Adium 1.5 brings user interface improvements

Existing users can upgrade to version 1.5 by selecting the Adium menu, and clicking "Check For Updates" Version 1.5 of the open source Adium instant messaging (IM) client for Mac OS X has been released, following more than eighteen months of development. This major update to the stable branch of Adium, which supports a wide range of services, including AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Jabber, ICQ, MySpace IM and Facebook chat, brings a number of "under the hood" changes as well as improvements to the user interface.

Adium 1.5 includes a new set of icons and updates the look of the contact list's icon menu. The interface for viewing chat transcripts has been "polished to look native on modern versions of OS X", and now includes "Next" and "Previous" buttons for use when searching a transcript. While the app has supported the open source Growl notification system for some time, the developers have now also added their own customisable notifications, called "Mist". The reason for the change, the developers say, is that they wanted to provide a free option for users to receive notifications as, from version 1.3, Growl now costs $1.99/£1.49 in the Mac App Store.

For those who prefer not to use the Growl notification system, Adium now includes "Mist" notifications The new version is the project's first release to feature support for 64-bit systems and now requires an Intel-based Mac running version 10.6.8 of Mac OS X or later. The libpurple library, used by Pidgin and other IM clients such as Meebo, has also been upgraded to version 2.10.0. However, the change means that the developers have had to remove support for the QQ instant messaging service, which is popular in mainland China, as it was removed from libpurple. An unofficial plug-in is available that provides support for the new QQ2010 protocol. Improvements have also been made to iTunes and Address Book integration.

Further details about the release, including a full list of changes and new features, can be found in the version history and the official release announcement. Adium 1.5 is available to download from the project's site and documentation is provided. Source code for Adium is licensed under the GPLv2.

(crve)