v1.4 [May 21, 2013]
The log viewer now groups your conversations by date.
Twitter improvements
The character counter for Twitter has been improved to take into account automatic link shortening, allowing you to easily tweet links without worrying about their length!
Updated to the Twitter API v1.1, note that Instantbird 1.3 may stop working with Twitter on June 11th, 2013!
Twitter now includes everyone you follow as a participant in your timeline.
IRC authentication works better with bouncers (e.g. ZNC).
You can now easily override self-signed/invalid/out-of-date certificates for IRC servers.
Each account now keeps debug logs which can be accessed by right clicking on the account in the Account Manager and choosing "Copy Debug Logs", these contain essential information for developers to diagnose user issues. (Note that debug logs MAY contain sensitive information.)
Under the Hood
Updated: Instantbird 1.4 is based on Mozilla 20.0.1 and uses libpurple 2.10.7!
Mac OS X < 10.6 is no longer supported, please upgrade your operating system or continue using Instantbird 1.3.
v1.3 [Nov 17, 2012]
Major accessibility improvements.
IRC improvements
Long messages will be sent in multiple parts instead of being cut off.
SASL authentication is now supported, this is required for certain IP ranges or when using Tor and connecting to Freenode.
v1.2 [Aug 12, 2012]
- The log viewer shows conversations just like the conversation view, thanks to a new JSON-based log file format that stores meta-data along with the text of the conversation.
- Support for Bonjour has been added (requires the Bonjour Print Services on Windows or Avahi on Linux).
- Improved user interface for multi-user chats:
* Better tab completion, see our blog post for details.
* It is easier to tell who is active, as only nicknames of participants who have talked are coloured in the participant list.
- IRC enhancements:
* Channels are automatically rejoined after reconnects.
* Instantbird tracks the status of IRC contacts more precisely by using the WATCH or MONITOR commands, if they're supported.
* ChanServ messages are displayed in the channel they reference.
* No more noisy messages from NickServ interrupting you after a successful automatic identification on login.
- Passwords are now stored in the Mozilla password manager for improved security.
- As in Firefox and Thunderbird, it's possible to protect them with a master password.
- Easily create new accounts now that the account wizard offers a list of the most popular networks first and shows all supported networks on demand.
- Better system tray integration: you can now change the status directly from the icon's context menu.
- Quickly find where you left off in a conversation: The position of the first unread message is now marked visually (and you can quickly jump there by pressing Alt-PgUp/PgDn or swiping).
- Restoring long conversations will now show a progress bar instead of freezing the user interface until all the messages are loaded.
- Previously read ("context") messages are now distinguishable from new messages (when restoring from hold) in all default message styles. These styles now also respect the font setting from Preferences->Content.
- Keyboard navigation of conversations has been improved by allowing scrolling from an (empty) input textbox: just use the arrow keys, Page Up/Down, or Home/End! There are also new shortcuts for putting a conversation on hold (ESC) and opening the log viewer (Ctrl+Shift+H, like "History" on Firefox).
- Major accessibility improvements have been made to new messages, contact groups and contacts.
- For Add-on Developers:
* Control sound preferences more precisely: for example Advanced Sound Controls.
* Reorder the contact list: for example Sort By Status.
* It's now possible to easily add new protocols using JavaScript: for example VZnet Chats.
- Under the Hood:
* We now have our own extensible JavaScript implementations for:
+ Facebook Chat and Google Talk, based on our own XMPP protocol plugin (from Google Summer of Code 2011).
+ IRC
* Updated: Instantbird 1.2 is based Mozilla 14.0.1 which brings great new possibilities for add-on developers and uses libpurple 2.10.4.
* The license of most of the code was updated to the Mozilla Public License (MPL) 2.0, official builds of Instantbird 1.2 are distributed under the GNU Public License 2.0 or later.
* We're using libqq-pidgin now for QQ since QQ is no longer included in libpurple.
* Platform changes forced us to drop support for Windows 2000 and Windows XP before Service Pack 2. Please upgrade to Windows XP SP2 or later.
v1.1 [Oct 21, 2011]
- In addition to several stability fixes and a dramatic reduction of resource consumption in some cases, this new release will make Twitter and IRC much more usable in Instantbird:
- On Twitter, it’s now possible from the context menu to retweet, to reply to a tweet (or simply double click on the tweet to start a reply). The context menu also lets you follow or unfollow the author of the tweet.
- Tab completion of usernames (starting with an @ character on twitter) or nicknames (in IRC channels) will also be very appreciated.
- All these changes have been commonly requested, so no surprise here. But there’s one last feature I would like to talk about before offering you a download link: Instantbird 1.1 brings support for putting conversation on hold. This means you can now close conversation tabs without leaving the conversation, the conversation will sit at the top of the Contacts window until you reopen it or someone talks to you. While this may seem like a small change, it’s exceptionally useful for IRC users who tend to idle in lots of channels because they want to “be there just in case” but don’t interact much with the conversation.
v1.0 [Jun 28, 2011]
Redesigned contacts window:
Contact merging: If you talk to the same person on multiple IM networks, you can now combine that person's usernames from each network into a single contact. When opening a new chat, the username that is online will be chosen automatically and the conversation window will automatically switch to the applicable username if they switch to a different IM network.
Tags: Tags will be used to replace the groups in the buddy list. Tags can be hidden by clicking the "x" on the right side of the buddy list, all buddies from this tag will go into an "Other Contacts" tag automatically, which is shown at the bottom of the buddy list.
The contacts window can now be ...
closed on Mac without quitting Instantbird; it can be reopened from the Dock.
minimized to tray on Windows and Linux. By default close (hitting the 'x') on the buddy list will minimize to tray, this can be changed in the preferences.
Users can now set their buddy icon and the display name of their accounts right on the contacts list.
The contact list is sorted alphabetically (both groups and contacts appear sorted).
Nicer animations.
Twitter support: When the twitter account is connected, a timeline conversation automatically opens. If the conversation is closed by the user, it's reopened automatically when new messages arrive. The user should disconnect the account from the account manager to prevent new messages from being displayed.
There's a "track" advanced option that allows to specify keywords to track. This is a comma separated list of keywords. Comma means OR, space inside a keyword means AND.
New information toolbar at the top of the conversation UI, showing the buddy icon, display name and current status of your contact. In addition, you can change the IM network you're using for the conversation by clicking on the protocol icon.
