AMSN

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aMSN

aMSN running on KDE/Baghira under Gentoo Linux
Developer:	aMSN Development Team
Latest release:	0.96 / November 24, 2006
OS:	Multi-platform
Use:	Instant Messaging client
License:	GPL
Website:	http://www.amsn-project.net/

The correct title of this article is aMSN. The initial letter is shown capitalized due to technical restrictions.

aMSN is an MSN Messenger clone licensed under the GPL. Its main objective is to assist users who are new to the Linux operating system keep in contact with those who use the Microsoft program which is available only on Windows and Macintosh. To achieve this objective, aMSN attempts to emulate the look and feel of MSN Messenger, and supports many of its features.

aMSN has features not present in MSN Messenger. Users can set alarms, are able to see others who have removed them from their contact list, and are able to open many profiles at once. It is also very customizable, with extensions and themes available at the main site. aMSN also allows functions not available in the Macintosh version of MSN Messenger, such as webcam support, and the "nudge" feature.

aMSN is available for any system that supports Tcl/Tk 8.4 or higher. This includes Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and any UNIX variant including Linux.

Since SVN version 20070216, the default user interface has been changed to reflect more of Windows Live Messenger. This includes graphics, sounds and some icons (Including the official icon).

1 History
2 Criticism
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] History

aMSN was based on a previous software named Compu's Messenger (ccmsn), released on September 21st 2001 by Dave Mifsud. Features in this application were quite limited and development seemed to be stopped. Alvaro Iradier made a fork of the development with his own version, aMSN (Alvaro's Messenger). Didimo E. Grimaldo joined the project, and first version of AMSN was released on May 22nd 2006 on Sourceforge.

More developers joined the project, like Philippe G. Khalaf and later Youness Alaoui. Today the project keeps going thanks to the effort and help of an increasing number of developers, translators, and designers.

[edit] Criticism

aMSN appears a little more dated than some other messenger software. The software depends on the Tk graphics toolkit, which does not have the same refinements as other more modern toolkits like Gtk+ or Qt. For instance, the latest stable version of Tk doesn't support antialiased fonts - something that the themes and skins can't correct.

Developers say, on their defense, that the whole interface is fully customizable, allowing users to download themes and modify the general aspect freely. However, customization does not necessarily mean beauty and some disparity remains over the interface. Tk version 8.5 is capable of antialiasing fonts on UNIX/Linux systems running an X server, thus solving this issue. Due to version 8.5 of Tk still being in development, users cannot use antialiased fonts in aMSN on UNIX/Linux unless they compile aMSN on their own.