Shoutbox

Hello!

it's been a long time I've not posted a real news article. I've been quoted on some web sites so people have started to think that I was not taking care of my users anymore. If you are one of these people, I suggest you to send an email to C2Media (the sponsor company) and ask them how much I've bothered them in the past month about their lightening their advertisement package . Anyway, you won't have to take my word for it, the next beta will be distributed with the new sponsor package so you'll see by yourself: no more network problems, no more adult links (I've always claimed Messenger Plus! to be a family software, I've not change my mind), ... I guess I won’t be quoted for that but I don’t really care, I just hope you’ll enjoy the new version.

Speaking of which, here are some information about the forthcoming Messenger Plus! 2.20. First, I know I talked about a 2.50 version in the past weeks but MSN Messenger 6 becoming incredibly popular, I have to release the new version as soon as possible so I’ve sacrificed some of the planned features. This doesn’t mean however that you won’t see anything new. Here is a list of what you can expect for sure:

• Full Messenger 6 compatibility. I admit I’m kinda proud of that because not much add-ons of this kind can say the same thing. Messenger Plus! has been on the add-on scene for a long time and it will continue to serve you as long as you want it on your computer .
  
• The preferences have been reorganized with some new options. That way, old users will find refreshing things in this new release. For example, you can associate groups to signin/signout sound events.
  
• Several tags have been added like a multi-format tag to display struck-out text. You’ll also find new commands such as /all (sends a message to all your opened conversation windows).
  
• A lot of you were requesting this one: the new Custom Name feature lets you set your own names for your contacts. Customized names are displayed in the contact list and the toast popup windows. This is very handy when your contacts keep changing their names
  
• Another cool new feature: the new “name tag” option of the Personalized Status feature allows you to virtually create any status you want! The Personalised Status feature itself has been reworked a lot so that everything combined together gives you an efficient, useful and fun feature.
  
• Of course, the list doesn’t end here. One other brand new feature I can almost guarantee for the next version is this one: plug-ins! I know it sounds strange for an add-on to talk about plug-ins but Messenger 6 makes developers’ life more and more miserable so I want to give to the community a chance to easily add things like commands or tags. For example, a programmer could do a tag that displays the current Media Player song or, he/she could create a new command that automatically formats the text like a rainbow. Don’t expect very advanced possibilities but it will be fun enough so that more interesting features can be added to Messenger without my help .

So, “when are we going to enjoy all that?”... no later than July 5th (Saturday)! I’ll need your assistance to test the new features as well as Messenger 4/5/6 compatibility. The final version will be publicly available at the end of the month and I’ll probably be able to use the auto-update to notify all the users of this event . During the beta period, every existing translation will also have to be updated.

To conclude, I’d like to say a few words about myself and the whole Messenger Plus! project. Since I’ve added an optional sponsor program in my software (how much longer will I have to insist on the “optional” word? ), some of you forgot a simple but important fact: I’m not Microsoft, I’m not a rich&big company, I’m just one guy, one developer. As anybody, I need to earn money to live my life, that’s all; how could this be considered “greed”? In my recent stats I see that 20% of my users choose to install Messenger Plus! without the sponsor, and, you know what? I’m fine with it. If I wasn’t, I wouldn’t have made this an option in the first place. I don’t develop the program for money, new features don’t bring money, they bring satisfied users. I hope you all understand that making money with public software is extremely difficult nowadays. Think about it; what would you choose between those two situations:

• First situation: you work all day long on a free software, 14 hours a day, 7 days a week. You don’t really have holidays because you either have to give some support for your software, or you have to manage the server, fix the bugs, add new features from time to time, listen to what your users want you to do, fight to protect your ideas against jealous developers, your trademarks against corporations much bigger than yourself, your integrity against injurious articles on the net... and when, after all that, you decide to start making some money out of all this work, still by respecting your users and giving them a choice, you’re immediately being criticized and rejected.
  
• Second situation: you have a job taking 8 hours a day, 5 days a week. It brings you insurances, security, good money and vacations. You don’t have to take care of anyone but your own friends&family and your nights can be used to watch TV or play good video games.

In case you wouldn’t understand what is my point, I’m absolutely not complaining, I’m just trying to say with my limited English vocabulary that the only things that keeps me going is obviously not money but the satisfaction of my users. If you like Messenger Plus!, I hope you’ll recommend the next version to a maximum of your friends (and send me a postcard too!). Also, next time, before talking about spywares and trojans, I urge you to read the definition of these two words so that you realize how unfounded your accusations are on the Messenger Plus! sponsor program (one month of bad publicity = three month to recover and that’s a shame when it’s not even justified). I’ll keep doing my best to please you, it’s now up to you to show me if there’s still a point in all this.

Thank you for reading this big message and thank you for continuing to trust me and my software,
Patchou