Fire.app
------------

Fire.app is an Instant Messenger client.  It is currently in active development (03/25/01).

Fire.app is released under the terms of the GPL (enclosed with this package).

Fire.app is copyright 1999-2001 Eric Peyton (epeyton@epicware.com).
libfaim (the underlying transport layer) is copyright 1998-2001 Adam Fritzler (afritz@iname.com)
icqlib (the icq layer) is copyright 1998-2001 Denis V. Dmitrienko <denis@null.net> && Nikita I. Makeev <whale@nichego.net>
gtkyahoo (yahoo layer) is copyright 2000-2001 Nathan Neulinger.
The HTML(AIML) Rendering engine is copyright 1999 Stephen Peters (portnoy@portnoy.org)
openstep 4.2 port (and a lot more) was done by Jason Fosback (jfosback@ubermind.com)
msn conection library and jabber im library are cribbed from everybuddy (www.everybuddy.com)

Fire home page is http://www.epicware.com/fire.html

0.27.b (crash and bug fixes only)
------

- Fixed problems with sending messages with non-ascii characters on multiple services
- Fixed problems with lost messages due to bad default encoding
- Found crasher in AIM-toc.  This was affecting LOTS of people.  Basically, if you had no profile set, AIM-toc crashed.
- Fixed a crasher when clicking on the notification window.

0.27.a
------
- Fixed MSN to actually stay online for more than 2 minutes
- Fire sends a beep when you get New mail if you have mail notifications turned on for Yahoo or MSN
- Added Text encoding menu so that people can use non-roman languages.  Good luck, it can crash stuff.  Stick to Windows and Japanese encodings if I were you.  Default encoding is (and always has been) Windows Latin 1.
- Yahoo custom away messages work correctly again.
- Added Dutch localization
- Updated German Localization
- Reverted to older icqlib
- Updated to latest libyahoo


0.26.b
------
- Fixed MSN to work again
- MSN Typing messages are sent to console
- Included first run of German .nib files
- Included First run of Spanish .nib files
- You only get notified once/session if someone is offline and you are sending to them
- Ability to hide and show the chat list in group chats
- AIM Group chat fixed
- Turn on and off Mail notifications for MSN and Yahoo
- Fix to sending IM's to disconnected MSN users
- Quite a few leaks cleaned up, but probably not all of them ...
- This release *may* fix some people's ability to log in, which used to work and then stopped working

0.26.a
------

- Removed AIM encoding support.  It broke AIM group chat and added extra lines to every message.
- Updated to latest MSN library - should fix a few crashers and make it a wee-bit more stable
- Updated to latest Yahoo library.

0.25.b
------

- Fixed AIM password problem, I was inadvertantly setting all passwords small case and that broke lots of people
- Added support for send and receive encodings
        - AIM support for sending non-ASCII characters
        - ICQ support for send and receive
        - Jabber support (using UTF-8) has always been there
        - MSN support for send and receive
        - Yahoo support for send and receive
        - irc support for send and receive
- Fixed AIM idle support (people now switch idleness correctly), also fixes MSN and Yahoo support for idle
- You can now add AIM buddies without having to restart to see their status
- removed essentially useless buttons on the buddy list


0.25.a
------

- AOL support has been restored, now using the fully untested in Fire toc protocol.  Expect that things will be flakey for a while
- Added in support for retrieving your buddies from the server in Yahoo.
- Support for using AppKit's html parsing instead of AIML parsing.  I'm sure something broke, but I haven't seen it yet ...
- Support for MSN notification of emails waiting
- Note on the MSN panel not to use "@hotmail.com" for yourself
- Drawer on the buddy editor for how to set up Alias and Buddy Names
- New non-blocking alerts for lots of little pop up panels
- text and background attributes stick after sending an im
- MSN no longer displays all messages as coming in at 12:00 AM
- New option to close the chat window after you send a message (on the new Options menu)


0.24.b
------

Public release.

AOL SUPPORT HAS BEEN REMOVED FROM FIRE.  You will need to delete your old Fire.app.  DO NOT copy this version on top of an older version.  If you have an AOL AIM buddy in this version, you did it wrong.

0.23.b
------

Another AOL workaround

new in 0.23.a
-------------

- msn updated.  It now tries much harder to connect and attempts to send UTF8 for everything.
- yahoo updated.
- AOL updated.  This version should work around breaks that AOL instituted on 3/26/00 to stop fire users.

new in 0.22.a
-------------

- can set port and login server for msn, aol, jabber, irc and icq
- cleaned up service UI a bit.
- can now initiate Yahoo chat groups
- fixed a minor bug in buddy lists that broke for long time users
- can recieve direct IM's, but can't send them yet.
- Can now log in to AOL again since AOL broke the client protocol this morning ...

new in 0.21.c
-------------
- Buddy List changes
- Yahoo group chat can be joined if you are invited.
- compressed using tar instead of gnutar


new in 0.21.a/b
-------------
- Fixed Buddy search for unavailable buddies
- Fixed Buddy Info to display html correctly again
- Fixed a crasher in Buddy Search
- minor issues
- Added delete buttons to previous conversation Browser

New in 0.20.a
-------------

- Updated AIM, ICQ nad Yahoo libraries
- irc, MSN and jabber IM support
- spoken notifications
- buddy notification overrides
- New Away UI
- Context menus on the online list
- New Services group on the online list
- innumerable code cleanup changes
- innumerable bug fixes
- a new conversation browser
- scrambled passwords in all services
- links to web pages and more help
- lots of little features
- pop up notification as a preference
- docking chat and buddy windows
- speech preferencess

New in 0.16.a
-------------

- New icons and images throughout - thanks to Rick Roe, Blake Harris, more ...
- Fire now supports Enter and Return correctly.  Your preferences may have changed.  Please go to the Chat Window preferences and select appropriately.
- Offline buddies don't have a 0/ in front of the counter.
- Yahoo fix for Fire crashing when the wrong password was put in.
- Update to latest libfaim.
- Away panel no longer displays html in it's view
- Fire now shouldn't crash while parsing html-ized characters - well at least not as much :)
- Misc UI changes and cleanups.
- ICQ buddy logins no longer bring the buddy window out of the dock
- Chatnav in AIM is only started when someone first attempts group chat.  Chatnav is what is periodically killing the aim server and breaking the connection.  The chatnav connection should restart correctly.
- Fire now supports blocking of buddies.  This is a new feature.  You can block someone by adding them to the new "Blocked Buddies" group.  You can't delete this group.  If you rename it, a new one will show back up when you restart.


New in 0.15.d
-------------

- ICQ Status (again)
- other bug fixes

New in 0.15.c
-------------

- buddy search now works again for AIM and ICQ
- buddy info now works again for AIM and ICQ
- offline messages work for ICQ and YAHOO
- New Offline buddies list for sending offline messages and more
- Cleaned up UI of many components
- Now tells you in the service panel the state of each connection
- 2 crashers fixed (when deleting buddies)
- buddy list now sorts (mostly) if the preference is turned on
- can now set a default font for the chat windows
- chat windows can be made much smaller
- you can now turn on a preference to block all messages from people not on your buddy list
- ICQ Status messages work again
- You can now turn on a preference to log all of your messages with other users
- Now opens URL's in the Internet Config defined Web Application
- AIM Away messages now send correctly
- You can disable sounds when you are away or idle


New in 0.14.a
-------------

**** MUST READ ****
- Your buddy list will need to be recreated from scratch for the upgrade to Fire 0.14 and above.  This is necessary - I am very sorry.  This will also trash your old Away messages.  Once again I apologize.  If you want to try upgrading here are the steps.

Run the Old Fire (0.13) and use the Fire >> Save >> AIM Buddy List and Fire >> Save >> Buddy Names and save these files off somewhere.  Run the new Fire and reimport them.  All the buddies on the list will be set to use AIM.  Sorry!

- New gtkyahoo support - thanks jjfelier.
- Upgraded icq support.
- New flashing chat windows
- You can now be a consumer in AIM Chats, however you still can't initiate them.
- Misc fixes, mostly regarding the buddy list and online/offline buddies.
- Addition of the new service icons to knwo what service a buddy is on. This can be turned off on the Buddy Window preferences.




New in 0.12.a
-------------
- Completely new ICQ support
- Integrated bundles.  It was too hard for many users to install their own bundles.  I only read bundles from inside the app wrapper - you can remove your old Fire bundles.
- Flashing window are back
- DP4 UI changes
- support for spell checking in the send window
- old style idle code re-implemented
- AIM will now only register the first 100 buddies ...

New in 0.11.a
-------------
- AIM Support for Chat groups - Buggy and Disabled - Sorry!
- Away status in AIM
- updated AIM library
- ability to mute a window
- chatting support (for group type stuff) - Buggy and Disabled - Sorry!
- AIM error processing greatly improved.  AIM will now relog you in on failure!
- misc bug fixes.


New in 0.10.a
-------------
- More UI improvements - mostly curteousy of jfosback@ubermind.com.
- Openstep 4.2 port
- Preference and feature improvements
- Service Controller move to Fire>Edit Services ... menu.
- More sophisticated idle detection
- Display of status messages (idle, etc.) for AIM, ICQ and Yahoo users

New in 0.9b
-----------
- Tons and tons of stuff.  All services are now "loadable" bundles.  These bundles now exist for AIM, ICQ and Yahoo Pager.  All service specific code should have been removed from the Fire application (with exception of aiml and buddy list support - these will move soon).
- Yahoo and ICQ support are now both stable and usable
- Supports status.  When you are away - away notices are sent to supportign services (Yahoo, Icq), when you are idle IDLE is sent to all services.
- Much faster buddy list stuff.
- Console window now added (Cmd-Sh-C).
- Service Controller window now reachable through Edit >> Services ... menu.
- All around I think this is the most usable release.
- For more info see the readmes for every service bundle ...

More history
------------

See http://www.epicware.com/fire-news.html for news and release history.


Features and To Do List
------------------------

See http://www.epicware.com/fire-features.html.

Known Issues
-------------------

1)  Login errors are not reported correctly - your application may hang if you put in a bad username/password combination - check the application consoel for more

2)  No warning is displayed when you get info on a buddy who is not online.  Nothing bad happens, but nothing good happens either.

3)  Right now you get no notification that you have lost network connection ... that's bad :)

4)  There are some issues regarding using 2 services with users who have identical names.  For example, EricPeyton (me) is an AIM account and EricPeyton (me) is a Yahoo account.  This can screw up Fire very badly - avoid this if you can.
