[paul34 @ Jul 7th 2007 10:29PM]

what? They're actually still alive? I quit using Trillian a long time ago because it seemed Cereulean studios just quit making updates and stalling on news concerning any upcoming updates. Although I personally didn't find it buggy, everyone else I know who have used it finds it very buggy.

However, it is irrelevant at this point, as I've switched to Pidgin. Much better.

Anyway, the point of my post is that it seems odd that CS would make something "new" - and beyond that, that they would support this software with updates.

[Philip Seyfi @ Jul 7th 2007 11:15PM]

Trillian Astra is in development for several years already... I'm alpha testing it from the start and it is great. It will definitely be the best IM client when released, Pidgin killer, Miranda killer.

Check out http://www.trillianastra.com/ & http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/ap/

[paul34 @ Jul 7th 2007 11:21PM]

Thanks for the links, Philip. Looks like things have changed over at CS, and I misspoke... looking forward to the new Trillian!

[Sparks @ Jul 8th 2007 3:10AM]

FWIW, part of what happened was that we basically threw out the entire old Trillian code-base and started over with an eye towards learning from past mistakes. As a start, more code is shared between the various mediums now, and Trillian has a more abstracted, less-platform-dependent design.

Beauty of this is that all the mediums are portable; you just compile the exact same code over on Linux and boom, it powers the web version (be it the Flash version people have already been using, or the web-based version shown in the iPhone shots). This means we can maintain multiple variants of Trillian much more easily.

But this whole redesign proved a way, way bigger task than initially envisioned, and has eaten several years. Which is why we decided to change the dev process too, and handle the alpha more openly instead of the way we have in the past.

If Pidgin works for your IM needs, that's great too; we've actually contributed code to them before (bits of Trillian's Yahoo engine were turned open-source specifically so they could be contributed to Gaim).

It's not like there can be only one true IM app; friendly competition helps to improve all of the clients. :)

[Andrew @ Jul 8th 2007 4:36PM]

Now if only I could actually get into the test program. I use several instant messenger clients and got sick of how bloated each client got. Running them all at once ended up being quite a load on the system for simple instant messengers. I've been using Pidgin recently and it's nice, but it's too far on the other extreme of being too simplistic. Miranda has more extensibility, but seems too unrefined to me. Trillian before was just plain bad if you ask me, but I'm hoping Astra will finally be the perfect solution. I sent my name in as a tester when it was first announced but never got in. I hope someday we'll all actually get to use it. It seems like it's been forever.