Miranda NG 0.95 introduced support for full-fledged meta-contacts in the kernel. What's next?

    Almost 2 years have passed since the main developers of Miranda IM switched to the Miranda NG fork . Since then, Miranda IM has practically not developed, but Miranda NG is slowly but surely moving forward. At the beginning of 2014, version 0.94 was released with support for encryption in the kernel, and most recently , release 0.95 was released, where full support for meta-contacts was implemented instead of the crutch that had been used for years before. Now each contact has its own story, and the meta-contact has a common history without duplicating entries in the database.

    Recently, Skype, Hangouts and Viber systems, which, unfortunately, operate on closed protocols, have become popular. Microsoft turned off SkypeKit support, so the full Skype support plugin for Miranda NG was frozen. For Hangouts and Viber, such libraries were not released at all. For this reason, unfortunately, we don’t really have to count on the appearance of decent support for these IM systems. And due to the lack of support for these systems, many users refused to use Miranda and similar clients, along with the abandonment of ICQ, which was popular in the old days.

    Unfortunately, the free Jabber did not win the love of the masses. Google has ended support for Google Talk, switching its users to private Hangouts. However, Google did not particularly try to promote Google Talk, the project did not develop for many years - it is not surprising that it did not become popular. VKontakte has already closed its Jabber server a long time ago, although once they promised that their Jabber server would eventually allow them to communicate not only with vk.com users, but also with the outside world. Despite the abundance of extensions for the Jabber protocol, few of the clients support audio and video calls, and those who support are often incompatible with each other. Jingle did not become a Jabber extension that customers would want to implement without fail. For example, support for Jabber audio calls in Miranda is planned only in version 0.97 and it remains to be seen how well it will be compatible with other implementations.

    In this regard, the new Tox free project is very interesting.(decentralized IM). The developers thoroughly took up the study of the protocol. They want it to support all major Skype features by default, including audio and video calls (without the need for additional extensions). In order to avoid the problem of incompatibility between clients, as happened with Jabber, Tox developers propose using a single core, which performs all the internal work on P2P functioning and supporting all protocol features, and client developers only need to implement the kernel capabilities in the interface. So far, work is in full swing, and there is no ready-to-use option yet. But time passes, in time everything will be. Such an ambitious project must be brought to the release!

    So, back to Miranda NG. The project has largeplans for the future , in version 0.97 the most significant changes are planned:
    Multimedia revolution:
    - phonebook support on the base of virtual contacts;
    - media sessions' manager;
    - support for SIP phone calls;
    - support for the peer-to-peer phone & video calls;
    - Jingle support.
    In my opinion, the implementation of “peer-to-peer phone & video calls” based on Tox is the best option for Miranda. If this comes along with support for SIP calls and Jingle support for Jabber - you can’t imagine a better free harvester for IM under Windows.

    The developers of Miranda NG recently launched a page on uservoice.com in order to see which of the ideas are most interesting to users. Interesting offers:
    • Tox support - the developers wrote that work on Tox support has already begun, but the priority in this area is still very small. However, as the release of Tox comes closer, priorities may change, I think.
    • Support for Telegram , Bitmessage , WhatsApp - you give even more protocols! :)
    • Support for audio / video calls in Jabber - although this is planned, you can support the initiative of the developers with your own voice.
    • A single-window interface plugin (like on Skype) is a good idea, and if such a plugin is implemented, then like everyone else in Miranda, it will be possible for those who wish to turn it on without imposing it on those who do not like this approach.

    You can chat with the developers or offer your help on the project forum . If you use Miranda NG - do not ignore the forum, write a couple of lines to the developers. Let them know that people use their product, that it is relevant and needed by someone.

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