Trillian (software)

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Trillian
Image:Trillian Logos.png
Screenshot
Developed by Cerulean Studios
Initial release July 1, 2000 (2000-07-01)
Stable release 3.1.10.0 (May 20, 2008) [+/−]
Preview release 4 Alpha, Build 79 (May 16, 2008) [+/−]
Written in  ?
OS Microsoft Windows
Mac OS X (Astra only)
iPhone (Astra only)
Internet (Astra only)
Available in  ?
Genre Instant messaging client
License Proprietary EULA
Website www.ceruleanstudios.com

Trillian is a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application for Windows created by Cerulean Studios that can connect to multiple IM services, such as AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Bonjour, Jabber, and Skype networks (the latter four with Trillian Pro which allows for additional plugins).

Initially released July 1, 2000, as a freeware IRC client, the first commercial version (Trillian Pro 1.0) was published on September 10, 2002. The program was named after Trillian, a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. The old version of the official web site even used to have a shrine to Douglas Adams on its front page. There are currently two types of Trillian available, the original and free Trillian Basic 3 and the commercial Trillian Pro 3. An upcoming product called Trillian Astra (4.0) has been announced and is currently in alpha testing.

Contents

[edit] Features

[edit] Connection to multiple IM services

Trillian connects to multiple instant messaging services without the need of running multiple clients. Users can create multiple connections to the same service, and can also group connections under separate identities to prevent confusion. All contacts are gathered under the same contact list. Contacts are not bound to their own IM service groups, and can be dragged and dropped freely.

Trillian represents each service with a different-colored sphere.Prior versions used the corporate logos for each service, but these were removed to avoid copyright issues, although some skins still use the original icons. The Trillian designers chose a Color codeing scheme based on the subway maps used by the London Underground that uses different colors to differentiate between different lines.[1]

[edit] Standard IM services

[edit] Plugin IM services (Trillian Pro only)

[edit] Metacontact

To eliminate duplicates and simplify the structure of the contact list, users of Trillian Pro can bundle multiple contacts of the same person into one entry in the contact list, using the Metacontact feature. Subcontacts will appear under the metacontact as small icons aligned in a manner of a tree.

[edit] Activity history

Activity History in action
Activity History in action

Trillian Basic and Pro both come with Activity History, and both log the history as both plain text files and as XML files. Pro has a History Manager that shows the chat history and allows the user to add bookmarks for revision later on. XML-based history makes the log easy to manipulate, searchable and extendable for future functions.[2]

[edit] Time travel

Trillian Pro also has a time traveling feature, which allows the user to record, and subsequently review, pause, rewind, and fast forward live video and audio sessions.[3] According to the application, "Time travel to the future is not currently available."

[edit] Instant lookup

Instant Lookup feature. Notice Trillian displays an older version of the article that does not match the current.
Instant Lookup feature. Notice Trillian displays an older version of the article that does not match the current.

Starting with version 3.0 in both the Basic and Pro suites, Trillian makes use of the English-language version of the Wikipedia free online encyclopedia for real-time referencing using its database of free knowledge. The feature is employed directly within a conversation window of a user. When one or more words are entered (by either user), Trillian checks all words against a database file and if a match is found, the word appears with a dotted green underline. When the user points their mouse over the word, the corresponding article is downloaded from Wikipedia and displayed on screen as a tooltip. When the user clicks on the underlined word, they are given the choice to visit the article online. The tooltips displayed within Trillian are often shorter, more condensed versions of the articles on the Web site itself.

[edit] Emotiblips

Emotiblips are the video equivalent of an emoticon. During video sessions, the user may stream a song or video to the other user in real time. One can send MP3s, WAVs, WMVs, and MPGs with this feature. QuickTime MOV files as Emotiblips are not currently supported.

[edit] Hidden smileys

In version 2.0 to the current, the default emoticon set contains emoticons that don't appear in the menu but can be used in conversations. Some of these are animations that can only be viewed in Trillian Pro, but all of them can be used regardless.[4][5]

[edit] Skins and interfaces

Trillian has its own unique skinning engine known as SkinXML. Many skins have been developed for Trillian and they can be downloaded from the official skins gallery or deviantArt.[6]

Trillian also came with an easier skinning language, Stixe, which is essentially a set of XML Entities that simplifies repetitive codes and allows skinners to share XML and graphics in the form of emoticon packs, sound packs and interfaces.

The default skins of Trillian are designed by designHazard. Trillian Cordillera was used in Trillian 0.7x, while Trillian Whistler has been the default skin for Trillian since Pro 1.0. Slight cosmetic changes were noticeable in each major release.

The upcoming Trillian Astra will feature a brand new design for the front-end UI, to be called Trillian Cordonata.

[edit] Plugins

Trillian is a closed-source application, but the Pro version can be extended by plugins. Plugins by Cerulean Studios itself include spell-check, weather monitor, a mini-browser (for viewing AIM profiles), Winamp song title scroller, stock exchange monitor, RSS feedreader, and conversation capabilities for the Logitech G15 keyboard, as well as a plugin for the Jabber and Bonjour networks. Others have developed various plugins, such as a games plugin which can be used to play chess and checkers, a protocol plugin to send NetBIOS messages through Trillian, a plugin to interact with Lotus Sametime clients, a plugin to interact with Microsoft Exchange, a POP3 and IMAP email checker, or an automatic translator for many European languages to and from English. There is a plugin to interact with Skype, SkyLlian, but it needs Skype to be installed in order to be used.

Plugins are available for free and are hosted on the official web site. Most, however, require Trillian Pro 2+ to run.

[edit] History

[edit] Early beginnings

After several internal builds, the first ever public release of Trillian, version 0.50, was available on July 1, 2000, and was designed to be an IRC client. The release was deemed 'too buggy' and was immediately pulled off the shelf and replaced by a new version 0.51 on the same day. It featured a simple Connection Manager and skinned windows.

A month later, two minor builds were released with additional IRC features and bug fixes. Despite these efforts, Trillian was not popular, as reflected in the number of downloads from CNET's Download.com.[citation needed]

Trillian was a donateware at that time. They used PayPal for receiving donations through their web site.

[edit] Introduction of interoperability

Version 0.6, released November 29, 2000, represented a major change in the direction of development, when the client became capable of connecting to AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ and MSN Messenger simultaneously in one window.

Although similar products, such as Jabber, Odigo and Imici, already existed, Trillian was novel in the way that it distinguished contacts from different IM services clearly on the contact list, and it did not require registration of a proprietary account. It also did not lose connection easily like the other clients.[citation needed]

A month later, Yahoo! Messenger support was introduced in Trillian 0.61, and it also featured a holiday skin for Christmas. Meanwhile, the Trillian community forums were opened to the public.

During this period, new versions were released frequently, attracting many enthusiasts to the community. Skinning activity boomed and fan sites were created. A skinning contest was held on deviantArt in Summer, and the winner was selected to design the default skin for the next version of Trillian. Trillian hit 100,000 downloads on August 14, 2001.

[edit] Entry into mainstream and the "IM Wars"

Contrary to the anticipation for version "0.64" in the community, the next version of Trillian was numbered 0.70. It was released December 5, 2001. Development took 5 months, considerably longer than previous builds.

The new version implemented file transfer in all IM services, a feature most requested by the community at the time. It also represented a number of skin language changes. It used the contact list as the main window (as opposed to a status window 'container' in previous versions) and featured a brand new default skin, Trillian Cordillera, and an emoticon set boasting over 100 emoticons, setting a record apart from other messengers available at that time.

Version 0.71 was released on the December 18, 2001. It supported AIM group chats and was the first major IM client which included the ability to encrypt messages with SecureIM.

In the following months, the number of downloads of Trillian surged, reaching 1 million on 27 January 2002, and 5 million within 6 months. Trillian received coverage and favorable reviews from mainstream media worldwide, particularly by CNET, Wired Magazine and BetaNews. The lead developer and co-founder, Scott Werndorfer, was also interviewed on TechTV.

Trillian remained the center of attention in IM in the media for the rest of year. AOL became aware that Trillian users were able to chat with their AIM buddies without having to download the AIM client. Version 0.72 was released on January 29, 2002, and it began to suffer connection problems to AIM.[7]

AOL blocked SecureIM access from Trillian clients. Cerulean appeared to have circumvented the block with version 0.721 of its client software, released one day later. The "AOL War" continued for the next couple weeks, with Cerulean releasing subsequent patches 0.722, 0.723 and 0.724. Trillian garnered a lot of media attention as a result, and its developers were praised by its community for their efficiency.

Trillian appeared in the Jupiter Media Metrix Internet audience ratings in February 2002 with 344,000 unique users, and grew to 610,000 by April 2002. While those numbers are very small compared to the major IM networks, Jupiter said Trillian consistently ranks highest according to the number of average minutes spent per month.[8]

Trillian also created a special version for Iomega ActiveDisk.

[edit] Commercialization with Trillian Pro

On September 9, 2002 a commercial version, Trillian Pro 1.0, was released concurrently with Trillian Basic 0.74. The commercial version was sold for $25 USD for a year of subscription, but all those who donated to the development of Trillian before were eligible to a year of subscription at no cost.

The new version had added SMS and mobile messaging capabilities, Yahoo! Messenger webcam support, pop-up e-mail alerts and new plug-ins to shuttle news, weather and stock quotes directly to buddy lists.

It appeared Trillian Pro would be marketed to corporate clients looking to keep in touch with suppliers or customers via a secured, interoperable IM network, and a relatively stern user interface. The company had no venture capital backing, and had depended entirely on donations from users to stay alive.

Trillian Pro 1.0 was nominated and picked among three other nominees as the Best Internet Communication shareware in its debut year of being a "try before you buy" shareware.[9]

On April 26, 2003, total downloads of Trillian reached ten million.[10]

[edit] Trillian Pro 2.0

 This section does not cite any references or sources. (June 2008)
Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unverifiable material may be challenged and removed.

Trillian Pro 2.0 was released September 9, 2003 to lukewarm reviews. Many supporters had lost interest as a result of the increasingly long development cycles and lack of communication between developers and users, and moved on to other, open-source software such as Miranda IM and Gaim.

The new version boasted core program rewrite, Unicode, language pack support and tabbed messaging.

[edit] Blockages from Yahoo! and cooperation with Gaim

A few weeks after Trillian Pro 2.0 was released, Yahoo! attempted to block Trillian from connecting to its service[11] in their "efforts to implement preventative measures to protect our users from potential spammers." A few patches were released by the makers of Trillian, which resolved the issue.

In a surprising move, the Trillian developers assisted its open-source cross-platform rival Gaim in solving the Yahoo! connection issues. Sean Egan, the developer of Gaim, posted in its site, "Our friends over at Cerulean Studios managed to break my speed record at cracking Yahoo! authentication schemes with an impressive feat of hackery. They sent it over and here it is in Gaim 0.70." (what exactly was sent over isn't clear). It was later revealed that the developers were friends and had helped each other on past occasions.[12]

Meanwhile, as Microsoft forced its users to upgrade to MSN Messenger 5.0 for upgrades in their servers for security issues,[13] October 15, 2003 also would mark the deadline for Trillian support for MSN Messenger. However, it appeared that Cerulean Studios worked with Microsoft[14] to resolve the issue on August 2, 2003, long before the deadline.

On March 7, 2004 and June 23, 2004, Yahoo! changed its instant messaging language again to prevent third-party services, such as Trillian, from accessing its service. Like previous statements, the company said the block is meant as a preemptive measure against spammers.[15] Cerulean Studios released a few patches to fix the issues within a day or two.

[edit] Trillian 3 Series

Trillian Pro 3 showing its version information in the about menu.
Trillian Pro 3 showing its version information in the about menu.

In August 2004, a new official blog was created in attempt to rebuild connections between the Studios and its customers. Trillian 3 was announced in the blog, and a sneak preview was made available to a small group of testers.

After months of beta-testing, the final build of Trillian 3 was released on December 18, 2004, with features such as new video and audio chat capabilities throughout AIM, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger, an enhanced logging manager and integration with the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. It also featured a clean and re-organized user interface and a brand new official web site.

The release also updated the long-abandoned Trillian Basic .74 to match the new user interface and functionalities as Trillian Basic 3.0. The number of accumulated downloads of Trillian Basic in Download.com hit 20 million within a matter of weeks.

Trillian 3.1 was released February 23, 2005. It included new features such as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and multiple identities support.

[edit] U3 and Google Pack

Trillian was made available for U3 USB flash drives on October 21, 2005, despite Trillian Anywhere making Trillian portable long before, through slight file modifications.[16] There is also a U3 version of Trillian Astra posted on the official Cerulean Studios forum.

On January 6, 2006, Larry Page, President of Products at Google, announced Google Pack, a bundle of various applications including Trillian Basic 3.0 as "a free collection of safe, useful software from Google and other companies that improves the user experience online and on the desktop".

"We're very excited for Trillian to be included in Google Pack, as we at Cerulean Studios have always been very focused on giving end-users the highest quality experience possible," said Scott Werndorfer, Co-founder, Cerulean Studios. "We believe this goal aligns Trillian perfectly with Google Pack."[17]

The inclusion of Trillian in Google Pack was perplexing to some media analysts as Google has its own Google Talk service, which touts the benefits of an open IM system and the free Trillian Basic client cannot be used with Google Talk. Trillian Pro is also included as one of the "client choices" in Google Talk's client choices list.[18]

According to the Cerulean Studios blog, Trillian was discontinued from Google Pack on 19 May 2006.[19]

[edit] Trillian Astra (Trillian 4)

 This article or section contains information about scheduled or expected future software.
The content may change as the software release approaches and more information becomes available.
The Contact List in Trillian Astra, featuring the default Trillian Cordonata skin
The Contact List in Trillian Astra, featuring the default Trillian Cordonata skin
The Login Screen in Trillian Astra
The Login Screen in Trillian Astra

More than a year after the release of Trillian 3.1, the Cerulean Studios blog began spreading news again and announced the next version of Trillian, which is to be called "Trillian Astra". The name for version 4, Astra, is the nickname used by the same fictional character that is the namesake of the software. The new release claimed to be faster and include a new login screen. A new domain, www.trillianastra.com, was disclosed to the public, with only the logo and blue background.

On 21 November 2006, Cerulean Studios launched a preview web site. Within half a day the site had received a lot of attention on the Web site Digg.[20]

Trillian Astra touts many improvements. According to the preview Web site improvements were made in the following areas:

  • Interoperability: Enhanced file transfer ability, support for more IM clients, status messaging support, and IMCore technology, which can compile natively on Win32, Linux, and Mac OS X.
  • Mobility: Web-based instant messaging, real-time status, iPhone support, online Trillian Astra profile.
  • Profile: Better data control and privacy, downloadable contact list, Social Widgets, a new login screen, strong encryption and identification verification, and open protocol.
  • Contact List: Tile view, Spotlight search, Drag-and-drop avatars, faster status changes, simple access to display name, dynamic list height.
  • Message Windows: Easy image sharing, handwriting mode, knowledge of local time, RSS, 'Buzz', saved font styles.
  • Skins: On the fly skin changes, Themes and colors, improved transparency support, Control layering, skin build time.
  • Performance: Skin loading time, redrawing times, network connections, memory usage, and skin variety.

Although Trillian Astra is currently in alpha stage development it has already begun to gain widespread attention and its sign-up for alpha testers was quickly flooded.

On December 1st, 2006, Cerulean Studios made community edited language packs available to work on. Packs are to be translated by the community and will then be made available to Trillian Astra users.

On January 5, 2007, Cerulean Studios launched a web version of Trillian Astra. They also updated the web site with a login page for alpha testers to sign in the new web service.

On July 6, 2007, Cerulean Studios announced on their blog a new custom-designed interface of Trillian Astra for the iPhone. [21]

On October 5, 2007, Cerulean Studios announced Trillian Astra for Mac OS X. [22] The Mac version, currently available to select existing Alpha testers, utilizes the same core as the Windows version but with a new UI designed specifically for OS X. The Mac version and the Windows version have different build numbers. Cerulean Studios have stated in their testing Bugzilla that a Linux version may be considered after the public release of Trillian Astra.

[edit] Trillian Version history

[edit] See also

[edit] References

  1. ^ Subway lines colors item on Cerulean Studios blog
  2. ^ Trillian Features: Activity History. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.
  3. ^ Trillian Features: Time Travel. Retrieved on 2007-03-05.
  4. ^ Blake's IM emoticons quick reference from computer-ease.com
  5. ^ All Trillian Pro Emoticons from JiqNet.com
  6. ^ Trillian's official skins gallery from Cerulean Studio's website
  7. ^ "AOL blocks Trillian IM Access" article in The Register
  8. ^ Internet News article on Trillian usage
  9. ^ Trillian nomination for Best Internet Communication Software, 2003
  10. ^ Cerulean Studios announcement of 10 millionth download
  11. ^ ZDnet article on Yahoo blocking Trillian access
  12. ^ Newsforge article on cooperation between Cerulean and Gaim
  13. ^ Microsoft upgrades to MSN Messenger 5.0
  14. ^ Studios released patch on forums before server changes happened in MSN Messenger
  15. ^ ZDnet article on Yahoo! Messenger language change
  16. ^ Trillian Anywhere web site
  17. ^ Google Pack press release
  18. ^ List of Google Talk client choices
  19. ^ Cerulean blog entry on Trillian discontinuation from Google Pack
  20. ^ Diggs for Astra preview Web site
  21. ^ Trillian for iPhone announcement
  22. ^ Trillian Astra Mac version announcement
  23. ^ Trillian Astra for Web announcement

[edit] External links and resources

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