Apple Grrl

You have an inkling you will like the ADIUM X software the moment you see their Duck logo. Then you download it and find that it is, in fact, worthy of quacking to your friends about.

ADIUM X is the next generation of Multiple Instant Messager Management Software for the Mac. It is freeware, although I was so impressed with it that I went back to their download site at adiumx.com to donate a few bucks using their “Donate to ADIUM X” button. The version I downloaded is the latest version, Adium X 0.86, and is a manageable file size that downloaded in less than a minute, self extracted and was a simple “drag and drop” installation.

Adium X supports a wide array of instant messager programs, allowing you to stop having the hassle of opening tons of different programs to talk to your friends and colleagues. Supported instant messager protocols include:

AOL Instant Messenger
ICQ
.Mac
Jabber
GoogleTalk
MSN Messenger
Yahoo! Messenger
Yahoo!Japan
Bonjour
iChat
Gadu-Gadu
Novell Groupwise
Lotus Sametime

The Features

Adium has a vast array of features that make the experience either more pleasant or more convenient. It is truly a well thought-out program. One of the features I especially like is the ability to Combine Contacts. This feature allows you to take a user who has accounts with more than one messager service and combine all of their user names on your contact list into one, so you only see their user name once on your Contact List.

Another feature I like is the Tabbed Message Window feature. This allows me to have several different instant message conversations going at once in only one window – you switch back and forth between user names and conversations by small tabs at the bottom of the message window. It’s very convenient, and it does a lot to eliminate desktop clutter.

Adium also offers what they call OTR Encryption. I’d never heard of it before, but I played with the feature in order to write about it – basically you can type a message, then click a button in the message window to automatically encrypt it. I don’t have a great need for this as a writer (no one has asked me to write any top secret spy manuals yet), but I can see the appeal if you are using messager services in a corporate environment and dealing with potentially sensitive information. The button was easy to use, and the friends who helped me test it reported that my message came through just fine for them – one using MSN and one using Yahoo! Messager.

The File Transfer feature in Adium actually works much faster and more reliably than the one in AOL IM and MSN IM. I was quite impressed – I was able to send several photos and a word document in less than 5 minutes, with great viewability on the receiving end. I did discover that you get better results sending files one at a time, although it does accept a multiple file transfer request.

Adium cites WebKit as the tool that allows them to offer another feature I like Changeable Message Window Styles. This is offered in several of the instant messager programs themselves, but I found the styles in Adium especially pleasing to look at and easy to set up, as well as clear when reading messages.

You can do all the regular formatting in Adium (font changes, color changes, etc.) for viewing both your own messages and those of others. It also offers a brief Message History feature which I liked. While you can opt to use the Log Messages option to save all of your messages forever (which I don’t like to do and so have that turned off), if you don’t want to do that you can rely on the history. Each time you start a new conversation with a Contact, your last 5 to 10 message sentences to each other are displayed in a light grey, so you can resume a conversation if you’d like. It is just enough to jog your memory, without being obnoxious.

Adium also offers features to support AOL’s Direct Connect option and the various programs’ Voice and Video Chat option, which require no special settings to use. Those are all drag and drop style interfaces. Adium offers it’s code to programmers who would like to contribute to it’s fun AdiumXtras pages, where Adium users can download special feautres written for Adium by its end users. Much like Konfabulator’s Widgets, these are little gems you didn’t know you needed, but once you find them can’t live without. I personally downloaded the AdiumXtras for StarWars sounds and some nice emoticon sets that users had created – and the installation was a breeze! I didn’t even have to turn off or restart Adium to install the new features.

Speaking of emoticon sets I should note that you can switch back and forth between the set specific to your favorite messager program set, your favorite AdiumXtras set, or use more than one set at a time. The only drawback to this is that if you use multiple sets, sets with similar commands may cancel each other out (the option is in several sets, so you might not get the smiley you were looking for, but a random one from one of the sets, for example).

One thing I really like about Adium is that you can customize each icon showing beside your user name for each messager program, or make them all the same. You can also customize your Status messages in a much more complete way than in any other program. For example – my Away message still shows the traditional Away symbol to viewers, but instead of seeing the word “Away” or the standard “I’m Away From My Computer Right Now” message they see the quote of my choice. Much more interesting possibilities than the usual messager text inputs. The one drawback is that AOL users will only be able to see the first 42 characters of your message, but that is an AOL problem, not an Adium issue.

I have had no issues with Adium X, however; if you do have issues their web site is quite comprehensive. It has a Support and Development section, a place to post Tickets requesting fixes directly, a place to track how they are coming along on various tickets and debugs, a blog by the Adium creators, and a Web Forum for it’s users and the user-developers of AdiumXtras. It is a nice, clean, easy to navigate web site.

The Synopsis

A fun, well written program to help streamline your cluttered instant message programs into one usable interface. The ability to add and delete contacts universally, as well as the fabulous array of customizable features make Adium a step ahead of other similar programs. I highly recommend this for the multiple messaging software user!

(And don’t forget to customize your Adiumy (the duck icon)!)

Author: Leslie Poston, © 2007, All Rights Reserved

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