Proteus (instant messenger)
Encyclopedia : P : PR : PRO : Proteus (instant messenger)
Proteus is an instant messenger client for Mac OS X that can access the Jabber, AIM, .Mac, ICQ, MSN, Lotus Sametime, Yahoo! Messenger and Yahoo! Japan networks, as well as supporting chat over local Bonjour networks.
The most current version of Proteus is 4.12, as of August 2005. Proteus is developed by Defaultware.
It was originally developed by [Justin Wood], then in 2004 Defaultware took over development.
Proteus's interface vaguely resembles that of Apple's AIM client iChat, although iChat is brushed metal, while Proteus uses the standard Aqua. However, unlike iChat, it has support for multiple networks, and can also group multiple conversations in one window using tabs. Proteus fails to support some features of the AIM network, such as embedded images, and has limited support for file transfers. It currently has no audio or video conferencing abilities.
Proteus uses libgaim to connect to multiple services. Libgaim is a natural progression of the Gaim project. This allows the Proteus developers to work on the interface of Proteus, without working on the connections. Other projects, including competitor Adium, also utilize libgaim.
Unlike libgaim, Proteus is not licensed under the GPL. It uses Distributed Notifications, which allows Proteus to send and get information to libgaim without actually including the GPL software in Proteus.
See also
External links
From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.