Speak No More, Just Psi me

Communication is the simplest thing on Earth, especially nowadays with the technology progress we are experiencing. From a simple telegram or a letter we have passed to faxes, email, short text messages sent from mobile phones, instant messages, etc. For these to happen there is a lot of activity in the background: messages are being exchanged between servers, different transport protocols are used, encryption of the data so that it won't be grabbed by unauthorized persons, etc.

There is a lot of complicated activity behind that small instant messaging window you are typing in. And yet, communication depends on the "channels" you are using. Different instant messaging services are using different protocols and generally you and your friends have to be part of the same channel in order to talk unrestricted.

The operating systems obstacle has been long overcome and you can "abuse" instant messengers whether you are running Mac OS, a Linux distribution or Windows operating system. Pidgin, Yahoo Messenger, Google Talk, MSN, AIM, Pandion, these are just a few of the options you have in order to send free, "long-distance" messages. No more staying in line, paying a fee corresponding to the destination of the message, just an Internet connection and the appropriate set tool and that is it.

Psi is another tool in the same category as the above mentioned communication instruments. It works fine regardless of your operating system and it can even act as a bridge between the different protocols used. This way you can talk to friends logged into Yahoo Messenger, GTalk, Gadu-Gadu, MSN, etc.

It has no price tag and it can be freely used in both corporate and home environment with no strings attached. It is based on the Jabber protocol, a very flexible technology allowing the application to inter-operate with other instant messaging services such as ICQ or MSN.

QT, the graphical toolkit used by Psi, will borrow the appearance of the operating system you are running it on. This is one of the reasons Psi does come with a set of skins. But no matter how well it integrates with the OS, I still think that having a minimum of options in what concerns the looks would add more value to any application. However, Psi allows the user to make some changes with regards to the colors and fonts used for different headings (account, group or different contacts statuses).

From the beginning I have to mention that the contact list is called "roster" and this is the term I am going to use from now on. Besides the QT toolkit applied in Psi, the interface is extremely simple and there is no adware or other disturbing windows available. All there is available is the roster and the menu bar. Not many options there either. General, Status and View are the only choices to be made. However, these are all you need in order to properly configure and manipulate the application.

If you are using Psi for the first time you need to add an account for the list of contacts to be available in roster. It is pretty easy to set up the account if you already have a Jabber ID. Just enter the ID, password and configure the connection settings (proxy, server host and port).

Psi's flexibility allows the user to add multiple accounts to roster and these can support different protocols for talking to users of MSN, Yahoo, GTalk, ICQ and even IRC. However, configuring Psi to add these accounts is quite a challenge as there may be some unknown information for you to look for (transport servers). In the case of GTalk and Yahoo Messenger everything worked nice and fast.

For having a better view of all the added accounts, they are going to be incorporated in the roster as folders, containing the groups of the contacts. Also, in order to have all the contacts in specially created groups the user can add as many groups as s/he wants. Every contact in roster can be easily managed and relocated by simply dragging it to the new group.

Despite this very useful option provided by Psi, there is one little issue. A group cannot be empty when it is created. So you will have to make it by moving one contact to it. Also, moving the contact back to its original location will result in removing the group. So the only solution is to create the new category by moving a contact in there, add a new contact and then move back the first contact to its original location. That is pretty complicated but I could not find an easier way to the problem (the option is available only in the context menu of the contact).

The list of options present in Psi is really amazing. You can configure everything from the way the application behaves, the chat window or appearance to the sounds to be played at the occurrence of different events and the toolbars, and the shortcuts for gaining a little speed.

When I saw that every chat window is opening separately I was a bit disappointed in the software as tabbed windows is a feature implemented in many IM clients and is very useful in saving up desktop space. However, Chat section from Psi Options allows you to configure the application to open all the chat windows in tabs. Also, the user can set the moment when the chat window contents should be deleted. This will not affect in any way the chat history and at pressing Ctrl+H the history window for the selected contact will pop up.

Psi will offer a clear view of the time the message was written and the source, as well as the date and time. The trouble here is that you cannot separate more the columns so that everything is distinct. To give you an example, you cannot drag the "text" column more to the left so that it is totally separated by the "date" column.

Changing the looks of the application is limited to modifying the colors for various elements of the interface. However, customizing the appearance of the DND, Away and Offline/Online can be useful in identifying who is available for a chat and who is not connected. The colors headings for account foreground/background and group foreground/background can also be subjected to changes.

Not only the colors are customizable, but also the fonts and the application icons. The latter can be borrowed from MSN, Yahoo!, AIM or Gadu-Gadu. The default list of emoticons available is not one of the finest but the basic ones will work fine between the different messenger clients. However, some of them will not work at all so I suggest a limited use of these contraptions during the conversation.

To make the Psi look customization complete the developer added some options that allow you to configure the opacity of roster window and of the chat dialog. Additionally you can outline the headings and slim the group headings.

Regarding the sounds, these may not be too appealing for some of the users, so tuning them up is also possible. The supported audio format for this to happen is WAV. Although, for "Incoming File Transfer" and "File Transfer Complete" I must admit that the sounds are just great.

Among the many features sported by Psi you can count on a spell checker (a spell engine for now), a bookmark storage support where bookmarked conferences are auto-joined or the support for multicast messages (send the same message to all the contacts available in a group).


The Good

Despite the fact that it is an early version (0.11) and it is not even final (RC1 stage) Psi manages to do a hell of a job. Its multiple account support and the ease of use in handling the contacts as well as the large list of options available and the flexibility of running on other different operating systems make it a wise alternative to the regular IM clients on the market.

No installation required, just unzip the compressed file and run the executable. There will be no writing to the registry so it will not be clogged with more data.

The Bad

Psi still has some issues to be fixed and providing a list of servers supporting Jabber protocol so that a beginner could connect to with no problems is only one of them.

The emoticons that can be used in conversations are quite limited, but I am sure that this will change pretty soon.

Group creating is a nasty issue. There is no context menu in roster to make available such an option and a category must have at least one contact inside in order to be present in the list.

The Truth

The application is not intended for those that have no idea on how Jabber works. Beginners will find very difficult to add accounts. On the other hand, setting up the application is extremely easy.

There aren't many options in what concerns the chats, but Psi is reliable and during our testings it never crashed and created absolutely no problems.

Here are some snapshots of the application in action:


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