Thursday, December 06, 2007

Yahoo! Messenger for Vista Preview

When I first heard about it I just thought that it was only some sort of new YM 9.0 release, but I thought I'll still have something to see in an official presentation: at least how a the presentation was made! :P

Well, the Yahoo! team has released a preview of their Yahoo! Messenger for Vista which is actually built on WPF. Now I can really connect the dots and see why Petru was so into evangelizing WPF! This is another big leap from the UX point of view. This version is built from the ground up for the Windows Vista operating system, as Ryan Stewart confirms:

the new version just feels like a native Vista application and all that entails including richness, transparencies, and very powerful reflow features.

Since this is only a preview release, many features are intentionally left out, but the good news is that you can run both Yahoo! Messenger 8.1 or 9.0 and Messenger for Vista on your PC depending on what you need.

Here is the list of included features, directly from the source:

  • Entirely new interface that harnesses the power of WPF, the graphics subsystem in Windows Vista
  • Organize your conversations into tabs, or drag and drop a tab out to create a new window
  • Keep up with your favorite contacts by dragging them into the Windows Sidebar gadget
  • Send enhanced emoticons that have some extra oomph
  • Change the color of your IM windows with a built-in skin chooser. Go crazy with a different skin for every IM window!
  • Adjust the display size of your contacts with a handy slider
  • Arrange your contact list into multiple columns just by resizing your window
  • Send instant messages to your Yahoo! and Windows Live Messenger contacts
  • Send files to friends as large as 2 GB
  • Find contacts quickly with the contact search bar. Type in a few letters of the contact’s name or ID and they’ll come up in filtered results.
  • As-you-type spell checker that’s smart enough to know that “LOL” is not something to correct ;-)
  • A preferences menu you can access by right-clicking anywhere at the top of the main Messenger window

OK, many new and interesting features, but let's see it in action:

If this caught your interest, just go ahead and download Yahoo! Messenger for Vista!

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Mi l-am instalat repede, foarte fain pana am observat ca mi se misca sacadat. La fiecare miscare care o faceam cu noul Y! Mess Vista, imi lua 40+% din procesor (si am 2Gb Dual Core si 2Gb Ram) ... mi l-am dezinstalat in secunda urmatoare si le-am trimis un feedback

Unknown said...

Exact acelasi comportament m-a stresat si pe mine, tot pe un sistem cu 2GHz & 2Gb! Arata bine, are potential la partea de interactiune om-calculator, dar cere prea mult! :(

Adi said...

Corect... cere mult. Acelasi sistem, aceleasi probleme. Ma gandesc ce s-ar intampla daca ar avea si mai multe chestii implementate... voice, notification-urile alea de sign in...

Oricum un feature adaugat care mi se pare bun si de aprofundat este ala cu ferestrele "imploded".