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Program information
AtarICQ is an ICQ client for Atari GEM. The application has been in development since 1999 and is written in GFABASIC, utilizing the excellent GBE-package from Lonny Pursell. The client relies on a network ovl (AICQ.OVL) which was originally developed by Dan Ackerman. From the 0.174 release of aICQ the OVL is however maintained by Denis Huget, who might be more wellknown as the author of the MP3-Player FalcAMP. Denis has made a remarkable job on the OVL sources starting in August 2009, and before the end of September 2009 we now have a new AtarICQ release ready. 2009-09-19 - AtarICQ 0.174 is released! [download] Important changes in the latest release: - AtarICQ is now able to cope with environment variable FONTSELECT when a full path is submitted instead of a process name. If a full path is sent, aICQ then tries to start the font selector (if not already running).
- Fixed a bug in the contact list code that under some circumstances would cause a crash when swapping contacts by using up/down ARROWs.
- Removed a debug messages that was accidently left in the final 0.173-release. It was a text message written to screen/console.
- Fixad a small bug in the code for manually resorting (by dragging) of the TABs in the message window.
- New feature added. The shortcut ALT+X will now trigger aICQ to remove all temporary contacts that exist at the time. The main benefit is to be able to quickly sweep your contact list clean from ICQ spammers. (Normally, you have all your contacts on the permanent list)
- Slightly changed code for evaluating the status of online contacts. Should avoid confusion when it comes to clients using exotic status values.
- New keyboard shortcut, ALT+H, will toggle the hiding of offline contacts.
- OVL sources are branched from the 0089 version (newer sources were lost) :(
- OVL tweaked to cure problem where a large SSI contact list would potentially cause the OVL to hit an infinite loop (thus freezing)
- Speeded up the automatic requesting of basic user info to reval the nickname of UINs loaded from the SSI list.
- Fixed a fatal bug which would strike under specific circumstances when requesting basic user info for a UIN, and the server didn't reply. (NOTE: The chase for this particular bug has been going on for 3-4 years, the challenge being that it was very hard to reproduce reliably)
- OVL will now work better with 68000 CPU (no more odd address access)
- Improved the routines keeping track of server requests, timeout of data, etc.
- Fixed a problem with font size in the text input field for outgoing messages, striking under old Single TOS and standard AES/VDI.
- Cured a small memory leak which happened when requesting extended user info.
- Changed default behaviour:
-Hiding offline contacts = OFF
-Auto switch to new message = ON - AtarICQ now keeps track of incoming typing notifications, to be able to let them "time out" after a certain time of inactivity from the other end. This time is currently set to 20 seconds, after which the typing notification icon will be removed.
- OVL can now successfully send messages to the AIM/ICQ-clone Trillian, which turned out to be rather picky.
NOTE: At this time (2009-09-19) you might notice that some of your friends from your contact list aren't listed as online despite being very much logged on and available. The reason for this is more than likely that AtarICQ still doesn't posses the ability to update the server side list, hence all contacts not present there might be listed as offline at all times. The only way to solve this is to either use another ICQ client to update the list, or hold your breath until AtarICQ is able to do this.. ;) Program future At the time of writing this, we're soon in the summer of 2009 and AtarICQ has been around for almost 9 years by now! While the application has come a really long way, now supporting a lot more than I originally could ever dream of, there are a number of shortcomings and problems still around. Hence, there are (and will always be) things to add and things to improve. More than anything else, it would be nice to work around the infamous problems with 68000 machines, as would it be cool to support more protocols than ICQ/AIM. All of these things takes time to resolve and therefore no promises are made of what may lie ahead - only time will tell what time allows us to offer! Thanks for using AtarICQ. Read all about the work that is going on with AtarICQ in the dedicated section: Go to AtarICQ development news. Screenshots
Below you can see a number of screenshots of AtarICQ in action on various Atari setups. 
FreeMiNT/XaAES - 688x512, true colour Download
To read more about distribution license and conditions and to download AtarICQ, please proceed to the download page.
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AtarICQ
