5 weeks after the 0.7.2.2 "Lovegood" release, I am very happy to announce the major feature release, 0.8 codenamed "Godsend". Major feature highlights of this release are desktop notifications (with full support of actions, icons, updates, append and sound), messaging menu / indicators (as provided by Ubuntu's Ayatana project) and working Twitter support with OAuth (basic auth was disabled by Twitter on 31th August). This version also fixes all bugs that were reported since the release of 0.7.2.2.

 Further on, Smuxi comes with the following improvements in its user interface:

• More distinct nick colors by using a combination of colors
• Use of nick colors for userlists
• Emphasis of own nick in bold, making it easier to distinguish sent messages
• Toggle-able menubar
• Full screen mode support for enhanced netbook experience
• Browse mode support
• Remembering of tab order when reconnecting to a smuxi-server
• Sound support by notification daemons which support this extension
• Display of IRC network name instead of hostname in the tab
• Addition of "Open Log" button for easy viewing of logs.

Smuxi provides better connectivity and security by supporting: HTTP and SOCKS proxies as well as secure connections to IRC servers by using SSL with optional certificate validation.

Last but not least, it comes with an enhanced Twitter experience by supporting the use of multiple Twitter accounts at the same time,  reformatting tweets that contain newlines and showing the full retweet instead of a truncated version.

Updated languages includes: French (Clément BOURGEOIS) and German (Bianca Mix)

The #smuxi IRC channel can now also be found, in addition to OFTC, on other popular IRC networks such as freenode and GIMPnet. The messages on #smuxi are automatically relayed between the 3 IRC networks.

If you like Smuxi and want to support it by making micro-donations, Smuxi is available on Flattr.

There are also many other nice FOSS projects available on Flattr, see the Flattr-FOSS project.

Smuxi is available for download from here.

Update: The Windows installer version 0.8-3 addresses some reported issues: a dos prompt window is no longer visible, the installed .NET framework version is now properly detected, .NET 3.5 SP1 is now installed instead of .NET 3.5 as the Twitter support needs this and the Twitter support actually works now. Just head to the download page to get these fixes!

29 bugfixes and 13 features later I am happy to announce the second bugfix release, 0.7.2 codenamed 'Lovegood'. This version fixes all bugs that were reported since the release of 0.7.1 but also introduces some very sexy new features!

As the codename suggests, this release contains both love and goods. There are new features that everybody loves such as: file logging, configurable highlight words (Chris Le Sueur), fully customizable filters to ignore messages or events, markerlines which divide old messages from new messages, enhanced network status and window title format, and extended CTCP support. Too good to be true? It's real!  The feedback I received from FOSDEM 2010 has spurred development and attracted new developers and translators.

Smuxi news can also be retrieved by following the official Smuxi Twitter account.

New languages includes: Portuguese (Americo Monteiro), Danish (Joe Hansen), partially Finnish (Kalle Kaitala), and partially Catalan (Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals). Updated languages includes: French (Clément BOURGEOIS), German (Bianca Mix), Italian (Vincenzo Campanella), Czech (Michal Simunek), Swedish (Martin Bagge), and British (Ryan Smith-Evans).

Going forward, translations will be coordinated and maintained by using Transifex. If you wish to submit or update translations, simply visit the Smuxi project on Transifex. You can find out how Transifex works by reading our Translation HowTo.

All bugfixes and features can be found on the completed 0.7.2 roadmap.

Already keen on this release? Grab 0.7.2 from the download page!

Update: 0.7.2 crashes on start for new installations and existing installations that don't have remote engines defined. I will push a 0.7.2.1 emergency release ASAP! Smuxi 0.7.2.1 fixes the crash and is available for download.

Update: 0.7.2.1 contained a few annoying bugs such as: crash when saving configuration changes with remote engines, bug in the new markerline feature, message pattern field of filters never matched and missing IRCnet server in default settings, which were all fixed in the 0.7.2.2 bugfix-only release, available for download.

We have good news for FreeBSD users. Thanks to the work of Romain Tartière Smuxi is now available in the official FreeBSD ports tree. Installation instructions can be found on the download page.

This is an important step for the cross-platform spirit of Smuxi -- now covering 3 different operating systems: GNU/Linux, FreeBSD and Windows. And don't worry, this won't be the last one! Mac OSX is high on our priority list but we don't have the resources yet to make this happen. We are looking forward to see Smuxi's community growing so it can reach even more users regardless of their operating system, language or origin.

Everyone is invited to join the community! If you are interested and have some spare time, Smuxi is looking for help in many areas:

• artwork: layout, logo, icons
• translations
• documentation: how-to, built-in help, tooltips
• installer / packages: Mac OSX, RPM (Fedora / Red Hat)
• programming: features, bugfixes, ports, further protocols (Jabber, MSN, etc)
• distribution: articles (wikipedia), reviews, news, download sites, etc

The easiest way to get in touch with us is to join the #smuxi IRC channel on OFTC (irc.oftc.net)

About 3 weeks after releasing Smuxi 0.7 I am proud to announce the first bugfix release, 0.7.1 codenamed 'Heidi'.  This version fixes all bugs that were reported since the release of 0.7.

Notable changes are: important crash fixes, seen and unseen highlights are now remembered when reconnecting to the smuxi-server, improved error tolerance for temporarly Twitter issues, fixed /join command and adaptive excess flood handling.

A full list of changes is included below.

Bugfixes:

• Bug #290: Twitter hostname and port can be configured in settings
• Bug #293: Crash when using numeric passwords
• Bug #294: Smuxi needs to tolerate temporarly Twitter issues
• Bug #297: NullReferenceException on start with auto-connecting Twitter account
• Bug #299: /server and /connect $server crashes with NullReferenceException
• Bug #301: Highlights are not shown when connecting to remote engine
• Bug #302: First message after opening a new query tab is not highlighted
• Bug #303: Reconnect loop with bouncers (irssi-proxy)
• Bug #307: Adding Server crashes with NullReferenceException
• Bug #308: Netsplit triggers “excess flood” kick cycle on Freenode
• Bug #311: /join suddenly stops working
• Bug #312: Random Startup / Connect Crash: NullReferenceException
• Bug #314: Tarball contains binaries
• Bug #320: Smuxi crashes when trying to add a server with an invalid/unsupported protocol
• Bug #321: Show away-messages only once does not work
• Bug #323: Partial self triggered highlights
• Bug #326: /topic command can trigger highlights
• Bug #327: Using /rejoin on an unconnected channel blocks, gives error msg

New translations:

• Partial Catalan translation (Siegfried-Angel Gevatter Pujals)

Smuxi is available for download from here.

I am pleased to announce that Smuxi 0.7 'Bianca' is out NOW! This is the most exciting release since the initial public release in 2008.

This release contains 4 major highlights in addition to many other enhancements and fixes: Initial support for Twitter has been implemented. This will allow you to send and receive tweets to the Twitter microblogging service. It supports the friends timeline, replies view, and direct messages. The character counter, Reply-To feature, and avatar support will follow in later releases.

Smuxi is now able to flawlessly handle network connections with high latency which are common with UMTS, WLAN, and busy DSL and cable lines. All communication between the Smuxi frontend and the Smuxi server is now done as a background task using threads. This gives Smuxi a very responsive feel - just like a normal, locally running application - even with difficult network conditions

The IRC experience has been significantly improved.  Smuxi will now send all unrecognized commands transparently to the IRC server and will show the reply directly to the user. In addition, the userlist and query menu have been extended to include common CTCP actions.

Smuxi now ensures that the text colors used in the tabs are easily readable, regardless of your GTK theme.  It does this by using the proven-reliable color-contrast algorithm used by Smuxi 0.6.4.1 to generate nick colors.

A full list of changes is included below.

New features:

• Feature #228: Twitter integration
• Feature #20: more colors for message types
• Feature #259: Split too long IRC messages into smaller messages
• Feature #25: Pass unknown commands to protocol manager as fallback.
• Feature #29: show away-msg only once per query (David Paleino)
• Feature #46: nickname completion on private chat (David Paleino)
• Feature #71: Add popup menu to links in the chat/channel window
• Feature #146: Please add right-click menu to queries (Clément Bourgeois)
• Feature #147: Please add CTCP to on-nick right-click menu (Clément Bourgeois)
• Feature #225: Use colors with good contrast for tab label
• Feature #235: Smuxi Server Manager (Clément Bourgeois)
• Feature #236: Process "On Connect Commands" for Quick Connect
• Feature #242: Entry Command Queue
• Feature #243: SSH tunnel setup needs to check the local forwarding port
• Feature #248: stray SSH tunnel checker
• Feature #256: Show unknown IRC replies to the user
• Feature #258: Optimize SSH on difficult networks
• Feature #269: Show CTCP replies on query tabs (Clément Bourgeois)
• Feature #270: Find Group Chat should show colored IRC topics (David Paleino)
• Feature #273: Support context-menu key in user list
• Feature #274: Make URLs copyable with a context menu

Bugfixes:

• Bug #149: Highlights are not always remembered
• Bug #183: Leaking FrontendManager threads
• Bug #198: Missing dictionary on WIndows
• Bug #211: /names command takes ages on big channels
• Bug #223: Many beeps when connecting to a smuxi-server on Windows
• Bug #224: "Find Group Chat" might block forever
• Bug #232: Client throws unhandled exceptions upon network connection loss (Windows)
• Bug #233: Switching between tabs is not instantaneous on slow connections to remote servers
• Bug #234: crash on open
• Bug #240: excess flood caused by joining many channels at once
• Bug #241: Marking topic text (grab-focus kicks in)
• Bug #244: Transition remote -> remote fails with connection refused on localhost:7689/SessionManager
• Bug #245: Status bar too short short for german language
• Bug #246: two remote engines with the same name
• Bug #247: Highlight is triggered by self-written messages
• Bug #249: /reconnect crashes after failed connect attempt
• Bug #250: default IRCnet server entry is wrong
• Bug #251: /join is sometimes not doing anything at all
• Bug #252: not showing failed attempts when joining a channel
• Bug #253: &chans have wrong tab colors
• Bug #260: /server command throws exception
• Bug #261: Closing a channel tab shows ErrorNotOnChannel
• Bug #262: Remote engine connection check might block the GUI
• Bug #263: Find group chat should use wildcard by default (David Paleino)
• Bug #268: configure.ac error, Twitter engine is controlled by "engine-msnp" macro... (David Paleino)
• Bug #281: Race condition in PangoTools.ToMarkup (David Paleino)
• Bug #283: GroupChatView.cs missing _Logger protection
• Bug #285: Almost all IRC commands might suffer from a race condition

Big thanks goes to the reviewers of the english messages strings done on debian-l10n-english @ lists.debian.org:

• Justin B Rye
• Esko Arajärvi

New translations:

• Czech translation (Michal Simunek)
• Swedish translation (Martin Bagge)
• Argentinian translation (Damian Kleiman)

Updated translations:

• German translation (Bianca Mix)
• French translation (Clément Bourgeois)
• Italian translation (Vincenzo Campanella)
• British English translation (Ryan Smith-Evans)

Thank you everyone who contributed to this release!

Smuxi is available for download from here.