Friday, November 16, 2007

TinyBuddy IM v3.20 released

Version 3.20 is now available. Use your iPhone or iPod Touch and go to:

http://x.aim.com/ty/

It is usable in other browsers besides Mobile Safari, but it looks best in Safari-based browsers.

If you do not see "v3.20 release" below the Start button on that page, then you should try refreshing the page or clearing Safari's cache and try again.

v3.20 has the following changes:

* Better performance for large buddy lists.
* One less prompt on sign-in and first IM sent.
* Better status message display (previously it did not show status messages, just away messages).
* Better information if you are signed off because Mobile Safari suspended the page for too long (happens if you switch to another application or web page).
* Uses Dojo 1.0 for the JavaScript toolkit.

There were some changes to improve the performance of large buddy lists, but I can probably do more changes. Leave a comment if you still find it hard to use the web app with large buddy lists.

Also remember you can use .mac accounts -- when you sign in, be sure to add @mac.com to your account name.

I was planning to allow SSL as part of this release, but I had trouble getting it set up, and I am not sure it is a good idea, since you will only get encrypted communication to the AIM server. There is no guarantee that the path from the AIM server to your buddy is secure. So I think it is best not to give the illusion that it is a "secure IM" option. I'll be putting that feature on hold indefinitely now.

Something I do want for the next version: allowing custom status messages (not just custom away messages). Ideally, I want to work out a way for you to save those custom status messages for re-use/less typing the next time. It still needs more investigation though.

21 comments:

Anonymous said...

EVERT TIME I try to send a response from my iphone to an instant message sent from a computer, I get booted off.  The spinning wheel showing that data is coming in, constantly spins. When I press in the spot where I am supposed to be able to type, it is not 'active' after the 1st message is sent. Please help.

Anonymous said...

how come whenever I receive an instant message I a then kicked off?

Anonymous said...

emo4life33 and schaftel61: What is the message you see when you are booted off? Do you have a buddy list that is larger than 100 people? Were you using AT&T's Edge cell network or were you on wifi?

I've had good success on wifi, but just recently noticed when I tried using the Edge network, I get some timeouts, and I get signed off. I will have to do more testing on AT&T's network. I am curious if this what you are seeing too.

Anonymous said...

since this update I haven't been able to log on aim with my iPod touch. A error comes up saying that I've may have been signed out and to try press the start button again but there is also a message in gray (normal error message being in red) saying "action: aim/start session, status code: 607, status text: target rate limit reached, errorMsg: target rate limit reached.".. Maybe you can tell me what this means & hopefully fix it & thanks for your time, from Megamanzx14.

Anonymous said...

Oh and no matter how many times I push the start button the same error comes up,  red & gray messages.

Anonymous said...

megamanzx14: I looked up the 607 error message from the AIM servers, and it said "Rate limit signing on, wait a few minutes before trying again". So perhaps wait 15 minutes or so and try again.

Anonymous said...

Everything runs perfectly for me. It would be useful to have the "recent buddies" group as an option, I use it all the time.

Thanks for writing a great program

Anonymous said...

you should enable the viewing of recent buddies.

Anonymous said...

I'm on my itouch now and whenever I press the "start" button for tiny budy, it says an error has ocured and won't let me log in anymore, how do I go about fixing this?

Anonymous said...

hey I was wondering if you could organize the buddies so that the ones who are available show up top and the ones with away messages show on the bottom

Anonymous said...

I do not like that the text box moves up when you type making for really weird conversations sometimes. Other than that this is a very good aim service. Please just fix that thought it really annoys me.

Anonymous said...

worldsk8r1221: Some of the text box moving when you first touch the text input is something Safari does. After that, I try to position the text box right above the keyboard input after. Are you seeing it where it messes up and does not show in the wrong place, or that the text box covers up some of the conversation?

mcspargeslarg: I'll look at doing that. I think that is the default view in iChat, and I like that view. I was concerned that some people may get confused if the name jumps around (the names are no longer in alphabetic order). Maybe it would be better if I had buttons that let you filter who is shown (like only show "online").

ccbynx: Is there a specific error message? If it is one with a "607" error code, then it means the server is limiting how fast you can sign in. Hopefully just trying in 10-15 minutes or so should be good enough. Also, you can try clearing cookies and clearing the cache for Safari in the preferences. If you notice lots of problems staying signed in while on AT&T's Edge network, I have seen that too, and I think it is just bad connectivity on the cell network.

sneakphotog and elio13: I'll see if I can put in some options where you can see Recent Buddies, and maybe combine that with some controls to show/hide away, mobile etc... I might not get to it for a while, but I'll keep it in the feature work queue.

Anonymous said...

This is a great, and very useful app.

Is it possible to add a png version of your favicon so that apps added to the iPhone and iPod Touch home screen have a proper icon?

http://vjarmy.com/archives/2008/01/howto_iphone_webclip_icons.php

http://developer.apple.com/iphone/devcenter/designingcontent.html

Thanks for all you do.

Anonymous said...

wtmcgee: I got an icon up on the site. It is not the best, but it should do for now. See this blog entry for more info:

http://journals.aol.com/tinybuddy/tinynotes/entries/2008/01/18/webclip-icon-for-tinybuddy-im/449

Anonymous said...

ever since the new version came out I haven't been able to sign in, it keeps saying the action timed out. What can I do, and i'm on a touch if that makes a difference
thank you for any responses.

Anonymous said...

monkyboy73v: This normally means it cannot maintain a connection to the server. How is the wireless network you are using? If the signal strength is low or has intermittent connection issues, you might see that sort of error. Make sure you have a good signal.

If you try watching a YouTube video, does it play seamlessly, or does it pause in the middle, or take a very long time to start up? If it pauses or takes a very long time to start up, that is also an indication of issues with the wireless network.

Anonymous said...

Is there any way to set it up so it remembers your s/n and password?

Anonymous said...

This is a great app.  Are you planning to add support for displaying the preset Aliases of the contacts?

Anonymous said...

my buddies are barely, recent buddies happen to be who you wanna talk to

Anonymous said...

I really dont like being signed out every two minutes, the only downside to having an iPhone instead of a sidekick.  Isn't there some way to make aim apart of the phones reg menu.

Anonymous said...

easygoin4u2: The newly released v3.50 should allow for remembering your sign in info. You still might be prompted now and again for sign in info, but it should be much less than it used to be.

shomdiddy: I am not sure I see anything in the Web AIM API to get an alias. I am using the "displayId" field to show the user's name, so I was hoping that would have any alias that you set for the user, but yes, in pratice I have seen that it does not seem to match. I'll keep looking, and ask the developers. They seem to add new stuff to the API every so often.

chrk903: There is a hyperlink option now in v3.50 to show the recent buddies. Click on that hyperlink first, then click the Start button to see your recent buddies.

imabstracttho: There is hope that when Apple releases a native application SDK hopefully within the next couple of weeks that it might be possible to make a native application that can stay signed in longer. However, as of right now, there is no Apple-authorized way to do so.