Yahoo Messenger for Vista Finally Released
Yahoo released the first public version of its WPF-powered Yahoo Messenger software for Windows Vista, eleven months after the project was announced.
Basically an entirely new IM client that interoperates with the regular Yahoo Messenger, the new one not only looks different, it has a different feature set that is missing features the other Messenger already has. Those features that haven’t been built in yet include voice, video and sharing capabilities, all of which were demoed back at CES (presumably in one of those fake demoes that doesn’t show off any real code).
The application does look nice, with sweet transition effects (when you sign on, the sign on screen mmorphs into the buddy list and actually slides across the screen to dock on the left side. Using a simple color picker, you can give the buddy list and each IM window a seperate color (or choose from two textures, grass and wood). It supports Windows Live Messenger buddies, has tabbed conversation windows, and even comes with a Vista Sidebar Gadget for docking favorite buddies.
I like that when you click the Menu drop-down, instead of showing you a file menu (as Live Messenger does, merely hiding it normally), they show you a well-designed options area, complete with keyboard shortcuts and other options. Rather than shoehorning Windows 95 design into next-gen Vista design, Yahoo did everything new and shiny.
It’s still beta, and there are obvious bugs (like that menu I just mentioned, which runs out of room in IM windows and the text tries to run off the page, plus the fact that Live IM contacts appear offline to me all the time, including my own damn self), but it’s a great example of the design that is capable on Windows Vista and an important step forward. Hopefully more developers will emulate Yahoo, though they’ll hopefully work a lot faster.
