2007-06-30 -aICQ 0.170 is released
More than a year after the last full release, you can now download AtarICQ 0.170, which was released during NAS2007. A number of fixes and additions were made to the program since the last development status news. Here are the most noticeable additions:

• If user tries to send an instant msg when the system tab is active, aICQ will complain and state that messages must be sent to another contact, not to the aICQ tab :)
   
  (I have received numerous false bugreports about this, ppl have tried to send messages not realizing they are in the wrong tab) ;))
• The hidden way to call font selector (by clicking the copyright sign at the bottom of message window) will now no longer result in Thing locking up if you hold down mouse button for too long.
• Fixed a redraw bug in contact list window which would show itself when the window was iconified and the active "tab" was being toggled, and the area of the iconified window was partly the same as the previous work area of the window.
• After pasting text into message input field (with CTRL+V) the cursor was not restored. Bug was introduced in the NAS2006-release.
• Sometimes the 'typing notification icon' would get stuck if a user was in the midst of typing something when he suddenly went offline for one reason or another. This should be fixed now.
• Fixed 2 places in the code which would result in ILLEGAL AES CALL errors under Single TOS.
• New experimental feature: By pressing F10 you can strip down the contact list window. Nice if you want to make full use of your desktop space! A second press on F10 will toggle back to normal mode. Note that this setting will be stored to the config file.
• Right clicking on the system tab (in Message Window) will bring up the popup where you can change your connection status.
• When toggling (with TAB) between open tabs the system tab is no longer excluded. Those who want the old behaviour can change it back in preferences dialog, under "Msg window"
• The vertical slider of the contact list will now only be shown in case it is actually needed.
• Now you can configure aICQ to only show the online contacts. Setting is found in preferences window, in "Contact list" section. NOTE: Offline contacts can still be visible in the list, provided that they have an open TAB.
• It seems like the long time lurking bug that on rare occasions resulted in "error 090" has been fixed. This bug would hit rather often, if aICQ was unregistered. Thanks to ggn, Karsten and a few other bug hunters :))
• Regardless of the font height used in contact list, aICQ will now reserve (at least) 16 pixels of height for each contact. This ensures that there will always be enough room to fit the status icon.
• AtarICQ now uses the built-in EXIST() call from the RUN!Lib. The previously used wrapper was not 100% compatible with long filenames. This means that logging chat history works under MagiC even for UINs that are >8 chars.
• Fixed an annoying bug made aICQ sluggish upon switching to another TAB, caused by redrawing whole contact list instead of only the necessary parts.
• Right clicking on empty space on the TAB bar, will open up a popup menu, "Create TAB for contact", from which you can create a new TAB for the desired contact. This popup can also be opened through the keyboard: CTRL+T
• In the popup menus to "Send Contact" and "Create TAB for contact" an icon will now indicate the online status for all the listed contacts.
• New keyboard shortcuts added:
  • CTRL+>1-7< = Change online status
  • CTRL+>0< = Go offline
  • ALT+S = Open popup menu to change online status (works from Message Window or Contact List)
• Opening User Info Dialog for the selected contact through CTRL+I was broken, fixed now.
• Removing a contact from the contact list (permanently) though SHIFT+DELETE was not working properly, only the corresponding TAB was removed. Fixed now

2007-03-09 -aICQ development status update
Things have been silent for a while, but AtarICQ is by no means a discontinued project. There are a bunch of issues that needs some attention, the most serious one being the problem that makes it troublesome for aICQ users to talk to friends that are online with an ICQv5 client. We are aware of the problem and hope to have some news on this later this year.
 
Meanwhile, the following things have been fixed/added:

• Forgot to make a few text objects transparent. Now aICQ looks a bit better when AES uses textures as dialog backgrounds.
• Fixed keyboard shortcuts in preferences dialog
• Fixed aICQ to work better with the new floating windows of XaAES
• Removed some stupid debug messages that were printed to console in the 0.168 release.
• The implementation of the ignore list has been completely rewritten. The old solution could in some cases lead to the config file becoming corrupted. The list of UINs to ignore is now saved into a separate file (killfile.icq), located in $HOME.
• Experiemental support for using a textured background in the contact list. At this time, only IMG-files are supported.

2006-04-15 -aICQ 0.168 is released
List of changes:

• aICQ's message window is now tweaked to look at its best when the dialog background is using a bitmap texture. As a result of this, the feature to configure the background fill colour from within the preferences has been removed. If you wish to tweak the background colour to a solid fill colour, you should however be able to do so using your favourit RSC-editor.
• Small adjustment made to popups, fixing appearance under latest XaAES.
• Scrolling behaviour changed slightly: When the slider is not located at its bottom position, the text will not scroll to bottom when new messages are coming in. If located at bottom => follow bottom.
• In addition to the above, aICQ will now need the slider to be located at its bottom position in order to consider messages to be read.
• The TABs in the message window are now equipped with a discrete 3D-look when your setup can use >=256 colours. The active tab will also be enlarged slightly to further allow you to distinguish it from the unselected ones.
• AtarICQ will now redirect WM_ARROWED messages to the vertical sliders in both contact list and message window. When a mouse scrollwheel is rotated XaAES sends WM_ARROWED messages even to windows that don't have a native slider. This means that at least under XaAES you can now use your scrollwheel to scroll inside aICQ windows. AtarICQ also supports XaAES extended scrollwheel messages, using the WHL_AROWWHEEL mode.
• A bug that would cause display problems in the text input field in the message window has been fixed. It would only hit if the user had installed a custom system font, which had different char width/height than the original Atari font. Should be fixed now.
• Discovered a nasty bug that would cause very bad memory corruption upon certain incoming messages. The reason was that certain clients are using a single ascii-13 to indicate a rowbreak. Should be fixed now.

2006-02-13 -aICQ 0.167 is released
List of changes:

• New OVL, which has a workaround for a problem that appeared in 2nd week of February 2006 when something was changed on ICQ servers. Now messages should be getting through flawlessly again!
• Cleaned up the keyboard evaluation code
• Masked out all messages about oncoming contacts during the first 10s. (Some ppl reported server was lagging this data a bit, hence this delay was added in order to avoid unnecessary console text)
• Some ICQ (spam) bots are trying to trick ppl to add them to contact list by sending out signal that "user is online". That would indicate that we have already added them to your contact list, something that is not necessarily true. Since aICQ now supports the server side list directly, some of these attempts will now be detected and blocked.
• If contact list was empty, the option to "hide separators" would crash aICQ. Solved by temporarily cancelling the hiding, until contacts are added.
• In dialog for adding more contacts, the number of allowed chars for UIN/ screenname has been increased from 10 to 16.
• In MagiC, setting both SELECTEABLE and TOUCHEXIT for an object will make form_button() wait for the mouse button to be released. This is now worked around, allowing the setting of auto-away time in preferences to work smoother under MagiC.

2005-12-31 -aICQ 0.166 is released
List of changes:

• First implementation of AIM support, meaning you can chat with your friends that are chatting using the AOL instant messenger protocol.
• GEM dialog evaluation is now using form_keybd() and form_button() to ensure that AtarICQ works well with the new keyboard navigation scheme that was recently implemented in XaAES.
• AtarICQ will now download the server side contact list data, and add any contacts present there to your local list. (As of yet, you can't update the server side list data)
• AtarICQ now uses native radio buttons and check boxes, as provided by the AES.
• And dozens of other fixes, please read the docs for more details.

2005-10-25 -aICQ 0.165 is released
List of changes:

• Added icons for 256 colour mode (Not all icons have 256 colour data)
• Changing online status can timeout now, if server is not responding. AtarICQ interprets this as if we lost the connection.
• The keep_alive call is reimplemented, and sent to the icq server once every 2 minutes. This may perhaps prevent aICQ from dropping the connection.
• In preferences for contact list, you can now decide whether you wish a selected contact to be indicated with a dotted box or by inverting the nick.

2005-04-05 -aICQ 0.164 is released
List of changes:

• Alphabetical sorting of contacts added (optional)
• Possibility to remove online/offline separators in contact list (Hi AltF4!)
• Unshading works under MagiC again...
• Storing and buffering of messages has been improved
• Removed the max limit for number of allowed tabs
• A number smaller quirks and bugs has been fixed. See update.txt for details

2004-12-24 -aICQ 0.163 is released
List of changes:

• AtarICQ now features TABs for conversations! Try it, you are likely to get the hang of the idea straight away :)
• Typing notification implemented.
• Storing unread messages locally upon termination. These messages will be reloaded next time you go online.
• Several smaller changes and bugfixes. And one major bugfix in text parsing routines! A very long lived bug that was as serious as it was hard to locate and reproduce.

2004-11-17 -aICQ 0.162 is released
List of changes:

• Fixed a number of minor issues related to the viewing of a msg icon in contact list. Icon shows up next to the contact that has sent us messages that are not yet considered read. (See /preferences/messages to set time out value for when a msg should be marked "read")
• Icon blinking added (in contact list) to draw further attention to the msg icon, when there are unread message waiting for us. Go to the section named "Messages" in the preferences window in case you wish to enable or disable this feature. Default is ON.
• Fixed a bug which caused AtarICQ to (sometimes) fail when started without a config file, and fastload flag was set.
• Up/down arrows had stopped working in msg window as of 0.160 release. Should be okay again now.

2004-11-01 -aICQ 0.161 is released
News in this version:

• it is now possible to set how long aICQ should wait until a message is considered to be read. AtarICQ will count the time from the moment that the user starts view a contact message with the message window topped! If you temporarily have another window topped, aICQ will reset the timer.
• Lots of general changes and additions to preferences for a change. Check them out, should hopefully be logical to figure stuff out. If not, have a look in the HYP.
• A _very_ nasty bug fixed, which would make AtarICQ crash upon certain AV-messages. Thanks to Martin Byttebier for patience during tests.
• Internal handling of contact data has been reworked, allowing for better flexibility which might prove important for future additions.
• The routine for unshading windows now uses WIND_SET(hdl&,22365,0,0,0,0) to allow it to work also with new XaAES.
• Fixed a problem where TT-RAM would (if present) be reserved for the DMA sound buffer.

2004-06-03 -aICQ 0.160 is released
In addition to the changes from October, this is also new in aICQ 0.160:

• No hardcoded limit for number of contacts! Arrays can be adjusted dynamically on the fly now! (Big thanks to Lp for sharing the GFA info!)
• Configuration for sound has been bug fixed and should be much better now
• The OVL has had another update, so now aICQ can talk to eg. Trillian and GAIM. Furthermore, some problems with receiving ICQ messages of certain lengths (at least that is what seemed to be the problem) has been fixed.
• A problem with reading registration data from file has been cured

2003-10-09 -aICQ development news
A few improvements recently made to aICQ:

• XBIOS sound bugfixed, works on Falcon now (Thanks Deun)
• Sorted out a few quirks in the sound configuration
• Fixed a GEM glitch -wrong window stole "focus" at times
• Polish binary strings updated (Thanks to AdamK) -sorry, this got lost in a HD-crash :(

2003-08-27 -aICQ 0.159 is released
These are the most noticeable changes:

• Sound can now be configured in preferences dialog (Please read the HYP!)
• Fixed a problem causing aICQ to enter "away" mode also when user wasn't idle
• Right click on search results (UIN) will open "add contact" dialog
• Support for several languages updated (French, German, Polish, Swedish)
• Quite a few bugfixes, see update.txt for details

2003-06-16 -aICQ 0.158 is released
AtarICQ celebrates its 3rd anniverary with the following changes:

• The new popup in msg window (Popup was new in 0.157, and allows switching between active message bufers) will now show online status for the contacts.
• Restructured the code used for popups.
• Under some circumstances, the window title for msg window was not set for the "System messages" channel view. Fixed now.
• Corrected the English RSC, preventing 2 popup strings from getting truncated. A few other adjustments to the RSC file was made as well.
• If there are still unread messages when msg window get iconified, a channel view containing unread messages will be activated once the window is un-iconified. In other words, aICQ will swap channel view (if needed), to a channel containing unread messages.
• If a contact is added to ignore list, it will not automatically be added from server side contact list. (aICQ can't update the server side list yet)
• If a contact is added automatically from server list, it is added to the normal list instead of the temporary list.
• Deleting a contact while user info window is opened for this contact, will now result in the info window being closed.
• Using keyboard to select entry in popup menu could cause the SPACE keypress to leak to either msg window or contact list. Fixed now.
• If failing to open the logfile, aICQ will no longer try to change the logpath.
• When a contact has set invisible mode + some other online status, aICQ will recognize the online status and (for the time being) ignore the invisible flag being set when deciding what icon to use.
• Holding down CTRL button will prevent aICQ from automatically switching to a new contact due to incoming message. This prevents user from accidently deleting wrong message buffer (CTRL+D is the shortcut for deleting buffer)

2003-05-05 -aICQ 0.157 is released
The problems reported on the Atari mICQ mailing list has been cured, along with some other fixes and additions:

• Possible to set separate colour for message headers in preferences
• Refined the support for multiple colours in buffer
• Fixed a nasty bug which would cause aICQ to hang (only for users that set aICQ _not_ to open msg window at launch time)
• Another bug fixed: If user would open user details for a contact, and then try to delete the contact from list before closing user info window, a crash would occur.
• When iconified, both contact list and msg window now have dedicated icons to make it easier to tell one from the other ;)
• If msg window is iconified when a msg comes in, the icon will change to indicate there is a an unread message waiting
• Added 2 mini icons to the URL popup ("send URL to browser" and "Copy")
• If you have the msg window in the background when you start typing, and aICQ is then triggered to automatically top the msg window, the first keypress would not make it to the edit field. This should be fixed now.
• If you make a single left click on the "msg to :" line in message window, you will bring you a new popup, allowing you to directly jump to any contact currently added to the quick list, or to the system message buffer view.

2003-03-02 -aICQ 0.156 is released
Following the recent stability improvements there is now a new public release available! Last minute changes:

• Possible to set separate colour for message headers in preferences
• Refined the support for multiple colours in buffer

2003-02-23 -Major bug resolved

• Bug #1 fixed: Buffer overflow (1 byte)
• Bug #2 fixed: A nasty bug caused by a mixup of real and virtual memory blocks (caused memory leaks/data corruption)
• Bug #3 fixed: Memory leak, causing aICQ to waste some RAM every time ataricq.udb was saved to disk
• New shortcut: CTRL+h will tell AVSERVER to view the logfile for the active contact (requires "instant history" enabled)

2003-02-03 -Slow and steady progress..

• Introduced a scheme for embedding command codes inside text buffers. As a result of this, it is now possible to use more than one text colour in the text
• aICQ will now detect URLs hidden inside "brackets" like ()[]{}<>
• Arrow-down key should move cursor to end of line below, even if that is to the left of current cursor position

2002-12-30 -aICQ 0.155 is released

• If a msg comes in from a contact that is offline, AtarICQ will move this contact to the top of the offline contacts in list
• AtarICQ will now recognize the value used by newer Mac ICQ for "online"
• AtarICQ will automatically use ataricqm.rsc if CICONs aren't supported by the AES
• Cured small glitches related to deleting a UIN from contact list
• Support for proportional fonts in message window
• Minor slider glitch cured
• Invalid ascii bytes now filtered out when entering text in edit field
• Sometimes text in edit field was output in smaller system font, fixed now
• History logfiles (of conversations) are now using the HEX value of your friends UIN as filename, rather than the decimal value. The reason is to eliminate problems with large numbers on setups with 8+3 file systems.
• Separate text buffers ("channel views", if you will) implemented (see readme.1st)
• When toggling between contacts in TAB-list, aICQ will always try switching to contacts with unread messages in their buffer, if possible
• aICQ button will activate the buffer/"channel view", for system messages
• If file with stored details (for others) wasn't already present, aICQ would fail to store them locally. Fixed now.
• Prevented entering of text in disabled edit fields

2002-03-19 -aICQ 0.154 (binary update)

• Possible to install aICQ from scratch (Not possible to create new ICQ account yet though!)
• Fixed bug regarding copy from outgoing edit field
• Removed an extra rowbreak, seen when aICQ was set to show date/time stamp
• Changes to contact list text area (seen when having few contacts)
• A missing fclose to close scrap.txt when pasting is added
• When resizing msg window, empty rows in beggining of the text buffer are removed
• Msg/URL icon will appear in contact list as long as aICQ considers msg unread
• AtarICQ will report if writing logfile to disk was not carried out ok
• If server reports contact as online, that is not previously on list, aICQ will add them to temporary list (happens if you have server side contact list)
• NOTE: While aICQ is shareware, you are ONLY allowed to redistribute the unmodified zipfile! That is, you can't either add nor delete any files to the distribution! Thank you.

2002-03-09 -aICQ 0.153 with aICQ.OVL 62 is released

Firstly, you need to update server to login.icq.com and port to 5190 You cannot yet create a new UIN with the new aICQ version. Please be patient Changing what list a contact is on (visible/invisible) might not work instantly (you might need to reconnect for changes to take effect) Support for more languages are planned For other changes since last release, see below See ya on ICQ ;)

• Fixed bug that crashed aICQ if no GDOS was loaded
• If writing logfile fails, aICQ tries to use workdir as path
• Preventing mouse shape from changing when live dragging window in XaAES
• VDI blits used to speed up scrolling in both contact list and msg window
• Word wraps speeded up and adjusted slightly
• Highlighting of text (when copying) optimised
• Autoscrolling possible when copying text
• Changed routine to walk through RSC-trees (faster, smaller)
• Updated and bugfixed the RSC-file
• Small slider correction for MagiC
• Text routines now uses different approach to keep store text location
• Copy function added for incoming area of msg window
• Unhiding text active window (ontop), wouldn't reactivate txt input (Naes)
• Clicking between slider bar/arrows would leak into text area (fixed)
• Things disabled during dialogs are greyed out in menubar
• TAB / TAB+shift moves contact list in steps of whole pages only
• Slider bar has a minimum height of 8 pixels
• Big popups can now use full desk height (if needed)
• First popup entry was automatically selected on old TOS (fixed)
• Allow closing a window that has opened popup (close popup first)
• Allow using right/left arrows to navigate (sideways) in popups
• Double click sends URL to string server
• Right click opens popup to send URL to WWW_CLIENT
• URLs starting with "www" will have "http://" pasted in for CAB's sake
• Text routines now are able to reparse the text! (recalculation of rowbreaks)
• Slider routines and watchbox function adjusted to work better with XaAES
• Small changes to the popup routines and the routine tracking the mouse pointer

2001-11-17 -Important information!

As you all probably know by now, aICQ is not capable of sending any outgoing messages at this point. The reason is that AOL/Mirabilis seems to have switched to a new version of the ICQ-protocol, which is now a subset of the AIM-protocol (OSCAR).

There aren't a lot of docs around for the new ICQ-protocol, but if some support later on is added to aICQ, it will be announced here.

2001-10-12 -Developement update

URL passing is now found to be fully working.

2001-10-11 -Developement update

Authorization is now carried out through the right click popup menu in contact list URLs starting with "www" will have "http://" pasted in for CAB's sake URL passing has been bugfixed and is near complete at this point

2001-09-28 -Developement update

Double click on strings in msg window starting with either "http://" or "www" will result in AtarICQ trying to either:

• Send the URL to string server
• Send the URL to browser (as specified in WWW_CLIENT) if running
• Try to start the browser in not running
• The code for reparsing the rowbreaks has been speeded up a bit

2001-90-18 -Developement update

Text routines now are able to reparse the text! The code might be speeded up in the future, by using assembler routines Slider routines and watchbox function adjusted to work better with XaAES Support for StringServer is planned...

2001-09-15 -Developement update

aICQ 0.152 won't be released in other languages than English Instead, expect a new minor update in all languages Small changes to the popup routines and the routine tracking the mouse pointer The routines for buffering the text in incoming window are currently being rewritten in order to allow text to be reparsed when and if the window is resized

2001-09-01 -AtarICQ 0.152 is released.

Only English version is available at the moment For list of changes and additions, read UPDATE.TXT in the zip archive

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