If you find the familiar chat interface a bit boring, give Gaim a try, a tool that integrates almost all of the most popular chat applications available today.
Gaim integrates up to 9 of the most popular chat programs today, including Yahoo, MSN, ICQ, Gadu-Gadu, GroupWise, IRC, Jabber, Napster, and Silc. Unfortunately, Gaim has not yet integrated Google Talk to become a nearly 100% “All in One” chat tool, but with the 9 chat programs listed above, it seems sufficient for chat enthusiasts.
Once you successfully activate Gaim for the first time, your task is to “Add” all your chat accounts into Gaim. Click on “Account” to bring up the “Account” interface -> click “Add” to open the “Add Account” interface -> choose one of the 9 listed chat services -> enter your nickname in the “Screen Name” box, input your account password; enter the alias you want to appear to others in the “Alias” box;
Type in your password and check the “Save password” box to avoid typing it every time you log in. When finished, click “Save” to add your account to the “Account” list. After you complete the entire account entry process, click “Close” in the “Accounts” interface to return to the main Login interface, where all your accounts will be listed in the “Account” box.
When you want to chat, you simply select the account you want to use and click “Sign on,” and Gaim will take you directly into its chat interface, which remains perfectly compatible with external chat applications.
In comparison to individual specialized chat applications, Gaim may not match them at a deep level, but it provides all the basic features such as text formatting, file sending, and smileys. Gaim’s “Buddy List” also fully displays the status of your chat contacts in a much more visually appealing way than the original programs.
The most unique feature of Gaim is tabbed chatting, meaning all chat windows will be integrated into a single window, similar to the tabbed browsing style of Firefox, Opera, and Maxthon. Your chat name will appear in individual tabs, keeping it tidy, and when a message arrives, that tab will automatically light up for you to follow.
If you want to chat simultaneously with two different accounts, Gaim serves as an excellent alternative to the original chat application. You can chat using Gaim while also using the original chat program.
Gaim also supports keyword-based search for all contacts, as well as backing up chat content. Gaim is fully compatible with all types of fonts and Vietnamese input methods you have installed on your machine, and the way Gaim adjusts text color is much more flexible than the original applications.
Unfortunately, Gaim cannot cover all the in-depth features available in professional chat applications, so if you accidentally “Close” a particular account, the chat history will not appear the next time you open it, as it does in Yahoo or MSN. Gaim also does not support running in the system tray, so if you close the entire application, you will have to log in again.
This is a free open-source program available for everyone. Interested readers can click here to download the latest version of Gaim 1.5.0, which has a size of nearly 7 MB.
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