on our wiki at http://wiki.instantbird.org/Instantbird:Translation. As usual, if you have any question, feel free to ask them in #instantbird on irc.mozilla.org or to contact us at contact AT instantbird DOT org.
