Introduced The fifth experimental release of the instant messaging client Pidgin 3.0 (2.94). The release is marked as being of pre-alpha quality, not intended for everyday use. The assemblies are prepared in the Flatpak format and posted in the beta repository on Flathub.
Pidgin 3 branch has been in development since 2011, and before that it was discussed for another three years at the level of concepts and ideas. Pidgin 3 has switched to the GObject type system, GTK4 and Adwaita libraries, the Meson build system, GPlugin for processing plugins, SQLite for storing chat history and GSettings for working with settings. The API has been completely redesigned. GTK Builder XML is used to define interface elements, and its own widget library Talkatu has been created to display chat history.
The Pidgin 3 interface combines the contact list and chat in one window. The Finch console client has been discontinued (it is possible that it may be returned in the future). Among the protocols, implementations of the IRCv3, XMPP, SIP, Demo and Bonjour protocols are currently being developed. The Pidgin 3 branch is incompatible with Pidgin 2 and previously created plugins, but can be installed in parallel with existing Pidgin 2 builds.
Among the changes in the presented test release:
- An interface for managing statuses has been added.
- The algorithm for highlighting user nicknames in different colors has been changed,
