ANNOUNCE: Empathy 0.9

With this version comes important things !

libempathy and libempathy-gtk are now installed libraries with public C API. You can see documentation (gtkdoc) with devhelp. That means other applications can now link on libempathy(-gtk) to integrate IM support. At guadec I seen IM stuff in abiword and inkscape, they both implement everything themself with a different UI. Using empathy those projects can support collaborative edition very easilly using stream/dbus tubes (not merged into gabble yet). Python bindings is underdevelopment bug #457660. You can begin to write other language bindings, but keep in mind that the API can change at any time !

Thanks to Vincent Untz reviewing the whole empathy UI, there is now 62 open bugs for Empathy ! Most should be really easy to fix, so if you have free time and want to hack on the future GNOME IM client please help me to fix bugs !

The 0.9 release announce:

Empathy 0.9 is now available for download from:
http://download.gnome.org/sources/empathy/0.9/

58ae0939f44d91f9887f235ee1bc3e52 empathy-0.9.tar.gz
74c7255a56ffa8e37147a1a0cfe40565 empathy-0.9.tar.bz2

What is it?
===========
Empathy consists of a rich set of reusable instant messaging widgets, and a GNOME client using those widgets. It uses Telepathy and Nokia’s Mission Control, and reuses Gossip’s UI. The main goal is to permit desktop integration by providing libempathy and libempathy-gtk libraries. libempathy-gtk is a set of powerful widgets that can be embeded into any GNOME application.

Where can I find out more?
==========================
You can visit the project web site:
http://live.gnome.org/Empathy

What’s New?
===========
– Initial room list support. It doesn’t work yet but most of the code is ready.
– Tell the user when a message can’t be sent.
– Set all contacts from salut protocol to the “Local Network” group.
– Fix NetworkManager support.
– Iconify main window to the status icon like in rhythmbox.
– Show avatars in chatrooms.
– Fix avatar not being requested when empathy starts.
– Remove unused nickname entry and use a GtkTable for room information.
– Set a window title and fix alignment of widgets for contact related dialogs
(add, edit/view info).
– Adding initial API documentation using gtk-doc.
– Auto-accept to publish presence to contacts that are in our subscribe list.
When accepting a pending contact add it to publish and subscribe list.
– Filter incoming text channels and make status icon flash when there we
receive a new message. Dispatch the channel only when we get a message and
the user click on the icon.
– Install libempathy and libempathy-gtk and make their API public. The API is
NOT STABLE AT ALL !!!

Bugs Fixed:
===========
– Fixed #451564, crash in Empathy Instant Messenger: Nothing — having open c… (Xavier Claessens)
– Fixed #454277, crash in Empathy Instant Messenger: Started empathy and was … (Xavier Claessens)
– Fixed #443162, MSN account settings need a better UI (Cosimo Cecchi)
– Fixed #444490, Gossip–>Empathy conversion (Mario Danic, Xavier Claessens)
– Fixed #452536, Provide a nice API to launch EmpathyLogManager (Xavier Claessens)
– Fixed #455240, add EMPATHY_LOGFILE env variable (Guillaume Desmottes)
– Fixed #457992, Rounded avatars (Raphael Slinckx)
– Fixed #458106, Iconify nicely to the status icon (Jaap A. Haitsma)

Translations:
=============
– Updated sv: Daniel Nylander
– Updated pl: Tomasz Dominikowski
– Updated es: Jorge Gonzalez
– Updated ja: Takeshi AIHANA

Manual Translations:
====================
None

25 July 2007
Empathy team