Mercury Messenger

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Mercury Messenger

Maintainer:	Danny
Stable release:	1.8 Final (August 11, 2006) _[+/-]
Preview release:	1.9 B11 (December 15, 2006) _[+/-]
OS:	Microsoft Windows, Mac OS X, Linux, FreeBSD
Use:	Instant messenger, Podcatcher
License:	Freeware
Website:	www.mercury.to

This article is about the instant messenger. For the space probe, see MESSENGER.

Mercury Messenger (previously dMSN, but changed on request of Microsoft) is an instant messaging program written in Java for Linux, Windows, Mac OS X and FreeBSD. It connects to the Windows Live Messenger (formerly MSN Messenger) and Jabber protocols.

1 Advantages
2 Disadvantages
3 Mac OS X and Linux
4 References
5 See also
6 External links

[edit] Advantages

Mercury Messenger is a full featured WLM client, especially compared to the other competing clients. Mercury Messenger offers support for most features offered in Windows Live Messenger and several extra features implemented by the Mercury Messenger development team. Some of these features include:

Podcatching: Mercury can subscribe to RSS feeds, so you can chat and read the latest news within the same program.
Cross-platform compatibility: Any computer with Java Runtime Environment (JRE) 1.4.2 or later can run Mercury because it is written in Java.
Skins: Mercury can be skinned relatively easily, allowing users more freedom. You don't need expensive programs to create your own either. Skins can be made with just a simpe paint program and a text editor.
Tabbed conversations: This feature is very similar to tabbed Internet browsing. It allows all conversations to be placed in one window to use less space on the taskbar.
Polygamy: Mercury offers the ability to use sign in using multiple Passport accounts at the same time.
Personal names: This feature can automatically change your display name depending on who you are talking to.
Display name and personal message scroller: After setting up a list of Display names and personal messages, Mercury can scroll through them while you're chatting. Display names change every 2 minutes and personal messages change every 30 seconds.
IRC style commands: Those familiar with IRC can use similar commands to alter certain settings within Mercury whilst talking (e.g Typing "/away" and pressing enter would set your status to "Away").
Event notification: Mercury offers versatile event notification. It will notify you when you are deleted from a contact list, when someone begins typing a message to you, and when someone closes a window. It offers support for many other minor events and also to act on certain events only for contacts that are selected.
Fake friends: Mercury can bring up a list of people that you have in your contact list that no longer have you in theirs.
Faked friends: Mercury can also tell you who has you on their contact list, even if you don't have them on yours.
Ghost friends: Great for getting back in touch with people, Mercury can tell you who used to be in your contact list but for some reason neither of you do.
Screenshot sending: By going into the Actions menu whilst using a chat window, you can instantly send screenshots of either your entire screen, or just the chat window itself.
Text formatting: Similar to Messenger Plus!, your text can be formatted to allow multiple colours in a single message, as well as bold, underline, italic and strikethrough compatibility.

[edit] Disadvantages

Not for beginners: Mercury needs a lot of setting up to run smoothly, and numerous settings require a lot of trial and error to get right.
No voice-clips: Mercury cannnot play the voice clips it receives, however it does give notification upon receiving one.
Webcam issues: Webcams are very difficult to set up correctly for use with Mercury, in fact there is a whole section in the Mercury FAQ about webcam issues.

[edit] Mac OS X and Linux

One of the most heavily touted features of this client is the support for Mac OS X and Linux. There are a number of other unofficial WLM clients for these platforms (see comparison of instant messaging clients) but while allowing multiple networks (ICQ, AIM etc.) they do not incorporate anything but the basic functionalities of Windows Live Messenger (this applies even to Microsoft's own Microsoft Messenger for Mac). Mercury Messenger supports several WLM-specific functions including webcams and is therefore considered to be one of the better options for Instant Messaging on these platforms, although the added overhead resultant of the client's reliance on Java has attracted quite a large amount of negative publicity towards the client. More recently, other instant messengers such as Kopete and aMSN have achieved webcam functionality, and thus reduced the messenger's appeal.