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aMSN

aMSN 0.97 screenshot
Developer(s)	aMSN Development Team
Stable release	0.98.1 / 2009-10-20; 32 days ago
Written in	Tcl/Tk
Operating system	Multi-platform
Type	Instant Messaging client
License	GNU General Public License
Website	www.amsn-project.net

aMSN is a free Windows Live Messenger clone. aMSN attempts to emulate the look and feel of Windows Live Messenger, and supports many of its features.

aMSN has features not present in Windows Live Messenger. Users can set alarms, are able to see others who have removed them from their contact list, and are able to open many profiles at once. It is also very customizable, with extensions and themes available at the main site. aMSN also allows functions not available in Microsoft Messenger for Mac (the Macintosh counterpart of Windows Live Messenger), such as webcam support, and the nudges feature.

aMSN is available for any system that supports Tcl/Tk 8.4 or higher. This includes Microsoft Windows, Macintosh and any UNIX variant including Linux.

[edit] History

aMSN was based on a previous application named Compu's Messenger (ccmsn), released on September 21, 2001 by Dave Mifsud. Features in this application were quite limited and development seemed to be stopped. Alvaro Iradier made a fork of the development with his own version, aMSN (Alvaro's Messenger). At the time Didimo E. Grimaldo was also working on his own branch of ccMSN until both Alvaro and Didimo heard of each other in a development forum and decided to merge their improvements into one version. The first version of aMSN was released on May 22, 2002 on Sourceforge.

After several successful releases of their join effort, Didimo E. Grimaldo decided to take leave as a developer due to other pressing responsibilities and lack of time. ccMSN/aMSN was in fact the last of several free and open source projects in which Didimo worked.

More developers joined the project, like Philippe G. Khalaf and later Youness Alaoui. Today the project keeps going thanks to the effort and help of an increasing number of developers, translators, and designers.

Since SVN version 20070216, the default user interface has been changed to reflect more of Windows Live Messenger. This includes graphics, sounds and some icons.

[edit] Features

Official Client Features:

• Support for the MSN Protocol 15 (development release only)
• Personal messages
• "What I'm listening to" personal messages (from a third-party plugin; includes support for music programs like Amarok or XMMS in Linux)
• Contact list and display name retrieval from Microsoft servers
• Offline messaging (fully functional in development release)
• Logging in under any status
• File transfers, sending and receiving
• Replication of Windows Live Messenger's look and feel
• Nudges (included as a plugin where you may adjust various options)
• Winks (from a third party plugin)
• Sending and receiving of voice clips (full voice conversation being worked on)
• Webcam send and receive
• Display pictures, including a manager that saves old display pictures like the one in the official client
• The setup options of the original program are almost completely replicated.
• Chat logging
• Support for email checking. A plugin allowing the program to check non-hotmail POP3 addresses is also available.
• Complete emoticon support, including custom emoticons
• Group conversations

Extra, non-MSN Features:

• Custom statuses that can include auto-messages for when user is away
• Skins
• Tabbed chat windows
• Games that can be played between two aMSN clients (from a plugin)
• Plugins offer various other features as well
• Shows when contacts don't have you on their list, as well as contacts that have you on their list but are not in yours
• Webcam sessions recording
• Automatic storing of contacts' display pictures
• A chat window pops up when the other person opens a window with you, even if they haven't typed anything yet
• A message in the chat window informs you when the person closes their chat window

[edit] See also

Free software portal

• Comparison of instant messaging clients

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: aMSN

• The aMSN homepage
• Download page
• The aMSN Forums
• The aMSN project page in sourceforge.net
• aMSN- Windows Live 2009 skin