Mail.Ru Agent for Mac OS - Reloaded
Joy happened - we released a new version of Mail.Ru Agent for Mac OS. We have been working on it for the past few months: from scratch, we rewrote the entire client and completely reworked the user interface. It seems to us that it turned out well, we want to get feedback from the venerable public.
The first version of the client for this unpopular among mass users, but demanded among true connoisseurs of beauty of IT-technologies platform, we released about a year ago. Honestly, we ourselves were not very pleased with what we did - an attempt to preserve the interface continuity with the PC version did not work in our favor.
But at that time, we had, in parallel and independently, another product of the “family” of Apple - the Mail.Ru version of the Agent for iOS, which was a success to us much better than the “big brother”.
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Therefore, we decided to re-create the next client for MacOS, using the code base shared with the iOS client as much as possible (the advantages of this approach are clear - the new functionality will appear in both clients at the same time).
In addition to full code refactoring, we paid a lot of attention to designing the UI application. The design of the new version is quite radically different from the Mail.Ru Agent for Windows interface and is as close as possible to the interface of the “native” “Mac” application, made in accordance with Apple's guidelines. During the design of new interfaces, many usability problems were identified in the PC client, which were successfully solved in the Mac version.
And, finally, we called for helpers: in the development of the new product, the user laboratory “Usesetics” and the design studio “Turbomilk” took part, for which we thank them a lot.
To summarize, the main goal of this release was to put in order the main functionality - to change the design and lay a good foundation for future projects (and we are planning a lot of them).
So, the following was implemented.
Q: Where is ICQ support?
A: Not yet, but we are working on it.
Q: Where is the support for XMPP, which finally appeared in the Win version?
A: We’re serious about syncing Win and Mac versions in the very near future.
Q: Will there be support for voice and video calls?
A: Work in this direction is underway.
Q: Why is there no file transfer?
A: This is one of the priority features for the next release.
Q: Adium is still cooler!
A: No, we are !!!
We will be glad to know about your impressions about the new release.
Mail.Ru Agent 2.0 for Mac OS X
Ilya Naumov, Mail.Ru Agent project manager.
The first version of the client for this unpopular among mass users, but demanded among true connoisseurs of beauty of IT-technologies platform, we released about a year ago. Honestly, we ourselves were not very pleased with what we did - an attempt to preserve the interface continuity with the PC version did not work in our favor.
But at that time, we had, in parallel and independently, another product of the “family” of Apple - the Mail.Ru version of the Agent for iOS, which was a success to us much better than the “big brother”.
')
Therefore, we decided to re-create the next client for MacOS, using the code base shared with the iOS client as much as possible (the advantages of this approach are clear - the new functionality will appear in both clients at the same time).
In addition to full code refactoring, we paid a lot of attention to designing the UI application. The design of the new version is quite radically different from the Mail.Ru Agent for Windows interface and is as close as possible to the interface of the “native” “Mac” application, made in accordance with Apple's guidelines. During the design of new interfaces, many usability problems were identified in the PC client, which were successfully solved in the Mac version.
And, finally, we called for helpers: in the development of the new product, the user laboratory “Usesetics” and the design studio “Turbomilk” took part, for which we thank them a lot.
To summarize, the main goal of this release was to put in order the main functionality - to change the design and lay a good foundation for future projects (and we are planning a lot of them).
So, the following was implemented.
- Complete redesign. We have thoroughly worked on the interfaces, we hope you enjoy it.
- Implemented full featured conference support.
- Microblogging Now you can write microposts and reply to posts of friends in the version for MacOS.
- Notifications about the actions of friends in My World.
- Growl is now used for all notifications.
- As already mentioned, the entire code was rewritten from scratch and we spent a lot of time optimizing, speed and stability. Serious users with gigabyte archives of correspondence, hundreds of contacts and rarely rebooted MacBooks will be satisfied.
- Ability to customize the interface. We have not yet reached full zen and minimalism, but you can “collapse” some blocks and remove unnecessary elements in the settings or directly from the interface.
- And most importantly. New emoticons and statuses! Smack everyone in this chat!
Q: Where is ICQ support?
A: Not yet, but we are working on it.
Q: Where is the support for XMPP, which finally appeared in the Win version?
A: We’re serious about syncing Win and Mac versions in the very near future.
Q: Will there be support for voice and video calls?
A: Work in this direction is underway.
Q: Why is there no file transfer?
A: This is one of the priority features for the next release.
Q: Adium is still cooler!
A: No, we are !!!
We will be glad to know about your impressions about the new release.
Mail.Ru Agent 2.0 for Mac OS X
Ilya Naumov, Mail.Ru Agent project manager.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/124061/
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