Web-based Gtalk Messenger Finally Arrives WOW - that was FAST

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

WOWW - Google is FAST. Guys - IT'S ALIVE - it's already been implemented.. I just logged into one of my accounts and found the messenger right below the Folders list.

 

Here's a screenshot:

 

Looks terrific - am just waiting excitedly for someone to log on and test it's features Looks like an exact replica of GTalk.

 

 

You can pop the chat dialog out as a separate window or simply keep it floating inside your Gmail page. Awesome.

 

Here are the pop-in and pop-out mode screen-shots

 

Pop-in

 

Pop-out

 

And I found some more cool features... as shown in the following snapshot

 

1. Say you aren't observing the IM window - only checking your Gmail - the contacts name in your list becomes dull amber and flashes indicating new message..

 

2. Also hovering your mouse above ANY EMAIL address in your messagelist, pop's out a new window prompting you to Invite to Chat or Mail.

 

 

3. Also another feature I missed out - that Hraefn pointed out - is a little link called Off-the-record right below your IM window. If you click on that, starting from next line you type, till you turn it off, NONE of your CHAT MESSAGES are LOGGED.

 

Here's what they say about Off-the-record

 

What is 'off the record'?

Chats that have been taken off the record aren't stored in your Gmail chat history, or in the Gmail chat history of your contact. You and the person you're talking to can both see when a chat is taken off the record, and you'll be notified if off the record mode is disabled. Your off the record settings will apply whenever you chat with this person, until one of you makes a change.

 

To take a chat off the record:

 

  1. Click Options in the bottom-left corner of the chat window.

  2. Select Go off the record.

 

A message will appear confirming that future chats with this particular contact will be off the record, unless one of you changes the setting. If you decide at any time that your chats no longer need to be off the record, click Cancel at the top of the chat window, or Stop chatting off the record in the chat window's Options menu.

 

Keep in mind that if you're talking to someone who is connected to the Google Talk service with a third-party chat client, it's possible that his or her software is keeping a separate copy of the chat history.

 

4. Also they're got their own cute little B & W simleys The smileys appear as normal text at first and then through AJAX, they become graphical smileys - at first sideways, and then with a minor smooth animation they turn and become straight - which I find real cool. The animation can be re-enacted if you hover your mouse over the smileys.

 

5. It saves your chat-log in realtime. So anytime just pop into your Chat folder in Gmail - and you'll find the updated conversation log there.

[abhiram 0]

Sweet ... used it just now. I must say, the idea of saving all the conversations in the gmail account itself is really revolutionary. Now, I can look back on important conversations from any system anywhere in the world. Also, can use it in Linux perfectly. There's no problem with firefox in Linux at all .

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

It's not introduced into all accounts yet - I have it in one of my alternative accounts - but am waiting for it to turn up in my main account, so I can start adding people. Yeah - the universal thing is what I like best - from any platform, from any corner of the world.

[Hraefn 0]

One thing I've learned about Google is that when they say they'll do something, they really deliver. The said that Gmail Chat will be out soon, and it is. I just never reckoned on how soon that would be. Barely 24 hours after the initial announcement, Gmail Chat has gone LIVEâat least for some users.

 

I've just left a short chat session with m^e to test out the features of the new Gmail Chat, and I liked what I saw. It's not as heavily decked out as Yahoo! Messenger, MSN, or AIM, but that's exactly why I like it. It's a simple, no-frills type of IM client that does exactly what you'd want an IM client to do: chat.

 

So what do I think of the new Gmail Chat? Here's what.

 

PROS

Gmail Chat is light on the browser. â Normally you'd expect a web-based browser to be heavy on browser resources. I'm happy to say that this isn't the case. My browser worked normally the entire time the chat session was open, with no hangups or crashesâand this is on a machine with limited RAM running Windows XP, and using the Flock browser (which is only a developer's preview and not even a beta).

Pop-out mode. â I like having a pop-out mode because this allows me to browse other websites and still keep my chat session open without having to return to my Gmail page. It's almost like having a desktop IM client. =^^=

The smileys. â m^e told you about Gmail Chat's cute little B/W smileys, right? Well, I just love them! They're certainly a departure from the usual smileys we see everyday, and so simplistically stylish!

Realtime chat logs. â Say you accidentally close your chat window, and you didn't get to read your chat-mate's last message. Well, since chat sessions are logged in real time, just head over to your saved chat logs and that message that you missed is there. Nifty, isn't it?

Off-the-record mode â If you have a conversation that you don't want anybody to save, either yourself or your chat-mate, then is the perfect way to do it.

Ability to block a contact from chat. â Really handy if you have a contact that spams your chat. Just hover your mouse cursor over the contact's name to bring up the following popup, then choose block.

 

 

Or you could use the 'Options' menu in your chat screen.

Ability to quickly add chat contacts straight from your address book. â Yep, you can add a chat contact straight from your address book (you still have to send them a chat invite, though). All you have to do is go to your address book, click the checkbox next to the contacts you want added, then select Add contact to... Quick Contacts, as shown in the screenshot below.

 

Being a new feature, of course there are some kinks they still need to work out. Here's my list of things that I think they should implement or that they could have done better.

 

CONS

No conference chat or chatroom yet. â Chatrooms aren't available for Gmail Chat yet, but I have hopes that Google will soon implement it. As mentioned in the Gmail Chat help center:

 

Can I set up a conference call or chat room?

 

No. But we're always working hard on improving Gmail, and look forward to announcing new features and improvements as they become available. You may also want to download the Google Talk client so you can get the latest features we add to our free voice calling and IM service.

No easily visible warning of new messages when using pop-out mode. â Currently, the only way to be notified of new messages is when you see your contact's name flash in your Gmail screen. However, that's not really effective when you're using pop-out mode because your main browser window is usually looking at other pages instead of the Gmail screen.

No text formatting. â This could be a good thing or a bad thing, depending on whether you like text formatting. Myself, I like it the way it is, but there are times I wish I could use simple formats like bold or italics just for emphasis.

No nickname feature available. â As it is now, it's your Gmail account name that's displayed on the screen.

Those are the only downsides that I can think of for now, and they're relatively minor ones. Despite it all, Gmail Chat still looks to be the best upcoming IM client. It's certainly one I plan to use in the future, especially once my main Gmail account gets it.

 

Oh, and I almost forgot. For those of you who don't want to use the Gmail Chat feature, you have an option to turn it off. Just go to the bottom of your Gmail page and select to view the page as 'Standard without chat', like in the screenshot below.

 

 

-P.S.- I just love how efficient Google is about this. They even have a troubleshooting knowledgebase for the new Gmail Chat even though it's been live for only a few hours. Way to go, Google! =^^=

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

Wow dude you can write well for sure That's gotta be one of the best compiled reviews I've seen. Good one. Keep it up.

[cyborgxxi 0]

Okay, now I am really convinced that Google is really working things up here!! First, their Google search engine, then Gmail, and then Google Talk. So what now? More implements to the service!Hold on - please correct me if I'm wrong - are you saying that you can CHAT through Gmail?? If that is correct, then I am really amazed I mean, Yahoo! nor MSN has that (except their MSN Web-messenger and it's horribly needing of fixes) and Google, that new kid in town, is beating 'em all so badly C'mon Microsoft, what's going on with you?By the way, do you know how Google's Google Talk is beating MSN Messenger 8.0? It uses FAR less memory (RAM) than that fat resource hog. I don't know how it does that - there are graphic and textual advertisements but that doesn't really ... well, at least for me, it doesn't cover up their problems. It's like a big hole in the program!Anyway, one of the MAIN reasons I don't use Google Talk is because very few of my friends use Gmail. They're all stuck with *STUPID* MSN Messenger and Hotmail. I mean, dude, Gmail is 2.6 gigabyte storage!! How much is Hotmail? 2 megabytes? That is 0.1% of what Gmail provides! And for free! The ads are very simple and they aren't annoying!!Bah... why do I have to suffer this? Please add me (look at my signature)

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

You missed out on Google Desktop - because of which I can now always

Keep track of Latest News and Current Affairs

Keep a watch on the weather

Keep a tab on my Adsense earnings

Make quick notes

Maintain a handy To-Do list

Get my daily horoscope

Quick shutdown/reboot/hibernate

All from this handy little lightweight unobtrusive sliding bar on the right of my desktop.

 

It's so fast and so bloody powerpacked - specially once you start mixing and matching the various plugins.

 

Here's a screen-shot:

 

You can download it at: http://desktop.google.com/

 

Try it out and the plugins too - it's an AWESOME tool.

[cyborgxxi 0]

Holy shoot, how do you get that! My goodness... Google Desktop. Is that a software package? Or some ... Google software that they came up with that's going to beat everyone's minds senseless?Okay, I got a little over there :)By the way, why can't my computer hibernate? Wait, what does it exactly do? I've never done it before!

[Sarah81 0]

Wow - it sounds to me like Google put a lot of thought and effort into coming up with this program. As usual, they're taking common sense (i.e. what users would actually want and make use of) into account when they come up with new things. And wow, are they fast!

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Haha cyborg I'm in your boat, I got gtalk... loved it... added all my...uh...no friends that use it....hrm... :PI'll need to go on another recruiting campaign and try to convince some of them to start switching over or at least using both, I can't stand msn but it's my main chat proggy cause everyone uses it. Maybe knowing how good the web gtalk is will entice a few more away from the dark side

[xboxrulz1405241485 0]

too bad Google Desktop doesn't have a Linux version :)xboxrulz

[nightfox1405241487 0]

I have two Gmail accounts (one is for school website stuff since I am a student webmaster and the other is my personal account) but somehow my second account which is far newer got the web based chat and I'm still waiting for my personal account to get it! :)From a test today after school with a friend, we tested it out but I found a weird bug too... sometimes when you pop-out and pop back in, the pop-in never appears and there is a blinking cursor right in the middle of the page... lo and behold, I could type though not see anything except the cursor move. I forget if it was in IE or Firefox because the lab I was in has IE right on the desktop, and Firefox in Start > Browsers > Firefox and that is usually too much clicking for me... plus the computers have Deep Freeze on them so the install of Firefox is 1.0.8, not very good!Back on subject, I found it to be quite useful, but I'm a little worried about what the service provider will do since content filtering is enabled by N2H2... it blocks AIM, MSN and Yahoo requests, but I HOPE that Gmail doesn't get blocked because of this. A year ago, Gmail login box was blocked (yes, it was... but the rest of the Gmail site wasn't... just the login) so it was impossible to access mail but then the folks at Secure Computing (makers of Bess/N2H2) updated it to allow it... hopefully they don't block it!Well, I better be off to bed as it is 10:30 PM here and I've got more school tomorrow and I have to deal with a whole lot of stuff! I'll post more later![N]F

[miCRoSCoPiC^eaRthLinG 0]

For those who don't have Google Desktop of haven't tried it out - ITS A MUST.

I've posted screen-shots and the download link in the 7th post in this thread: http://forums.xisto.com/topic/88733-topic/?findpost=

[szupie 0]

MS^E, stop advertising Google Desktop in this thread!!!

 

Yay, I just logged in to Gmail, and I was faced with this screen:

That indicates that I can now use Google Chat! So I clicked the "Got to my Inbox" button and checked out what it looks like.

 

Unfortunately, the Quick Contacts box can't be dragged-and-dropped like the xml boxes in Personalized Homepage, but there are 2 places that you can place it in. Go to Settings in the top right corner of the page, then Chat, and there will be an option where you can choose whether it should go above the Labels box or below it. I chose below because I use the labels very often.

 

One thing I don't like is that now, my inbox page looks too crowded. It's becoming hard to find an empty space on that page. By the way, has anyone noticed that the font size of the Labels box got bigger? It can't be switched back even if I choose to view in "standard without chat".

[Jeigh1405241495 0]

Since m^e keeps lovin up google desktop...
http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ https://0''>https://0'>http://forums.xisto.com/no_longer_exists/ https://0

hehe.

But yea, I was gonna try out the web gtalk last night... then forgot who the few epople I knew were that had gtalk, so once I find them again and add them I'll give my impressions.