08 Jul 2004
One day after the release of 1.5.6-beta2... here comes 1.5.6!

Rather than trying to explain what went on, I'll let the changelog do the talking :)

  • Enough with this -beta# nonsense. This is 1.5.6. The -beta# tag will only return in releases that are for testing only.
  • First, some old bugs, all brought to me by NathanW (via BeShare):
    • Parts of the "Get Info" window were created in the wrong order, causing display errors on Dano and its ilk.
    • A fencepost error in the HTML parsing code made the formatting go screwy.
  • The networking threads have been fixed to syncronise properly during logon.
  • Semi-real rate limiting, for the internal components. It's still possible for you to exceed the limit and get that nice message from the server.
  • Local storage of the buddy list makes a return. It turns out that I suck at this programming thing :)
  • Because of this, you can once again set the order of the list. But that's only locally, because SSI doesn't allow for rearranging very nicely.
  • Useless update for this release: Add my name to the About box. I deserve some credit, don't I?


There are many things planned for upcoming releases. Most of them are features, unless I get bug reports. I'm planning for a sort of weekend-long code-a-thon, because my ideas seem to come all at once.

Download, enjoy, and please please please report the bugs you find to me. Feedback is appreciated, as always, even if it does take a month to get back to you...


07 Jul 2004
BeAIM 1.5.6-beta2

Only five months later :) Full SSI editing, more secure login, @mac.com username support, and typing notification.

Of course, there are still some bugs. And probably more due to my monkeying with the code :) If you sight any, let me know. It helps a lot in the development.

And... I promise that this -beta# nonsense will stop soon. But BeAIM's got to get a lot more stable before then. I'm working on it...

12 Feb 2004
Yes, you read correctly! There is finally activity over BeAIM!

I have been working (in small random bursts) on BeAIM since April 2003, and this is the first release worth anything.

I present to you BeAIM 1.5.6-beta1. Source first, binary builds later. Enjoy.

29 October 2001
BeAIM 1.5.2 is now available for your downloading enjoyment. It should now work nicely on all versions of BONE and the net_server as well... at least in theory. Lemme know if this turns out to be not the case. There's also a spiffy new German language file. Oh yeah, and the latest source code is (finally) available as well.

28 May 2001
OK, folks. BeAIM 1.5 is now available for your chatting pleasure. It ain't perfect, but it's out there. Go get it. :-)

On a side note, I'll be somewhat unavailable for much of this summer (it's a job related thing). Send me bug reports, new language files for BeAIM, and all that, but it might take a while for me to post them. Cheers!

24 May 2001
I know I'm a bit behind on when I said I would release BeAIM 1.5, but the good news is that it's in the very last stages of beta testing and is nearly ready to release. Just give me a few more days. One of the nice things about 1.5 is that I used a language library so that it can be translated into nearly any language. However, since I'm the stereotypical stupid American who only knows English, I'll need a bit of help. :-) If you are fluent in English and another language, and would like to help translate BeAIM, please let me know ASAP. I'd like to release BeAIM 1.5 with at least one language file other than English, so if you can help or you know someone else who can help, I'd really appreciate it. It will be interesting to see if anybody actually reads this page any more... :-)

23 April 2001
This is just a quick update to let you know the way things are. BeAIM is not dead... on the contrary, I've worked on it quite a bit in the past several days. Things have moved much more slowly than planned over the last couple of months, but I should be ready to release BeAIM 1.5 in the next week or two, depending on how my finals go.

BeAIM 1.5 doesn't have any amazing new features. However, quite a bit of the code has been rewritten, and I think the most obnoxious bugs are gone (although there are undoubtedly some new ones :-). The GUI is a bit cleaner, has some new features, and all the icons, graphics, and sound effects stolen from AOL's clients have been replaced with different versions. On the network side, BeAIM 1.5 now works with BONE and has complete support for SOCKS5 and HTTPS proxy servers.

Anyway, as I said, there's nothing earth shattering in version 1.5, but overall it's a much, much more solid piece of software. I'll release BeAIM 1.5 as soon as I can and then I'll see where things go from there. For now, here's a little screenshot collage I made just so y'all have something to look at. :-)

15 February 2001
Alrighty then. There hasn't been a BeAIM update in ages, and many people have sent me e-mail wondering what's going on (I haven't yet replied to most of this). Sorry about that... I've been keeping incredibly busy working on various projects and all. Here's the way things are. I've been working on the BeAIM code on and off for a really long time now, and the code's kind of a mess. There's a bunch of stuff working, a bunch of stuff not working, and a bunch of stuff sorta working. The problem is that there was never enough of it all working at the same time to release it. I'm not trying to make excuses here, but the fact is that I'm one of the most unorganized and unreliable developers on the planet, and it doesn't help that I've got the attention span of a housefly on caffeine. That's my disclaimer. The public beta of BONE is just around the corner, and I want to have *something* released by that date (since BeAIM 1.0 doesn't work with BONE). So, here's the plan: I'm going to take a big breath, remove all the stuff that's not finished or not working, and release what I have. There won't be any new features added between now and then, so don't ask. :-) That release will definitely be BONE compatible, and will have full support for SOCKS5 and HTTPS proxies. Lots of bugs will be fixed (and probably quite a few will be added...) Right now, that's all that I will say for certain. No, there will be no file transfer or group chat. I'm sorry to keep delaying this stuff; I've done some work on both of them, but they don't work yet so I really can't show you much. Another recent AIM feature is server-side buddylists. This won't be in the next release either (I really want to get this thing out the door!). However, I spent a few hours this morning figuring the protocol out, and it looks doable, although it would require some significant changes. So, maybe next time. Release date? Don't even ask. Soon, I hope. Preferably before BONE. But I don't wanna give out a date because I'll miss it if I do. :-)

05 December 2000
After over three months of "downtime", so to speak, my semester in England is drawing to a close. This means that I'll soon be able to start working on BeAIM again. I get back to the good ole' US of A in just under 2 weeks, and I want to jump in and start coding shortly thereafter.

Right now, the BeAIM code base is a bit of a mess, and when I get back, I'll pretty much be doing cleanup for a while. Forget group chat and file transfer and that sort of thing. I just want to get a working version of BeAIM out the door. I went a bit overboard last summer, and there has been a *lot* of stuff rewritten. Most of it was for the better, but now it all needs to be finished. BeAIM 1.0 is getting a bit long in the tooth and that's what I aim to fix.

Anyhow... be happy! The future is bright. Hopefully this next upgrade will be a worthy one, even if I can't tell you much about it right now. Cheers!

02 September 2000
Hello all,

Some bad news... BeAIM 1.2, obviously, is not yet done... and now it will have to be delayed for several months. I know this news will greatly annoy a whole lot of you, but there's nothing more I can do at this point. Early tomorrow morning, I'll be jumping on a plane to spend a semester in Europe, so work on BeAIM will basically stop for a while.

Let me clear this up right now: BeAIM is not dead. I fully intend to start work again when I get back from my trip, sometime in mid-December.

Some background... I had planned great things for BeAIM to happen this summer, but I had no idea how crazy things would turn out to be. My job, my work on BeBits, and some other things in my life took up much more time than I had expected they would. Also, when I did find time to work on BeAIM, the coding went far slower than I had expected and hoped. There was some bad planning and time estimations on my part, and I apologize for that, especially to any of you were really relying on having the next version of BeAIM to work or play with.

Here's what happens now... I'm sorry, but I just don't feel that BeAIM 1.2 is far enough along yet to release in any form. There's just too much critical code that's buggy and/or incomplete. So, as much as I hate to leave you with just BeAIM 1.0, that's what I'll have to do. There's very little chance that I'll be doing any work while I'm in Europe... I'll have access to a BeOS machine, but coding is probably the *last* thing I'll be wanting to do there! This is really my first chance to go anywhere special (and quite possibly my last chance for a while!)

The BeAIM 1.0 source code is, and has been, available for some time. If some of you want to make changes, additions, or fixes, feel free to do so... send me the source and/or binaries and I'll post them here... and when I get back, I'll quite probably merge them into the source tree. A request for developers: please don't fracture BeAIM into new projects! As I said, I'll post any new stuff you come up with while I can't work on BeAIM, but I would like to see it stay whole in the long run, so please keep that in mind!

As a side note for BONE beta testers (and for everybody else if BONE gets released before I get back): BeAIM 1.0 does *not* work with BONE. If you are running BONE, please download this BONE-enabled version of BeAIM 1.0. It's pretty badly hacked, and doesn't work with the current net_server, but it will work in the meantime. BeAIM 1.2 has much better and cleaner network code that works with both BeOS network implementations.

That's all for now, I guess. Once again, I'm terribly sorry to have to leave everybody hanging like this. I wish everybody the best during the next few months, and thanks for your support!

07 August 2000
The next version of BeAIM continues to progress, but delay after delay continues to pile up, the schedule has been blown, and in general things are taking way longer than I hoped they would. If I were paranoid, I'd be thinking that it's a conspiracy and nobody *wants* me to release this upgrade, but... naaah.

Anyway... at this point, all bets are off. Before long, I promise I will release *something*. It will likely have the features I announced a bit ago. It might even have more. But, please don't count on anything. I'm not going to say anything more, either... it always seems to come back and bite me! I may very well release beta versions, and this time around I'll probably do that publicly... there have been enough changes that it's probably a good idea. But even that is not for sure.

Sorry about all this. Thanks for your patience. I'm doing my best to make all this worth the wait.

31 July 2000
Greetings BeAIMers,

I've got a bit more news about where things stand currently and where they are going. BeAIM 1.2 is coming along very well and is looking pretty nice. I had originally intended to be able to release it at the end of July (which would be tomorrow) but I don't think that's going to happen... although BeAIM 1.2 is almost feature-complete at this point, there are quite a few loose ends I need to wrap up. However, some of you will be happy to know that I managed to add some good proxy support to version 1.2 - BeAIM can now connect through both SOCKS5 and HTTPS proxy servers, with or without authentication.

Based on some of the e-mail I've been getting lately, I'm not being terribly clear on my intentions... so, here's a broad overview of the way things are. BeAIM 1.2 is my attempt to tie up a lot of loose ends and do some much needed code maintenance. You probably won't notice many differences, but it should work much better overall. After that, I intend to add in some of the major features that you've been begging for (chat rooms, file transfer, buddy icons). I don't know how long this will take me... there is a lot of work involved. I am *not* intentionally holding these features back because I'm a jerk or because I don't like them... they simply aren't coded yet, and it takes time to code them. I also have a day job, you know!

There's also a time issue involved - I'm doing the best I can to get as much stuff done as possible by the end of August. On September 2nd, I leave for a semester overseas in Europe. I'll probably have a BeOS-capable laptop there, but I don't expect to be doing much coding while in Europe! I'll release as much as I can before I leave, but only if I'm satisfied with it.

Again, sorry about the delay in releasing BeAIM 1.2... it will debut shortly. Thanks for your patience.

17 July 2000
I don't have too much new information to post, but here's what I can say (with any confidence) about the next version of BeAIM. The next version (tentatively to be called BeAIM 1.2) will have a bunch of new, nifty little features, although nothing earth shattering. It has brand new networking code that works great and doesn't crash... (and also works great on systems with or without BONE). Buddylist management is being completely rewritten (it needed it), and you'll finally be able to reorder buddies and groups using drag and drop. The block list functionality is being upgraded to allow more "block modes", so you can do stuff like only allow users on your buddy list to talk to you, or even restrict/allow users based on their buddylist group. Sound effects will work better and be more configurable. (Well, they'll work better for some people who have crappy drivers for their sound cards, myself included. :-) Importing buddylists will work better and be more stable. Many bugs will be fixed. Oh, and there's a cool new icon and logo too (BeAIM is finally rid of the AOL icon!)

The standard disclaimers apply to the information above... most of it will probably happen, but it's not definite. There may be more, there may be less. It seems like whenever I post information about upcoming releases, I end up being wrong, so take it with a grain of salt. :-) Before anyone asks... Group chat, file transfer, and buddy icons will *not* be included. Have patience... I'm working on that kind of thing, but it's not ready yet. However, BeAIM 1.2 has a lot of changes behind the scenes that will help me to include fun stuff like that later on. Think BeAIM 2.0. :-)

Release timing: hopefully within a week or two. I'm working as fast as I can, and cool stuff is happening (although not as fast as I'd like it to!) I won't release it until I'm satisfied, no matter how much y'all bug me. :-) Anyway, if all of you have bugs from version 1.0 that you haven't reported, now is the time to do it! I want to fix as many of them as possible for version 1.2. Thanks!

5 July 2000
OK, everybody, here's how things stand with BeAIM right now... there *will* be a new version coming fairly soon. Right now, although BeAIM works fine for most people, there are a few bits that don't work very well at all. Right now, my main goal is to fix those bits for the next release. There won't be too many new features, although I am adding some nifty new stuff. Tbere will be a *lot* of changes, but most of them will be under the hood - if everything goes as planned, you shouldn't notice too many differences other than that the whole thing simply works better and doesn't break as much.

So, that's what I'm currently working on. It's not going as quickly as I would have liked, but the hard stuff should soon be completed, so expect that release in a week or two.

After that, I'm going to jump right in and start adding the "big ones" - and yes, file transfer and group chat are both on the list. This is *not* a guarantee that they will make it into a release anytime soon, but rest assured that I'm working on them. I know everyone is impatient, but I'm doing the best I can, so you'll just have to wait. :-)

15 June 2000
Well, my cable modem is now installed! It's costing me an insane amount of money each month, but such is life. I now have a nice, fast, 24/7 connection to the Internet, and I'm actively working on BeAIM once more. I have a huge list of features I want to implement and things I want to try, but I simply can't do all of them, and I haven't yet decided which ones I want to do yet, so there's little point in announcing them.  :-)

However, I realize that BeAIM 1.0 has a few nasty bugs that really need fixing. So I'll try to get a bugfix release out the door soon, and hold off on all the new and cool stuff for a while yet. In any case, I want to release at least one new version of BeAIM this summer, and hopefully more.

Please feel free to send in feature requests! I take every suggestion I get seriously; that doesn't mean I implement everything people ask for, but it's still worth asking. Some of the coolest things in BeAIM weren't even my idea, although many were.  :-)

26 May 2000
OK, it's about time I filled you in about where BeAIM is and where it's going. I'm back from college now, but now that I'm home, Internet access is pretty bad (just a dialup line I have to share with the rest of my family). I think I'm going to take the plunge and get a cable modem for the summer, though, which will (naturally) make working on BeAIM quite a bit easier, since I'll have a decent network connection. In the meantime, I've been writing a lot of user interface code. :-)

Anyway... BeAIM as a whole is kind of messed up right now. I came to the conclusion a week or two ago that if BeAIM was to advance much further, it was going to need some extensive rewriting. That's basically what I've been doing for the last 2 weeks or so. So, although everything is in pieces right now, it will all start getting better again fairly soon.

Unfortunately, there's almost nothing I can say at this point about features, release dates, and so on... there are too many crazy circumstances I need to resolve. For example, I accidentally wrote my new network code with some features that are only available in BONE. So either nobody gets a new version of BeAIM until BONE is released or I have to do some more crazy hacking. Not necessarily an easy choice!

I can tell you that the next release won't contain any truly exciting new features... a bunch of bug fixes, some polished edges, and some new code I've been toying with. At this point, that's about all you're going to hear from me. (Probably a good thing; I usually end up contradicting myself anyway!) No betas or anything are available yet, so don't ask. I'll post more information as soon as I have it.

27 April 2000
Many people have asked what's going on lately with BeAIM, so here's the scoop. To start out with: BeAIM is not dead... it's just sleeping. I haven't touched the BeAIM source for quite a while now, because I simply haven't had the time. School is bearing down really hard on me right now, as is my role as a BeBits administrator, which is what helps pay the bills. I like working on BeAIM, and there are features I would like to see as much as the rest of you, but it's just not as high of a priority as BeBits and keeping my grades up - and that's the way it is.

This doesn't mean that I'm giving up on BeAIM - I'm not. But BeAIM doesn't seem to be something I can work on in bits and pieces... once I get started coding, I tend to go all out for a while, get some good work done, and then leave it alone for a while. That's just the way I am. Right now, with everything else going on, I don't have the time to dedicate to BeAIM (even though I'd like to). So I have to ask you to be patient for a while longer. If things work out like I hope they will, this summer I'll be doing BeBits as a fulltime job. This will leave a lot more time open for BeAIM than I would have if I were working a fulltime job and working on BeBits. So, cross your fingers, and when the BeBits e-commerce system comes out soon, please buy stuff. You'll be supporting BeAIM in a very real sense.

Having said all that, here's what I would like to do. BeAIM 1.0, as nice as it is, has several naughty bugs that really need fixing. I'd like to nail as many of these as possible, and then put out a maintenance release. After that, I can get started on some other features. Please, before you ask, understand that adding the newer stuff is tricky... no one outside AOL has information on how it works, so I have to reverse-engineer everything myself. It takes time and it's tough to do. BeAIM is missing stuff like chat, file transfer, sending pictures (like you can do in AIM 4.0)... but all of that requires a lot of time and a lot of code, so you'll have to be patient. Not to mention that I'm only one person, so there's no way I can keep up with AOL. Don't ask for release dates, either; I always seem to miss them when I say anything, so you'll have to wait until work is further along.

Anyway, you get the point. BeAIM is a nice program, and most people really seem to like it, despite the annoying bugs and missing features. Thanks to everyone who sends me nice mail... it really helps motivate me when people think my effort is worthwhile. I'll try to keep this page updated when things start rolling again. Thanks for your patience!

18 February 2000
Hello everybody, here's the news you've been waiting for... at long last, BeAIM 1.0 has been released! I know people have been waiting for this for a really long time now, but I hope you'll agree that it was worth the wait. This version is far more advanced than Beta 2.1 was. So pop on over to the download page and grab it! Thanks for your patience. I'll post the source code in a couple of days.

Update: The source code for version 1.0 is now available on the download page. Once again, I'd be interested in hearing from anyone willing to do a PowerPC port - that is, if anyone still cares... :-)

12 February 2000
Hey all, time for a real quick update on BeAIM. Version 1.0 is coming along very well, and will be out the door by February 18th at the latest (in order to make the BeBits CD deadline). New features will include full support for away messages, warning, blocking, and some other stuff. There are also many, many other bug fixes. Sorry for not providing more info, but I'm in a bit of a hurry... all I can say is that you should be satisfied with it. Stay tuned... :-)

22 January 2000
Greetings, BeAIM users of the world! The latest news: I'm still working hard on BeAIM. I've fixed quite a number of bugs in the last 2 weeks or so, and yes, away messages are working great in my latest development copy! Saving of window positions is partially implemented. There are also a ton of other improvements here and there, too minor to list here, but still very worthwhile. There's still a bunch of stuff I would like to add, too, but I have to stop somewhere, so BeAIM 1.0 won't have anywhere near all the stuff I wanted in it. So you can count on there being a BeAIM 1.1 sometime in the future, with all kinds of goodies that I'm not even going to hint at for fear that I'll never finish coding them!

OK, release dates... the 1.0 release date has been slipping back, from early January, to late January, and now I'm going to say early February. I'm going back to school in a couple of days, so I'll have a reliable connection again... that should let me finish things up much faster than I've been able to do with a modem on a shared line.

As for the web site, I've stripped all the content that's way out of date, and added a load of new screenshots for your enjoyment. Most of these shots are from my development copy of BeAIM 1.0, so it's kind of like a sneak preview.  :-)  Unrelated note... if you are a PPC owner with some coding experience, and you are interested in porting BeAIM 1.0 to PPC when I finish it, please get in touch with me! Thanks.

28 December 1999
Happy Birthday to BeAIM! It's been almost exactly one year since I saw a story about BeCQ on BeNews, decided that BeOS needed an AIM client, and thought that perhaps I could be the one to write it. I did a bit of research, put up a website, and in a few weeks BeAIM Beta 1 hit the streets... and boy was it bad!. Happily, things have improved a whole lot since then.

Anyway, things have been ticking along nicely since my last update, and BeAIM is getting closer to the next release (this will be release number 10 (!), counting all the alphas and betas). It was going to be a simple bug fix release called Beta 2.5, but I changed my mind again. Instead, there will be a ton of new features (bug fixes too) and it will be called BeAIM 1.0 (I decided it was time to get away from the Beta naming scheme... it didn't mean all that much anyway).

BeAIM 1.0 will have full support for away messages (this is already working nicely for me), and you'll be able to set your own profile. The user interface has a few minor changes, although I may add some other ones before I'm done. General functionality w on't change terribly much, although I'm finally finishing a few things that should have been done long ago, and there are a few major bug fixes that will make BeAIM work much better for a few people. That's all the major stuff I can think of, although I'v e been changing so many things I'm sure there's more. BeAIM 1.0 isn't finished yet; if there are things that you need or would really like to have, let me know ASAP... I can't promise anything, but I'll do my best.

I've got a new BeAIM website about half done, with all new screenshots... I'll try and get that up in a couple of days (or weeks) so there will finally be some correct information available. Thanks to everyone who uses BeAIM and reads these updates and gi ves me support... I hope that you all have a great time for the rest of the holidays!

29 November 1999
Rumors of the death of BeAIM have been greatly exaggerated.

As most of you know, BeAIM development has been in deep-freeze for quite some time now. However, I'm pleased to announce that it's starting back up again, and I'm going to make BeAIM a better client than ever! Much thanks goes to WinTECH Software, who gave me a huge discount on a Winsock Spy program... for you non-techies, this is an essential bit of software that will let me "spy" on how AIM for Windows does things, and figure out how to make BeAIM do them too. This will greatly speed up BeAIM development.

So now, you'll all be wanting to know about features and release dates, right? Well, first up is a bug fix release, to be tentatively versioned Beta 2.5. This should be out in a couple of weeks, and it will fix several rather embarassing bugs and add a fe w very minor features (mostly in the UI). Then, with the help of my shiny new socket spy, I'll be able to start adding AIM features for a later release. Away messages, which are by far the most requested feature I've gotten lately, are rather high on the list; also, I'd like to add features like blocking, warning, and some of the enhanced search stuff. And way down the line, I'll tackle AIM 2.0 features like chat and file transfer. And since I'm a perfectionist, there will also be many UI improvements alo ng the way... I like BeAIM's UI, but there are lots of things I would like to improve. Also, this website needs much work... almost everything on it is out of date!

Before y'all get too excited (assuming anyone actually reads this thing...) here's a reality check. BeAIM is not my top priority; I'm busy much of the time working on BeBits, school, and trying to fit in a social life now and then. I'll do the best I can, but don't expect miracles. Keep watching BeBits, and maybe sign up for BeAIM updates there... I'll post any new versions when they're finished.

23 July 1999
OK, I know, it's been a while since I updated... April, to be exact. (oops!) Anyway, BeAIM Beta 2.1 has now been released. Basically, it's the same as BeAIM Beta 2, except it's much more R4.5 friendly, a nd it has some new links to the BeAIM home page (the old ones don't work anymore).

Gimmick is ticking along, but this isn't the place for that information... go to gimmick.org to get the skinny on what's new with that. And give BeBits a try... it's one of my late st ventures (with a friend) and quite frankly, it rocks. Since Beware is about dead, this is the new one. Only the Intel version of 2.1 is up now, the PPC version will be coming as soon as someone compiles it for me. (Any takers?) Catch y'all later!

19 April 1999
Status update... BeAIM development has been lagging a bit, as I've have been spending nearly all my time working on Gimmick. (If you don't know what Gimmick is, pop over to the Gimmick page and find out, join the mailing list, etc.) Before y'all get a bee in your bonnet, this doesn't mean that BeAIM is dead, or that I'm giving up on BeAIM development, etc. Only that at the moment, getting the Gimmick underpinn ings working takes priority over working on BeAIM.

I haven't decided whether BeAIM will continue as a separate program once Gimmick is usable... it's not as much of a major decision as some people seem to think, since almost all of BeAIM is going to find its way into Gimmick anyway. But you can be assured that I'm not going to stop doing development on advanced AIM features... eventually they will find their way onto the BeOS, in one form or another. In any case, as of Beta 2, BeAIM is a good enough client to last you a while, and I really don't think you 'll be disappointed with Gimmick. I'll still be doing bug fixes on BeAIM, so keep sending them in, and maybe some features occasionally. Just realize that for the moment, Gimmick's got my attention.

9 April 1999
Alrighty, Beta 2 has hit the streets! Go grab it (for Intel at least) on the download page. As per usual, the first person to compile a PPC version for me gets a cookie... err, well, my undying gratitude at least! :-)

This is mainly a bug fix release, and it is much more stable than Beta 1 was. Even so, there are quite a few minor improvements here and there, including the long awaited deskbar icon. Also, BeAIM now reports your idle time to the server (although this can be disabled). All in all, it's a worthwhile release. Go grab it!

Update: For those of you who downloaded the Intel version or the source right after I posted it, you will want to download again. There is an obvious bug that makes saving prefs not work - it slipped in at the last minute and I should have caught this. Sorry.
Update (again): The PPC binary has been posted - thanks to Paul Stadig. Go grab it, Mac/BeBoxers...

7 April 1999
OK, time for an update. Beta 2 will be out later this week (tomorrow or Friday). The major bugs of Beta 1 have all been fixed now, and I'm busy doing wrapup. Other than bug fixes, Beta 2 has nothing eart h-shatteringly cool... but there are a few new features, and I have added support for reporting your idle time to the AIM server, so the world will be able to see how long you've been idle (of course, you'll be able to disable this).

Lately, the big sport has been "Bug Greg So That He'll Put In Status/Away Messages!" OK, I hear ya, people. I've done some preliminary work on these, and I'm aiming to have them working fully for Beta 3. Beta 3 will also have an entirely new (and from ear ly reports, far more reliable) networking engine. This is a Good Thing, and it will also enable me to put in even more cool features down the road that I can't right now, because the current networking code (which I wrote) really sucks. Oops. :-)

The other thing I hear a lot about lately? AOL Instant Messenger 2.0. The final version has a whole slew of features that were mysteriously absent from the betas that have been available for, well, a good few months now. Trust me, I know that they're ther e, but please understand that it will take me a while to implement them! But trust me, it'll happen. The very first Alpha of BeAIM was posted on January 12th... it's only April 7th, and BeAIM is arguably the most feature-rich non-official AIM clone on any platform! Things will be slower now that I'm not on proven ground any more, but just keep watching and it will happen! And in the meantime, be sure to check out Gimmick, at it's newly registered gimmick.org dom ain!

24 March 1999
Beta 1 has been posted! (Now the PPC version is up as well, so have at it...)

Beta 1 has a TON of new features, rewrites, etc... but to be honest, I'm exausted right now and not in the mood to post the list. Check the download page for more info, and be sure to read the installation file to convert your buddy list and get sounds wo rking. I will update this more later or something... but for now, enjoy!

14 March 1999
OK, I figure it's time for an update, since people keep asking me about Alpha 6. First of all, it's gonna be Beta 1 now... I figure it's about time BeAIM gets out of alpha! :-)

I'm sorry about the wait, but it should be worth it... there is a lot of new stuff in BeAIM now. The big addition is the one you won't see... I completely rewrote the underlying AIM protocol code. It is now much cleaner, and probably more efficient . This will make it easier to add features... and I have already added a few. Look for commands to get someone's profile (although you still can't edit yours, sorry), search-by-email, send and receive warnings, and a few other things. On the user interfac e side, I have corrected a few quirks here and there and added some neat stuff... those of you who have been begging for auto-login and "live" URL weblinks will finally get them. And underneath all this, I did quite a bit of code reorganization to fix som e ugly design flaws that I should have gotten right the first time around. Finally, in a surprising (even to me!) addition, BeAIM will finally get some sound effects... mostly thanks to Sean Heber who wrote a nifty sound library (since I don't have a soun d card that works in BeOS yet.) There's still a smidgen of cleanup to do there, but from what I hear (pun intended :-) it works quite well.

Release date: I had planned to release the new beta this week sometime, but this looks to be a heavy week school-wise, so that might get pushed back a bit. It'll be soon, though... if not this week, then early next. Check back every once in a while. As fo r the multi-protocol framework: I haven't coded much lately because of the BeAIM beta, but I'm going to start whumping away on that right after Beta 1 is released. The delay has given me some time to flesh out how the thing is actually going to work... an d it's going to be pretty cool! I will let you know more as I get it working.

Finally, on the name front... I still don't have a name, but for now I'm gonna code-name the sucker so that I don't have to refer to it as "the new BeAIM" all the time. Plus, every cool app's gotta have a code name anyway. :-) So from now on I'm going t o refer to it as "Gimmick." Remember... that's a code name, not the final name, so if you don't like it, don't worry too much about it! :-)

1 March 1999
Well, so much for 5.1 being "perfectly stable." I have now gotten several reports of crashing (all due to the same bug.) It might take a while to fix... but overall, Alpha 5.1 is still stable about 98% o f the time. Not bad, I'd say. But if it crashes for you, send in a report anyway! Also, I just found out that BeAIM has problems if the person you are chatting with is using a Mac/Windows client in a language other than English. I know the reason f or this, and I'm hoping for a temporary fix coming up... but I have a sinking feeling that to fix it entirely will involve messing with Unicode. Hard to write, and hard to test. I'll keep you posted.

The rewrite is coming along very nicely; it will make it much easier to add the kind of features people have been asking me for. The tentative list of upcoming features includes warning, search-by-email, getting someone's info, and being able to ch ange your buddylist and have the changes show up on the server. Not all of this will be in the next release, but stuff like this should come pretty fast with my new rewrite. And... BeAIM will finally be able to do no-brainer things like tell you if your p assword was wrong! (gasp!)

I changed my mind, and decided that I will release another Alpha after all before I jump completely into multi-protocoling it. If everything keeps up at this rate, you can expect the next release in a couple of days to a week. It will (finally) be called Beta 1, since I don't think BeAIM qualifies as an Alpha anymore. :-)

22 February 1999
OK, I know I haven't updated in quite some time now, so here's the scoop on where things are going. I had planned to use Alpha 6 as the bug fix to end all bug fixes. I was going to make BeAIM absolut ely stable, non-crashing, and the messaging rock solid. But I think I beat my own deadline... after I fixed the GenList bug and the clumping bug in 5.0 and 5.1, BeAIM seems to quite solid... leaving me with nothing to fix! Also, I have gotten no cr ash reports since the 5.1 release, and quite a few people have told me they are having no problems at all. So I have to assume that BeAIM is already stable, which is good.

Right now, BeAIM is what I originally intended it to be: a stable, usuable (although not feature-rich) AIM client for Be. I know that there are a lot of interface annoyances to overcome, and that occasionally it can lose your buddy list, and that in obscu re cases it can refuse to receive messages with strange or foreign characters in them. But for a 2-3 month old program with a part time developer, BeAIM is in remarkably good shape.

So now, I'm going to go ahead and concentrate on the multi-protocol framework. If I add too many features to BeAIM now, then they will have to be rewritten (or changed a lot, at least) to fit into the framework, so I feel that it makes the most sense to h old off on adding them. If there is something that you need, don't hesitate to contact me... but as of now, I don't plan on releasing an Alpha 6 unless something crops up to change my mind. When I get the framework completed and some features added , BeAIM will become Beta 1. (About time!) I'm sorry I can't give much of a time frame on this... but please don't assume BeAIM is dead if I don't update for a while!

I will probably set up a BeAIM mailing list in the near future, so y'all can discuss ideas amongst yourselves, and I can post updates there as well as here. But for now, this is where things are going.

8 February 1999
OK, 'yall... Alpha 5 has been posted. It's got lots of nifty stuff included... the main attraction is that working buddylist manager that has been missing for so long, b ut there are lots of other new features. Sorry it took so long.

At this point, BeAIM is a fairly usable AIM client, at least from the user-interface standpoint. It's still missing quite a few things, but it should keep you happy for a while. And in keeping with the grand BeAIM tradition, it's still a bit... unstable. I have done very little with the network code that actually does the work, so if you had any problems with Alpha 4, Alpha 5 will most likely not fix them. I know this will be disappointing to many of you.

But here's the good news... while Alpha 5 did nothing to improve that situation, Alpha 6 will. I'm going to lay off the interface for a while and focus solely on stability issues. The AIM code will get a complete rewrite to make it cleaner and easier to d ebug, and I am aiming to reduce crashes by at least 75%. I've already made some progess in figuring out what is going wrong, but I still will need your help: if BeAIM crashes, I need you to send in those bug reports and stack crawls! It makes things much easier on me, and it will let me put out Alpha 6 that much earlier. Thanks for staying with me!


2 February 1999
The Bug from Hell has been fixed! BeAIM had a very nasty bug that was causing severe problems with the brand new BuddyList structure in Alpha 5. I guess this doesn't deserve an update, but this bug ha s been haunting me for over a week now. The problem, strangely enough, was in my GenList class - an extremely useful, general purpose dynamic array class that I wrote a good 6 months ago. It has been in heavy use ever since, and has always worked perfectl y... until now. I'm amazed I haven't run into this bug before... just goes to show that nothing is ever bug free, no matter how convinced you are otherwise.

Anyway... in trying to fix it, I rewrote the BuddyList class - twice. Rewrite number 2 is currently 99% implemented (the other 1% is for wierd glitches I'm sure I haven't found yet). Then I just have to update some protocol stuff and add a few other promi sed features, and Alpha 5 should be ready. The timeframe on release is still a bit vague - but unless something major goes wrong (again), think a couple of days to a week.

Again, sorry about the delay. I think that some of the new features will make it worth the wait though! And yes, I am pounding away at the "random crashes" problem, and I've even made a bit of headway. Y'all could help me a lot by sending in stack crawls... learn how to do that on the Contact page.


30 January 1999
I'm sorry that Alpha 5 has been delayed so long... I know there are a lot of people waiting for it. I have run into a couple of bugs of the tear-your-hair-out variety that must be fixed before I can reasonably release it. Releasing buggy software is one thing - that's why it's an alpha. Releasing unusable software is, in my book, quite another.

Also, I know that BeAIM crashes occasionally. All I can do is apologize about this. It's really frustrating releasing buggy software like this, but it's also very hard to debug, and the bugs are often extremely hard to reproduce. So I have t o warn you that they might stick around a while. If you look at other (mainly ICQ) clones that have been made by decoding the protocol, you might notice that some bugs stick around for a long time... well into the 2nd or 3rd version in some cases. I'm doing my best, but I'm still new at this game.

Also, it seems that the main AIM server is getting a bit flaky as of late. I was having some problems, so I tried an older Alpha version of BeAIM that I had used to chat for a couple of hours once, with no problems, and that messed up too. It's very frust rating, and it really slows me down! That said, though, Alpha 5 has some new networking code that should improve things a bit. There won't be much improvement in the IM send/receive code... although I have found yet another bug in there, it' s kind of obscure and I just haven't had time to mess with it.

Bottom line: expect Alpha 5 in the next couple of days to a week. It will have some neat new stuff (see earlier updates) but it won't be problem free, and it'll probably still crash. As always, I'm working on it.


24 January 1999
Permit me a quick rant. Right now, I hate Windows a lot. I hate long boot times, I hate random crashes, and I hate it when it decides to pause for about 2 seconds when saving or something, and I can't even use the mouse. I would love to use BeOS much more often, or all the time if possible, but I can't. Why not? Two words: Outlook Express.

Between BeAIM, Legions, and rest of the world, I get lots of email. I need a decent mail client, with filtering and multiple account support and an option to leave mail on the server. Outlook Express has this, a nd it's free. Be does not have a mail client like this that is free.

No, I'm not a free software bigot who won't spend money on something decent. I'm just broke, that's all. I'm a student, my workstudy advisor only schedules me for about 3 hours a week, and the job pays peanuts. I can't afford to pay for a decen t mail client. So here's the call to action for some enterprising developer... please, please make a good mail client at a price (free?) that dead broke students can handle. And as for you, Be. Inc., please update yo ur Matrox G200 drivers so they can do more than 67.7 Hz at 1280x102 using 16-bit color. Both my card and monitor are perfectly capable of handling 80 Hz at that resolution, and 67.7 slowly gives me a headache. After all that, if someone would write Monste r Sound MX200 drivers and that darned Bezilla port would get finished, I'd be happy as a clam. At least I wouldn't be stuck using Windows as much.

Sigh... OK, back to BeAIM. Alpha 5 is ticking along nicely now, and for the first time, BeAIM will actually include preferences, and that maybe that neat Status menu that shows up in the screenshots. Also, a lot of people have been begging for a de skbar replicant, so I have been working on that as well. Replicants are cool, especially now that I actually have one working. (It might not make it into A5 though...)


22 January 1999
Well here ya go.... the new page is up, there is finally a PPC binary, and the source is now released! Before you go and download it and start hacking, though, please read the gen eral notes on the developers page. Also, I was a Windows developer for a long time, and the whole idea of giving away my source is a bit new to me. So humor me and read my very own software license - it's not exactly a defini tive legal document, but at least it'll give you some idea of how I want the source to be used.


20 January 1999
It's been about a week since my last update, but things have been crazy around here. I am now back in school, and spring semester has started... the bad news is that the homework is going to start eat ing into my BeAIM dev time. The good news is that I am on the school's fast fiber connection now, which makes debugging much easier. (Modems... ugh.)

Anyway... Alpha 4 is now out, and the message receiving code is much improved. I would definitely download it if you have been having problems, and see if it fixes things for you. It's not a huge update, but it fixes a bunch of little, annoying bugs, and it adds one extremely handy feature: the buddy list and the chat windows can follow you around when you switch workspaces now. This is quite useful if you are constantly switching like I am... you don't have to remember to switch back to see if the other person has sent you something.

Also, I am finishing up a new web page for BeAIM (yay!) since it has rather outgrown this one. It will be hosted on BeOSCentral, so it should be easier to find. And I am reeeeeeeeally close to releasing the source. Promise! I have been telling people that it will be out within this next week or so. It will! No, honest! :-)


13 January 1999
Alpha 3 is now out, and it has some important fixes. Download and read the docs for more info. 3 alphas in about 25 hours... not bad. Boy am I tired. Speaking of which, after this week BeAIM will not be progressing at such a frenzied pace. My second semester starts next Monday, so there will be quite a few more demands on my time. Don't worry, I will still try and get a fair amount of work done. Yes, source is coming soon... :-)


13 January 1999
Eureka! Victory! And stuff! OK, after a few hours of hacking, with printouts and hex-codes and things that came straight out of hacker movies, my chief beta tester and I have fixed that nasty bug that has already bitten several people. And out of the mists comes... Alpha 2. Download it now, folks, and let your worries cease.


12 January 1999
Found a login bug... read the gray box at the top of the page. Sorry folks, but it is an alpha... :-)
Anyway, I'm leaving now to go work on it.


12 January 1999
OK, boys and girls, the alpha is out! Go download it, give it a try, and send me bug reports. And please, please read the readme file. It will help brighten your day.

Note that for the reasons stated above, this is an Intel only release. Source will follow shortly, within a couple of days.


11 January 1999
All right, the alpha is more or less finished! I know several people have been waiting impatiently for this, and sometime tonight (or tomorrow at latest) you can download it. I just have to get some d ocs written.

In the limited testing I have done with it, it seems to work decently. The alpha only does what I have said it will do all along now: basic buddy list stuff, and sending and receiving IM's. But as far as I know, it will be the first working release of an AIM client for BeOS! More when I get it posted.


10 January 1999
No, I haven't forgotten about the alpha! I might have to push it back a day or two (and if things go really well, I might not.) I ran into some difficulties that had me tearing my hair out, involving the fact that R4 sockets are NOT POSIX-compliant (i.e., you can't treat them as file descriptors). But I managed to rewrite the relevant sections of code, and last night BeAIM was actually signed on to AIM and sending messages! Receiving IM's is probably going to happen today.

I have moved away from just using other people's code flat-out (especially since some of it won't work in Be because of the stupid sockets.) Instead, I am making some nice, semi-generic C++ classes that will handle most of the networking, and prov ide hooks for common "chat-program" functions. (See where this is going?)

Anyway... the alpha... BeAIM version .001 will probably be posted on Monday or Tuesday at the latest. I will post binaries for R4/Intel, and probably source code as well. (I have no idea if the source will work on PPC; there are probably some endi an issues to work out... in the AIM protocol, everything is in binary!) If the alpha is going to be any later, I will post something here. As always, email me w/ any questions and the like.


4 January 1999
OK... several people have been pestering me for betas, so here's the scoop: folks, there isn't even an alpha yet. That said, though, there will be very soon - best guess is in a week or so.

I made a ton of progress today (so much for weekends... ha!) and I should have something release-able very soon. It ain't gonna be pretty, and will have lots of rough edges and missing features. However, it will do IM'ing and should satisfy yer cravin gs to have AIM on BeOS. Source code will follow soon after, (Open Source - yay!) and with other people than me working on this sucker, it should be done in no time. (Those screen shots are now out of date, BTW.)