Trillian (software)

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This article is about the instant messaging client. For Trillian (disambiguation), see Trillian (software) (disambiguation).
Trillian
Developer(s)Cerulean Studios
Stable release
3.1.5.1 / May 1 2007
Operating systemMicrosoft Windows, Mac OS X (Astra only)
TypeInstant messaging client
LicenseProprietary EULA
Websitewww.ceruleanstudios.com

Trillian is a proprietary multiprotocol instant messaging application for Windows created by Cerulean Studios that can connect to multiple IM services, such as AIM, ICQ, Windows Live Messenger, Yahoo! Messenger, IRC, Novell GroupWise Messenger, Bonjour, Jabber, and Skype networks (the latter four with Trillian Pro which allows for additional plugins).

Initially released July 1 2000 as a freeware IRC client, the first commercial version (Trillian Pro 1.0) was published on September 10 2002. There are currently two types of Trillian available, the original and free Trillian Basic 3 and the commercial Trillian Pro 3. An upcoming product called Trillian Astra (4.0) has been announced and is currently in alpha testing.

Features

Connection to multiple IM services

Trillian connects to multiple instant messaging services without the need of running multiple clients. Users can create multiple connections to the same service, and can also group connections under separate identities to prevent confusion. All contacts are gathered under the same contact list. Contacts are not bound to their own IM service groups, and can be dragged and dropped freely.

Trillian represents each client with a different-colored sphere.File:Icon-msn-tri.png Prior versions used the corporate logos for each service, but these were removed to avoid copyright issues, although some skins still use the original icons for the mediums. The decision of colors were compared to subway lines in London Underground by the designer of Trillian.[1]

Standard IM services

Plugin IM services (Trillian Pro only)

Metacontact

To eliminate duplicates and simplify the structure of the contact list, users of Trillian Pro can 'bundle' multiple contacts of the same person into one entry in the contact list, using the Metacontact feature. Subcontacts will appear under the metacontact as small icons aligned in a manner of a tree.

Activity history

File:Features screenshots 2x2 zoom1.jpg
Activity History in action

Trillian Basic and Pro both come with Activity History, and both log the history as both plain text files and as XML-files. Pro has a History Manager which shows the chat history and allows the user to add bookmarks for revision later on. XML-based history makes the log easy to manipulate, searchable and extendable for future functions.[2]

Time travel

Trillian Pro also has the so-called Time Travel feature, allowing the user to record, and subsequently review, pause, rewind and fast forward live video and audio sessions.[3]

Instant lookup

File:Wikitrillian.jpg
Instant Lookup feature. Notice the differences between the tooltip and the article itself.

Starting with version 3.0 in both the Basic and Pro suites, Trillian makes use of the English version of the Wikipedia free online encyclopedia for real-time referencing using its database of free knowledge. The feature is employed directly within a conversation window of a user. When one or more words are entered (by either user), Trillian checks all words against a database file and if a match is found, the word appears with a dotted green underline. When the user points their mouse over the word, the corresponding article is downloaded from Wikipedia and displayed on screen as a tooltip. When the user clicks on the underlined word, they are given the choice to visit the article online. The tooltips displayed within Trillian are often shorter, more condensed versions of the articles on the website itself.

Emotiblips

Emotiblips™ are the video equivalent of an emoticon. During video sessions, the user may stream a song or video to the other user in real time. One can send MP3s, WAVs, WMVs, and MPGs with this feature. QuickTime MOV files as Emotiblips are not currently supported.

Hidden smileys

In version 2.0 to the current, the default emoticon set contains emoticons that don't appear in the menu but can be used in conversations. Some of these are animations that can only be appreciated in Trillian Pro, but all of them can be used regardless.

A comprehensive list of smileys can be found here or here.

Skins and interfaces

Trillian has its own unique skinning engine known as SkinXML. Many skins have been developed for Trillian and they can be downloaded from the official skins gallery or deviantArt.

Trillian also came with an easier skinning language, Stixe, which is essentially a set of XML Entities that simplifies repetitive codes and allows skinners to share XML and graphics in the form of emoticon packs, sound packs and interfaces.

The default skins of Trillian are designed by designHazard. Trillian Cordillera was used in Trillian 0.7x, while Trillian Whistler has been the default skin for Trillian since Pro 1.0. Slight cosmetic changes were noticeable in each major release.

The upcoming Trillian Astra will feature a brand new design for the front-end UI, to be called Trillian Cordonata.

Plugins

Trillian is a closed-source application, but the Pro version can be extended by plugins. Plugins by Cerulean Studios itself include spell-check, weather monitor, a mini-browser (for viewing AIM profiles), Winamp song title scroller, stock exchange monitor, RSS feedreader, and conversation capabilities for the Logitech G15 keyboard, as well as a plugin for the Jabber and Bonjour networks. Others have developed various plugins, such as a games plugin which can be used to play chess and checkers, a protocol plugin to send NetBIOS messages through Trillian, a plugin to interact with Lotus Sametime clients, a plugin to interact with Microsoft Exchange, a POP3 and IMAP email checker, or an automatic translator for many European languages to and from English. There is a plugin to interact with Skype, SkyLlian, but it needs Skype to be installed in order to be used.

Plugins are available for free and are hosted on the official web site. Most, however, require Trillian Pro 2+ to run.

Membership

Users can purchase Trillian for $25. Extending "membership" to download a major release upgrade is an additional $5. Membership provides access to a members-only discussion forum and technical support.

History

Early beginnings

After several internal builds, the first ever public release of Trillian, version 0.50, was available on July 1 2000, and was designed to be an IRC client. The release was deemed 'too buggy' and was immediately pulled off the shelf and replaced by a new version 0.51 on the same day. It featured a simple Connection Manager and skinned windows.

A month later, two minor builds were released with additional IRC features and bug fixes. Despite these efforts, Trillian was not popular, as reflected in the number of downloads from CNET's Download.com.

Trillian was a donateware at that time. They used PayPal for receiving donations through their web site.

Introduction of interoperability

Version 0.6, released November 29 2000, represented a major change in the direction of development, when the client became capable of connecting to AOL Instant Messenger, ICQ and MSN Messenger simultaneously in one window.

Although similar products, such as Jabber, Odigo and Imici, already existed, Trillian was novel in the way that it distinguished contacts from different IM services clearly on the contact list, and it did not require registration of a proprietary account. It also did not lose connection easily like the other clients.[citation needed]

A month later, Yahoo! Messenger support was introduced in Trillian 0.61, and it also featured a holiday skin for Christmas. Meanwhile, the Trillian community forums were opened to the public.

During this period, new versions were released frequently, attracting many enthusiasts to the community. Skinning activity boomed and fan sites were created. A skinning contest was held on deviantArt in Summer, and the winner was selected to design the default skin for the next version of Trillian. Trillian hit 100,000 downloads on August 14 2001.

Entry into mainstream and the "IM Wars"

File:Trillian Cordillera.png
Trillian Cordillera, the default interface for 0.7x

Contrary to the anticipation for version "0.64" in the community, the next version of Trillian was numbered 0.70. It was released December 5 2001. Development took 5 months, considerably longer than previous builds.

The new version implemented file transfer in all IM services, a feature most requested by the community at the time. It also represented a number of skin language changes. It used the contact list as the main window (as opposed to a status window 'container' in previous versions) and featured a brand new default skin, Trillian Cordillera, and an emoticon set boasting over 100 emoticons, setting a record apart from other messengers available at that time.

Version 0.71 was released on the December 18 2001. It supported AIM group chats and was the first major IM client which included the ability to encrypt messages with SecureIM.

In the following months, the number of downloads of Trillian surged, reaching 1 million on 27 January 2002, and 5 million within 6 months. Trillian received coverage and favorable reviews from mainstream media worldwide, particularly by CNET, Wired Magazine and BetaNews. The lead developer and co-founder, Scott Werndorfer, was also interviewed on TechTV.

Trillian remained the center of attention in IM in the media for the rest of year. AOL became aware that Trillian users were able to chat with their AIM buddies without having to download the AIM client. Version 0.72 was released on January 29 2002, and it began to suffer connection problems to AIM.[4]

AOL blocked SecureIM access from Trillian clients. Cerulean appeared to have circumvented the block with version 0.721 of its client software, released one day later. The "AOL War" continued for the next couple weeks, with Cerulean releasing subsequent patches 0.722, 0.723 and 0.724. Trillian garnered a lot of media attention as a result, and its developers were praised by its community for their efficiency.

Trillian appeared in the Jupiter Media Metrix Internet audience ratings in February 2002 with 344,000 unique users, and grew to 610,000 by April 2002. While those numbers are very small compared to the major IM networks, Jupiter said Trillian consistently ranks highest according to the number of average minutes spent per month.[5]

Trillian also created a special version for Iomega ActiveDisk.

Contrary to popular belief, Jason B did not start the trend.

Commercialization with Trillian Pro

On September 9 2002 a commercial version, Trillian Pro 1.0, was released concurrently with Trillian Basic 0.74. The commercial version was sold for $25 USD for a year of subscription, but all those who donated to the development of Trillian before were eligible to a year of subscription for free.

The new version had added SMS and mobile messaging capabilities, Yahoo! Messenger webcam support, pop-up e-mail alerts and new plug-ins to shuttle news, weather and stock quotes directly to buddy lists.

It appeared Trillian Pro would be marketed to corporate clients looking to keep in touch with suppliers or customers via a secured, interoperable IM network, and a relatively stern user interface. The company had no venture capital backing, and had depended entirely on donations from users to stay alive.

Trillian Pro 1.0 was nominated and picked among three other nominees as the Best Internet Communication shareware in its debut year of being a "try before you buy" shareware.[6]

On April 26 2003, total downloads of Trillian reached ten million.[7]

Trillian Pro 2.0

Trillian Pro 2.0 was released September 9 2003 to lukewarm reviews. Many supporters had lost interest as a result of the increasingly long development cycles and lack of communication between developers and users, and moved on to other open-source software such as Miranda IM and Gaim.

The new version boasted core program rewrite, Unicode, language pack support and tabbed messaging.

Blockages from Yahoo! and cooperation with Gaim

A few weeks later, Yahoo! attempted to block Trillian from connecting to its service[8] in their "efforts to implement preventative measures to protect our users from potential spammers." A few patches were released to address the issue.

In a surprising move, the Trillian developers assisted its open-source Linux rival Gaim in solving the Yahoo! connection issues. Sean Egan, the developer of Gaim, posted in its site, "Our friends over at Cerulean Studios managed to break my speed record at cracking Yahoo! authentication schemes with an impressive feat of hackery. They sent it over and here it is in Gaim 0.70." (what exactly was sent over isn't clear). It was later revealed that the developers were friends and had helped each other in past occasions.[9]

Meanwhile, as Microsoft forced its users to upgrade to MSN Messenger 5.0 for upgrades in their servers for security issues,[10] October 15 2003 also would mark the deadline for Trillian support for MSN Messenger. However, it appeared that Cerulean Studios worked with Microsoft[citation needed] to resolve the issue on August 2 2003, long before the deadline.

On March 7 2004 and June 23 2004, Yahoo! changed its instant messaging language again to prevent third-party services, such as Trillian, from accessing its service. Like previous statements, the company said the block is meant as a preemptive measure against spammers.[11] Cerulean Studios released a few patches to fix the issues within a day or two.

Trillian 3 Series

File:Trillianproaboutmenu.png
Trillian Pro 3 showing its version information in the about menu.

In August 2004, a new official blog was created in attempt to rebuild connections between the Studios and its customers. Trillian 3 was announced in the blog, and a sneak preview was made available to a small group of testers.

After months of beta-testing, the final build of Trillian 3 was released on December 18 2004, with features such as new video and audio chat capabilities throughout AIM, MSN Messenger and Yahoo! Messenger, an enhanced logging manager and integration with the Wikipedia online encyclopedia. It also featured a clean and re-organized user interface and a brand new official web site.

The release also updated the long-abandoned Trillian Basic .74 to match the new user interface and functionalities as Trillian Basic 3.0. The number of accumulated downloads of Trillian Basic in Download.com hit 20 million within a matter of weeks.

Trillian 3.1 was released February 23 2005. It included new features such as Universal Plug and Play (UPnP) and multiple identities support.

U3 and Google Pack

Trillian was made available for U3 USB flash drives on October 21 2005, despite Trillian being known to be portable long ago with third-party plugins such as Trillian Anywhere.[12]

On January 6 2006, Larry Page, President of Products at Google, announced Google Pack, a bundle of various applications including Trillian Basic 3.0 as "a free collection of safe, useful software from Google and other companies that improves the user experience online and on the desktop".

"We're very excited for Trillian to be included in Google Pack, as we at Cerulean Studios have always been very focused on giving end-users the highest quality experience possible," said Scott Werndorfer, Co-founder, Cerulean Studios. "We believe this goal aligns Trillian perfectly with Google Pack."[13]

The inclusion of Trillian in Google Pack was perplexing to some media analysts as Google has its own Google Talk service, which touts the benefits of an open IM system and the free Trillian Basic client cannot be used with Google Talk. Trillian Pro is also included as one of the "client choices" in Google Talk's client choices list.[14]

According to the Cerulean Studios blog, Trillian was discontinued from Google Pack on 19 May 2006.[15]

Trillian Astra (Trillian 4)

File:Trillian Astra Contact List.png
The Contact List in Trillian Astra, featuring the default Trillian Cordonata skin
File:Trillian Astra Login.png
The Login Screen in Trillian Astra

More than a year after the release of Trillian 3.1, the Cerulean Studios blog began spreading news again, and announced the next version of Trillian to be called "Trillian Astra".[16] The new release claimed to be faster and include a new login screen. A new domain, www.trillianastra.com, was disclosed to the public, with only the logo and blue background.

On 21 November 2006, Cerulean Studios launched a preview web site. Within half a day the site had received more than 1000 Diggs.[17]

Trillian Astra touts many improvements. According to the preview website improvements were made in the following areas:

  • Performance: Skin loading time, redrawing times, network connections, memory usage, and skin variety.
  • Interoperability: Enhanced file transfer ability, support for more IM clients, status messaging support, and IMCore technology, which can compile natively on Win32, Linux, and OSX.
  • Astra Services: Better data control and privacy, downloadable contact list, Social Widgets, a new login screen, strong encryption and identification verification, and open protocol
  • Web Access: Always reachable via the web, real-time status via the web, Widgets, desktop application updating the web page
  • Message Window: Easy image sharing, handwriting mode, knowledge of local time, RSS, 'Buzz', saved font styles
  • Contact List: Tile view, Spotlight search, Drag-and-drop avatars, faster status changes, simple access to display name, dynamic list height
  • Skins: On the fly skin changes, Themes and colors, improved transparency support, Control layering, skin build time.

Although Trillian Astra is currently in alpha stage development it has already begun to gain widespread attention and its sign-up for alpha testers was quickly flooded.

On December 1st 2006, Cerulean Studios made community edited language packs available to work on. Packs are to be translated by the community and will then be made available to Trillian Astra users.

On January 5 2007, Cerulean Studios launched a web version of Trillian Astra that can be run on browsers in Mac and PCs. They also updated the web site with a login page for alpha testers to sign in the new web service.

Version history

Trivia

  • The program was named after Trillian, a fictional character in The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. The old version of the official web site used to have a shrine of Douglas Adams on its front page.
  • The name for version 4, Trillian Astra, is the nickname used by the same fictional character for reporting on a radio channel in the story.
  • The Trillian logo has always been represented by two globes linked together, despite numerous graphic changes throughout the revisions.
  • Trillian was spotted on Alias (TV series), when the mother and father of Sydney Bristow are seen instant messaging each other
  • Cerulean Studios is particularly fond of Halloween and they occasionally celebrated Halloween by decorating the Trillian web site with a special "Trilloween" moniker. A special set of buddy icons was made in Trilloween 2005 and is still available here.
  • The developers of Trillian were infamous for missing deadlines. During the long wait for Trillian "0.64", they coined the term "Soon™", which gained notoriety as development time became longer and longer in later versions.

See also

References

  1. ^ Subway lines colors item on Cerulean Studios blog
  2. ^ "Trillian Features: Activity History". Retrieved 2007-03-05.
  3. ^ "Trillian Features: Time Travel". Retrieved 2007-03-05.
  4. ^ "AOL blocks Trillian IM Access" article in The Register
  5. ^ Internet News article on Trillian usage
  6. ^ Trillian nomination for Best Internet Communication Software, 2003
  7. ^ Cerulean Studios announcement of 10 millionth download
  8. ^ ZDnet article on Yahoo blocking Trillian access
  9. ^ Newsforge article on cooperation between Cerulean and Gaim
  10. ^ Microsoft upgrades to MSN Messenger 5.0
  11. ^ ZDnet article on Yahoo Messenger language change
  12. ^ Trillian Anywhere web site
  13. ^ Google Pack press release
  14. ^ List of Google Talk client choices
  15. ^ Cerulean blog entry on Trillian discontinuation from Google Pack
  16. ^ Astra screen shot from Cerulean Studios web site
  17. ^ Diggs for Astra preview web site

External links

Official sites

Unofficial sites

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