chromeless meebo 2.0
Update (Aug 28): I’ve created a Chromeless Meebo changelog page.
My chromeless meebo proof-of-concept got an upgrade this weekend (now at version 0.5). It’s been fully upgraded to .Net 2.0, which means that there are no more external dependancies. Also included are:
- Saving of preferences.
- Single clicking on the tray icon only toggles the buddy list – To toggle all Meebo windows, use double click.
- Tooltips no longer rotate when you recieve a message from a contact – They appear once only.
- ClickOnce magic – This means you can ‘install’ Meebo Browser via a web interface, and updates happen automagically.
- Splash Screen – With an AJAX loading widget provided by Ajaxload.
So you can take it for a test drive right now if you have the .Net 2.0 Framework installed (the ClickOnce page should detect if you don’t – and prompt you to install it). If you’re a Firefox user, then you might want to install FFClickOnce to ‘enable’ ClickOnce functionality correctly in Firefox.
May 31st, 2006 at 9:31 am
well, I’ve had one day with the new chromeless meebo, and I’m chuffed!* this is probably because you addressed all my feedback issues
and ClickOnce really is magic
* although this morning it didn’t start automatically, even though I copied the shortcut to my Startup folder
May 31st, 2006 at 4:46 pm
No pix –> BAD!
So yeah, could you provide a picture of what this looks like please?
June 3rd, 2006 at 9:51 pm
Um, it looks like Meebo! Except that there’s no browser border, and the background colour ends up being transparent.
July 18th, 2006 at 9:07 pm
the clickonce installer doesn’t work behind the proxy at work. what’s up with that?
July 19th, 2006 at 10:26 am
Hmm, I noticed that, that happens sometimes. Generally it seems to be because the proxy requires authentication.
August 8th, 2006 at 12:51 pm
Very Good. I’m impressed!
One thing I have noticed is that it uses 50MB+ of RAM and a constant 4/5% CPU.
Still good though. Thumbs up dude.
August 8th, 2006 at 1:14 pm
Mmm, I know. I’d be interested to know who much IE uses in comparison.
I’m pretty sure the 5% CPU is due to the timer checking the background colour to see what should be transparent every 100ms. What speed PC do you have?
August 8th, 2006 at 1:24 pm
FYI: I’m got code in the works that will allow you to use the Mozilla rendering engine instead of the Microsoft rendering engine
August 15th, 2006 at 11:30 am
KB917952 describes this issue. Looks like you need a patch from MS to work around this issue
August 18th, 2006 at 6:49 pm
It works pretty well, though 80+ MB of RAM & 20+% CPU is way too excessive for what it is. (I have 2GB total on a 2.2GHz P4.)
The other thing is that when you show the console is looks like a graphics glitch. That could really use some cleaning up.
August 18th, 2006 at 7:23 pm
Unfortunately there’s very little I can do about memory usage – the code I’ve actually written is fairly small and simple. Currently there’s a timer running 10 times a second to create the transparency, which I could very easily make run say only once a second. That should help with the CPU usage. Also using the Mozilla rendering engine instead of the Microsoft one helps. The graphics glitch is also something that’s really hard to do anything about, mainly because I’m using .Net’s GDI+ to do all the work.
August 27th, 2006 at 12:43 am
[...] I’ve previously commented that I was working on Mozilla rendering support for my Chromeless Meebo Browser, well now it’s here. To enable it you will need my upgraded version of the Mozilla ActiveX Control and make some configuration changes by hand. [...]
November 6th, 2006 at 11:03 pm
Nurm,
Meebo updated their UI (drastically) and things are now visible (due to the id attribute changing on some key elements) that used to be hidden.
Luckily they provided a URL to their previous version at http://classic.meebo.com/ (no SSL at this subdomain, so don’t try it).
Could you let us know when this is fixed (or if it will be fixed)? I was thinking that this would be a good candidate for sticking the element ID’s for the ones you hide inside of the app.config to allow furture mods.
Yeah, I’m a dreamer.
;-}
Thanks for the great (free) app BTW…
November 7th, 2006 at 12:10 pm
Mmm, I see. I’m currently on holiday, and for some reason Meebo refuses to load (either new version or classic). I’m planning some sort of JavaScript driven engine for the next version, which will make updates much easier to handle. Thanks for pointing out the classic url!
May 11th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Can I quote you in my report for school?