Swift 1.0 Beta8

This is the eighth beta (preview) release of Swift, on the road to 1.0. It isn't quite feature complete but it's getting there. The aim of this release is to find any issues - either technical or in usability - with what we've done. This isn't a final release, so there may be issues with it, and we ask that you please report them back to us so we can improve it. With 1.0-beta8, we're approaching the main 1.0 release, and it is largely ready for day-to-day use.

First, the screenshots:

Comments can be sent to the mailing list at http://swift.im/lists/mailman/listinfo/swift-users, and we have a chat room at swift@rooms.swift.im. It will be very useful if people trying the beta can report any issues they find.

Swift is trying to plug a hole in the XMPP client landscape, and has these aims.

• Wide platform availability.
• Doing the "Right Thing" for the user, without configuration.
• Doing the "Right Thing" with standards-compliance.
• Targetting the end-users, not the system administrators.
• Being an XMPP client - not multi-protocol.
• Concentrating on the most frequently performed tasks.
• Never interrupt the user with something that doesn't need attention.

This is a beta, but Swift already has some interesting features.

• Easy status setting (and plans to make it better).
• Easy room joining and bookmarking.
• XEP-0258 Labelling for secure environments.
• Stream compression for bandwidth-saving.
• Support for the new SCRAM authentication mechanism.
• Support for acknowledging server receipt of messages (Demo)

Because Swift betas prior to beta7 only stored partial VCards, it could be that you encounter problems with avatars not updating properly. To avoid this, it is best that you remove your Swift data dir (C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\Swift on Windows XP, /Users/<username>/Library/Applications/Swift on Mac OS X, ~/.local/share/swift on Linux) when installing this new beta (if you didn't already in beta7).

These are the changes since 1.0-beta7:

• MUCs will once again be rejoined on reconnect.
• Fixed a crash when a contact has set an incorrect priority.
• Fixed a crash when signing out.
• You can no longer use bookmarks while offline.
• When clicking notifications coming from rooms, bring up the room dialog.
• When registering with Growl, we now request incoming message popups to be enabled by default.
• The status setter now shows when you're connecting.
• Contacts online from several clients at once should now show the highest priority presence, not the most recent.
• We no longer show 'copy link' in the context menu in the chat dialog if no link is selected.
• The quality of the avatars has improved on some platforms.
• Fixed a bug where avatars would no longer appear after reconnecting.
• Pictures in the message popups on Linux are now scaled down.
• Errors received from your contacts when setting your status will no longer cause the contacts to mirror your new status.
• The notification toggle on Linux will now be respected.
• Joins and parts in MUCs will now be merged in a more natural way.
• Notices will now be generated if someone says your nick in the MUC in any variant of capitalisation, and will not be generated if it was you that said it.
• You will no longer see your contacts typing if there is an error sending typing notifications to them.
• We no longer trigger popup notifications when a message bounces.
• Fixed a bug where reconnecting to a different account after signout would fail authenticating.
• Fixed a potential crash on signout when events are pending.

As this is a beta release, there are known issues and features that you might expect to be present that aren't:

• You cannot change your avatar.

We currently have versions available for Windows and Mac:

• Windows: Swift-installer-win32-1.0beta8.exe
• Mac OS X (10.5 or later): Swift-1.0beta8.dmg
• Ubuntu Linux
  • Note: These packages require you to install our key in the Synaptic package manager in the list of trusted sources. You can get our key here.
  • Lucid Lynx (10.04)
    • 32-bit: swift-im_1.0~beta8-1_i386.deb
    • 64-bit: swift-im_1.0~beta8-1_amd64.deb
    To stay up to date with the latest release, you can add the following APT lines to the list of Software Sources in Synaptic Package Manager:

    deb http://swift.im/packages/ubuntu/lucid beta main
    deb-src http://swift.im/packages/ubuntu/lucid beta main

  • Maverick Meerkat (10.10)
    • 32-bit: swift-im_1.0~beta8-1_i386.deb
    • 64-bit: swift-im_1.0~beta8-1_amd64.deb
    To stay up to date with the latest release, you can add the following APT lines to the list of Software Sources in Synaptic Package Manager:

    deb http://swift.im/packages/ubuntu/maverick beta main
    deb-src http://swift.im/packages/ubuntu/maverick beta main

The source code for Swift and the underlying Swiften XMPP library are available from the Git repository at http://swift.im/git/swift. Instructions for building the source code can be found in Documentation/BuildingOnUnix.txt and Documentation/BuildingOnWindows.txt.

The source for this release is available under the GNU General Public License version 3.