is a universal
Instant Messaging Client that provides all-in-one chat functionality for several major instant messaging services from one simple program. It is the heir of the
Everybuddy project.
Ayttm primarily supports one to one and group chatting on MSN, Yahoo!, ICQ, AIM, Jabber and IRC. It also has support for sending rudimentary emails via
SMTP , which may be used to send
SMS via email to
SMS Gateways . Ayttm also supports
Webcams on
Yahoo! Messenger , and voice chatting over MSN using
Gnomemeeting .
The feature that sets Ayttm apart from other universal instant messengers is a feature known as
Fallback Messaging . It allows you to group multiple service accounts of the same person under a Contact identifier. If you are chatting with a contact and the service you are using fails, Ayttm can automatically and seamlessly fall back to other service protocols. This results in an uninterrupted chat session for users on ayttm.
Ayttm has a few fun features as well, including language
Translation . Each contact may be associated with a language, and ayttm can automatically translate text messages from the user's primary language to the language of a contact. Ayttm uses the
Babelfish translation service, and results in translations that are often more amusing than accurate.
Aycryption is a filter that facilitates
Encrypted chat using
GPG keys. All outgoing text is encrypted using the remote contact's
Public Key , and incoming encrypted text is
Decrypted using the local
Private Key .
Ayttm's
Plugin architecture makes it possible for new
Protocol support to be added without modifying the core application. Plugins must be compiled against a version of the core and will only work with core versions that are
Binary Compatibile with the core version that the plugin was built against.
Five types of plugins are supported:
- Service plugins - for protocol support. eg: MSN.
- Filter plugins - to modify incoming and outgoing messages. eg: Auto translation, aycryption
- Importers - to import contacts and accounts from other messengers.
- Smileys - a smiley pack
- Utility - to add functionality. eg: Video capture, notes.
The primary problem with ayttm is its
UI . The ayttm UI is built using
Gtk 1.2, which has been outdated for many years. Current work is progressing on a gtk2 port, with [http://db.glug-bom.org/wiki/index.php/User:Siddhesh Siddhesh Poyarekar] heading development on this feature.
The development team of ayttm has apparently disbanded for various personal reasons, and no new developers have stepped in to take up the reins. Development on this application appears to be dead, however, the odd patch does get submitted to the mailing list.
Towards the end of started on a rewrite that was to be the long term solution. This resulted in the
Eb-lite project. The other group led by
Colin Leroy decided to fix all of the primary issues of everybuddy and work on features only after stabilising the core. The result was
Ayttm .
Ayttm first made it into on
December 27 2002 .
On ,
2003 .
The latest release of Ayttm is
0.4.6-17 and was made on
June 2 ,
2004 by
Tahir Hashmi . It does not appear that any work has been done on the project since then, and the mailing list appears to be mostly dormant.
Ayttm was initially meant to be Yattm. The reasons for this are unknown. When Colin registered the project on Savannah, however, he misspelled Yattm, resulting in a project known as Ayttm. The CVS log on Savannah shows that the executable name was changed from yattm to ayttm on
January 16 ,
2003 . No expansion for Ayttm was provided at this time.
Several expansions of the name were attempted, and the one settled on was "Are You Talking To Me?". The question mark is part of the name. The name Ayttm is a
Backronym and credit for coining this term goes to
Natasha Sharma .
When spoken, ayttm is pronounced "item" or "Ay-wai-tee-tee-em".
The expansion is stated as a question, which often results in exchanges as follows:
What does "Ayttm" stand for?
Are you talking to me?
Yes, I am.
Some of the other expansions tried were:
- Ayt the messenger (title on Savannah project page)
- Ain't You ToTally Mad?
- Ayttm's Your True Time Messenger
Ayttm is known to run on the following platforms:
Several ports use the
GTK+ graphical
Widget Toolkit .
- checkout---/ayttm/ayttm/AUTHORS?revision=1.10" class="copylinks" target="_blank">Ayttm team .
