Miranda IM

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Miranda IM

Developed by	Miranda IM Project
Stable release	0.7.17  (2009-02-28; 36 days ago) [+/−]
Preview release	0.8.0 alpha build 28 / 2009-03-04; 32 days ago
Written in	C/C++
Operating system	Microsoft Windows
Type	Instant messaging client
License	GNU General Public License
Website	http://www.miranda-im.org/

Miranda IM is an open source multiprotocol instant messaging application, designed for Microsoft Windows. Miranda is free software distributed under GNU General Public License.

[edit] Architecture

Miranda provides a basic client framework, GUI, and an advanced plugin architecture. Support for various IM protocols and additional features is implemented through optional plugins, some of which come bundled with Miranda by default; the rest (over 500) are available on the Addons site. Unused protocols can be removed.

[edit] Features

• Customized look and function according to each individual's needs.
• Management and organization of hundreds of IM buddies on many IM networks
  • Contact renaming
• Full message archive database
  • Simple recall or deletion with the DB Tool or History Sweeper plugin.
• Contact details or photos visible with mouseover. (Needs additional plugin)
• No advertising
• Compact and portable: with few plugins, fits on a 1.44 MB floppy disk
• Security/Privacy: Saves history on hard disk
• Low memory footprint^{[citation needed]}

[edit] Connectivity

Some of the protocols supported via plugins include AIM, Bonjour ^[1], Battle.net, Fetion, Gadu-Gadu, Inter-Asterisk eXchange, ICQ, IRC, Jabber (& Google Talk), Lotus Sametime, NetSend, MySpace, .NET Messenger Service (a.k.a. MSN), Tencent QQ, SIP, Skype (requires Skype^[2]), Tlen.pl, Xfire and Yahoo! Messenger.

[edit] History

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[edit] Early days

Miranda IM was first started by Roland Rabien (figbug) on February 2, 2000. At that time, it was a minimalist ICQ clone and officially called Miranda ICQ. The first public release, version 0.0.1, was released in February 6, 2000. This release used LibICQ, had no support for message history, database, and plugins, and had a distribution size of less than 100 KB.

A major new feature of version 0.0.4 was the MegaHAL chat bot, which enabled automatic chatting between Miranda and other ICQ users. Plugin support was added with version 0.0.6. Logger Plugin was the first plugin bundled with the official release.

[edit] Version 0.1.x

After the release of version 0.0.6.1 on December 26, 2000, the original developers left, and Richard "cyreve" Hughes took over the project. His first release, version 0.1.0.0 on April 8, 2001 was improved through a major rewrite. The split message dialog bundled with this release became the first messaging module to be put into a plugin. The .Net Messenger Service protocol plugin appeared around the time of version 0.1.1.0 release becoming the second messaging protocol to be supported by Miranda. This was also the first official release to support language pack translations. Miranda hence had multi-protocol, multi-language instant messenger features.

After v0.1.0.0, Miranda plugin development grew rapidly. With version 0.1.2.1 (February 28, 2002), there were approximately 50 plugins available. At the time the new Lizard plugin enabled skinning support; the only time Miranda supported skins. Lizard development stopped soon after, due to the instability it caused.

[edit] Version 0.2.x

After the mysterious disappearance of cyreve in June, 2002^[3], the developers Martin Öberg (Strickz), Robert Rainwater (rainwater), Sam K (egoDust), and Lyon Lim (lynlimz) took over the project. The MSN protocol was taken over by Rako Shizuka who also developed the first version of Yahoo! Messenger protocol, which was the third protocol supported by Miranda. The Yahoo! plugin was closed source, and lost reliability as the official Yahoo! Messenger protocol changed over time - it was later re-written by new developer Gennady Feldman.

The first of the non-IM plugins, including RSS News and Weather, were released within this period. These added a contact to contact list for the purpose of displaying information to the user rather than chatting.

Discussion about renaming of the program and removal of ICQ from the core began about this time. Due to the increase of protocol support, the project was officially renamed to Miranda IM on December 17, 2002.

The newly named Miranda IM was released on February 1, 2003, about three years after the beginning of the project, and a bug fix version came two weeks later.

[edit] Version 0.3.x

The major change in version 0.3, released on June 23, 2003, was the removal of ICQ from the core into a plugin. From now on, Miranda could run without ICQ being installed.^[4] The project moved to a new site at www.miranda-im.org, featuring a new discussion board and file listing.

Protocol plugins bundled in version 0.3 included ICQ, MSN, AIM, and Jabber. The Yahoo! protocol was not included in the package. IRC support was added later by Jörgen Persson (m8rix) to the official release of version 0.3.1, on August 8, 2003.^[5]

Another major change was the removal of the Send-Receive Messaging Module from the core into a plugin, SRMM.^[5] This reduced the size of the executable file and encouraged rapid development of messaging modules. During this period many variations (including SRAMM, SRMM_mod, etc.) offered different new features and improvements over the standard implementation.

[edit] Version 0.4.x

Miranda IM, customized with plugins and skins.

Version 0.4 of Miranda IM was released on April 7, 2005. This was the first version to have Yahoo! protocol bundled with the official release. Other major changes included the removal of contact list and database module from the core into plugins.^[6][7] As a result, there were 4 variations of contact list modules: the original clist_classic, multi-window contact list clist_mw, modern contact list clist_modern, and nicer contact list with extensive UI customization clist_nicer. Other popular plugins released within this period included tabbed message window (tabsrmm and scriver), HTML based message log support IE view, scripting plugin mbot, and the meta contact plugin.

[edit] Version 0.5.x

Version 0.5 of Miranda IM was released on July 28, 2006. This is the first version to have Unicode support available as a download option for Windows NT, 2000 and XP users. Another new feature is the introduction of AIM Oscar, first released in early 2006, allowing users to transfer files and receive away messages. This version also provides more support for avatars among the various protocols.^[8]

[edit] Version 0.6.x

Customized Miranda IM 0.6.8 - plugins (Modern Contact List, SmileyAdd, Scriver...), skin (WIP Zune), icons, colors, etc...

Version 0.6 of Miranda IM was released on December 29, 2006. This version introduces UPnP support to improve file transfer and direct connect reliability through routers. Other changes include improved support for UTF-8 strings, improved tabbed options support, and numerous bug fixes.^[9]

[edit] Version 0.7.x

Version 0.7 of Miranda IM was released on October 01, 2007. Key changes already implemented include integrated font and icon services, a rewritten menu engine, and a release notifier. Another large change is a new way to uniquely identify plugins and the interfaces they implement which may break backward compatibility in the future.^[10]

[edit] Version 0.8.x

Version 0.8 of Miranda IM is currently under development and released as an alpha. Plans for 0.8 include account management, support for multiple protocol instances, a core notifications framework, better compatibility with Windows Vista, a new plugin loader, return of the console and improvement of the user friendliness.^[11]

[edit] Future plans

There are no plans for an official Linux edition^[12], but the Windows version was reported to work well in Linux with the Wine compatibility layer.^[13]

[edit] See also

Free software portal

• Comparison of instant messaging clients
• Comparison of IRC clients
• List of Jabber client software

[edit] References

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Miranda IM

• Main Website
• SourceForge.net Project Page