I have good news to our Windows users. The new installer (0.6.4-4-dev) of Smuxi now supports Windows 64-bit. This was tested on Windows Vista and Windows 7 RC1. Smuxi is not running in 64-bit execution mode (yet) but in 32-bit mode because GTK+ is not yet fully ported for Windows 64-bit. Windows XP 64-bit should also work, if not please write me an email or join our IRC channel. You can get Smuxi 0.6.4-4-dev from the download page.

Smuxi has now a full featured installer for Windows! Sebastian Schnur <ikkerus_at_ikkerus_dot_net> was so nice and contributed a NSIS installer script for Smuxi. The old "installer" (just a simple zip file) has been replaced on the download page with this one already. I couldn't resist and enhanced the installer script to automatically download and install the software requirements when needed, which is MSI 3.1, Microsoft .NET 2.0 and GTK# 2.12. The installer works perfectly (tested) under Windows XP and Windows 7. At this time only 32bit is supported as GTK+/# isn't ready yet for 64bit on Windows. I read that you can run GTK# apps in 32bit mode on 64bit Windows, but the application and library files have to be masked somehow, but I could not find out yet how to do that using Linux.

Are you running  Windows and want to give it a try? Just grab it from the download page! (if you wonder why the version is 0.6.4-dev for the Windows build, I made a development release which includes the feature/#63_drop_gnome-sharp branch)

You might have wondered what happened since the 0.6.3 release? The simple answer is: lots!

Code-wise not so much changed but project structure  wise. For example we switched the the Version Control System from Subversion to GIT. Why? Because GIT allows us developers to simply develop new features without destablizing the main code base by using feature-branches. Subversion has also support for branches, but they are difficult to merge and maintain. So you can now find the Smuxi source for browsing at: http://git.qnetp.net/?p=smuxi.git And for development at: git://git.qnetp.net/smuxi.git

We migrated from the ticket and release planning tool TRAC to Redmine. The main reason for that switch was that TRAC has no decent GIT support out of the box. Don't worry, all submitted tickets are imported to Redmine, nothing was lost! And here it is Smuxi on Redmine: http://projects.qnetp.net/projects/show/smuxi

Ok, all this fancy stuff for the developers now, but what for the users? Smuxi has now support for clickable URLs, colors and multi-line in topics, like this:

Also when the day changes between a message it will now show that day change with the date. That way you can see which day it was (not just which time) for older messages in the backlog.

Those 2 new features are already merged into the master branch, if someone wants to try them out (by building from source).

Last but not least a 3rd feature is on it's way: pure usage of the GTK+ libraries. We continuously have issues with getting Smuxi running on Windows correctly. The problem there is that the GTK# installers are not shipping GNOME components and thus we have to ship them which causes all kinds of version issues. Smuxi only uses the GNOME library to provide the assistants like"Add new Engine". GTK+ includes since version 2.10 an assistant API which we are porting to. With this step Smuxi will run on Windows by just installing MS .NET 2.0 + GTK# 2.10 and it works (this time) And we also get Mac OSX support with this change, as the Mono project offers an GTK# installer for it! So this step is really worth it. But don't worry, Smuxi (smuxi-frontend-gnome) will still have it's focus to integrate perfectly into your GNOME experience even though we are not using the said GNOME library to do that.

Just in time, with the beginning of 2009 we are proud to announce the release of Smuxi 0.6.3! This release is the 3rd bugfix release of the 0.6 series but also contains as usual new features for your joy of upgrading to the new version.

New features:

• Full tray icon support. (trac#55 and trac#137)
• Configurable line wrapping. (trac#5)
• Events such as join/part/quit now use a different color in the tab label. (trac#66)
• When connecting to a smuxi-server previous highlights will not be highlighted again. (trac#97)
• Messages can now be sent to all chats by using the /amsg, /anotice and /ame commands. (trac#109)
• The find group chats feature now indicates an active search by using a busy mouse cursor symbol. (trac#115)
• Passwords are now hidden by default but can be shown by using a "show password" button. (trac#116)
• Nicknames can now be listed by using the /names command. (trac#120)

Bugfixes:

• Find group chat dialog will no longer freeze the interface when the IRC server (e.g. OFTC) uses non-RFC compliant reply codes. (trac#104)
• /notice #somechannel will no longer crash. (trac#108)
• A private notice will no longer trigger a highlight. (trac#45)
• URLs can now be clicked while a nickname is selected on the userlist. (trac#112)
• Server no longer crashes when a frontend doesn't cleanly disconnect. (trac#117)
• Quitting smuxi using the window close button (X) will now store the last used window size and position. (trac#121)
• Validation now requires a nickname be set in the preferences. (trac#123)
• URL matching is now case-insensitive. (trac#131)
• /quit command will no longer reconnect. (trac#139)
• Username and password are now correctly used in the quick connect dialog. (trac#141)
• When disconnecting from a server, all chats will now be closed. (trac#144)

New translations:

• French translation contributed by Clement BOURGEOIS (trac#113)
• Italian translation contributed by David Paleino
• Spanish translation contributed by Juan Miguel Carrero

As you can see, we have applied lots of love to this release Now head to the download page and enjoy this great new version!

There are now also packages available for openSUSE (thanks to Andrew Jorgensen) and Ubuntu (thanks to Stefan Ebner). The download page contains explanations how to install those.

Here it is, the second bugfix release of the 0.6 series!

New features:

• German translation (please contribute other translations, see *.pot files). (trac#94 trac#95)
• Window size and position is now restored after startup. (trac#91)
• Timestamps can be disabled now. (trac#84)
• Timestamp format variables are now explained. (trac#102)
• Nick-colors now tries to avoid colors that give a bad contrast depending on the background color.
• Added Next/Previous Chat entry to menu (so the shortcut is visble now).
• Logging date format is much more human readable now.

• Adding servers with the same hostname is now prevented. (trac#100)
• Switching between local engine and remote engine without restart works now. (trac#106)
• Quick connect dialog doesn't just close if a server is selected using double click. (trac#80)
• Chats are now sorted correctly if there is no next protocol chat tab available. (trac#87)
• mIRC clear color character wasn't honored correctly. (trac#89)
• /quit command is working now. (trac#92)
• Reconnect is not breaking open person chats anymore. (trac#99)
• First message of a person chat is now triggering a highlight again.

OK thats it from the 0.6.2 front, just head to the download page and get the real stuff!

PS: Smuxi is now available in Debian/Unstable and ArchLinux (thanks goes to Jense for the ArchLinux package)!