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ki4jgt
May 14th, 2011, 08:28 AM
I know Linux has very few choices when it comes to IM. So, what would you put in an IM client for Linux?

Thewhistlingwind
May 14th, 2011, 08:52 AM
Compatibility with the others.;)

leviathan8
May 14th, 2011, 08:52 AM
Working file transfer...

el_koraco
May 14th, 2011, 09:04 AM
Empathy has everything I need.

KingYaba
May 14th, 2011, 10:47 AM
Audium on OS X is what an IM client should be. Just look how configurable that thing is. I used to have a pretty minimal buddy list. No need for a title bar and borders. Just buddy names on the screen.

Spice Weasel
May 14th, 2011, 11:09 AM
* Compatibility with other IM services
* Sending small text messages
Oh, and something that most clients seem to forget:
* Encryption on passwords

That's about it really.

Onoku
May 14th, 2011, 11:18 AM
Wow, I didn't know that people still IM. I haven't used an IM client in at least 5 years I think.

ki4jgt
May 14th, 2011, 11:40 AM
Wow, I didn't know that people still IM. I haven't used an IM client in at least 5 years I think.

Technically, if you're using Facebook, you're IMing.

frankbooth
May 14th, 2011, 11:44 AM
Skype protocol :popcorn:

ctrlmd
May 14th, 2011, 01:13 PM
Wow, I didn't know that people still IM. I haven't used an IM client in at least 5 years I think.

:-k how do you communicate with your friends
radio signals? :P

Lucradia
May 14th, 2011, 03:26 PM
Basic text chat, sending files, compatibility with almost all protocols.

Oh wait, that's Pidgin, I already have what I want.

<< Doesn't like MSN Games. Sharing is annoying on WLM. Video and Voice chat is meh. Coloring text like MSGPlus is annoying, etc.

I liked the good 'ol days of MSNM 4 :<

Tibuda
May 14th, 2011, 04:01 PM
service != client

Lucradia
May 14th, 2011, 04:34 PM
service != client

Protocol is actually the correct term for service anyway ;)

Macskeeball
May 14th, 2011, 09:10 PM
:-k how do you communicate with your friends
radio signals? :P

There are many ways. SMS, email, Facebook, Twitter, phone call, etc. I haven't used traditional IM services (AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, Jabber, etc) much in years.

ctrlmd
May 14th, 2011, 09:53 PM
There are many ways. SMS, email, Facebook, Twitter, phone call, etc. I haven't used traditional IM services (AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, Jabber, etc) much in years.

i meant through the internet
i still prefer IM over any social network/service

underquark
May 14th, 2011, 10:11 PM
"I Ming" isn't an often-uttered phrase round these parts. Might I refer the OP to definition number 10 (http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ming&page=2) from the urban dictionary.


http://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=ming&page=2

Starlight
May 14th, 2011, 10:40 PM
If you mean an IM program, then protocol-specific emoticons, identical or at least very similar to the ones in the official client for that protocol. Generally multi-protocol IMs kind of ignore that, but I think it's really important. Emoticons are a part of a message, and I want to be sure that I receive exactly the same message that the person intended to send me, and the other way around as well.

RiceMonster
May 14th, 2011, 10:50 PM
i meant through the internet
i still prefer IM over any social network/service

IM serves a different purpose than a social network.

ki4jgt
May 15th, 2011, 12:07 AM
:-k how do you communicate with your friends
radio signals? :P

Hey, I do that, there's nothing wrong with that LOL

ki4jgt
May 15th, 2011, 12:13 AM
There are many ways. SMS, email, Facebook, Twitter, phone call, etc. I haven't used traditional IM services (AIM, Yahoo, Google Talk, Jabber, etc) much in years.

Facebook uses traditional IM. The signon username is user@chat.facebook.com it uses jabber protocol.

matthewbpt
May 15th, 2011, 12:26 AM
Don't know why you say Linux has very few choices with IM. It has loads of clients which support loads of protocols. I've yet to find a friend who uses a protocol for IM which I can't connect to using Pidgin, and I'm sure that's true of the other popular clients too ...

What I want in an IM client is basic text chat, presence support with statuses like available, busy etc, and audio/video support. Pidgin and Empathy give me all of that so I'm pretty happy :)

Johnsie
May 15th, 2011, 12:29 AM
I want it to be multiplatform and have good quality voice/video. I would also like it to work on smartphones (Look, it's magic!!! I talked about phones without mentioning/advertising a brand name. They will need to pay me to advertise their products lol).

Microsoft Skype is probably the best thing for that at the moment because it supports voice and video reasonably well on Windows and Linux (at the moment) :D

Pidgin/Empathy seem to be good at handling basic text based chat, but in this day an age I expect a little more than that. Txt chat is like the IRC some of us used in the 90's... I'd like to think in the last 15 years we'd have progressed a little further than that. The fact that Empathy now seems to have buggy support for video windows live messenger is a big improvement, but there is still alot of work to be done to make messaging on Linux even close to what it is on Windows. We currently have alot of buggy programs with ugly looking, sub-par user interfaces. One issue I have with many of the default linux apps is that the user interfaces do not have a very appealing or interesting design. You can make things look nice without bloating them, just be a little more artistic.