Centericq
Encyclopedia
Centericq is a text mode menu- and window-driven instant messaging
interface that supports the ICQ
, Yahoo!
, AIM
, MSN
, IRC, XMPP
, LiveJournal
, and Gadu-Gadu
protocols. It allows you to send, receive, and forward messages, URLs, SMSes (both through the ICQ
server and email gateways supported by Mirabilis
), contacts, and email express messages, and it has many other useful features. Known to work in Linux
, FreeBSD
, NetBSD
, OpenBSD
, Solaris, Windows
and Mac OS
X/Darwin Operating Systems.
Its heyday was in the first half-decade of the 2000s, with reviews appearing in Softpedia
, and Czech
online magazines ABC Linux and Linux.cz. It was also recommended in a 2004 OSNews
article on console applications, and in a similar article in the Russian magazine Computerra
. Two tutorial articles appeared in the German magazine LinuxUser in 2001 and 2004; the latter article also appeared in the English version of Linux Magazine
. It was included in a 2002 round-up of ICQ clients in the Russian XAKEP magazine, and in a 2005 round-up review of IRC Clients in Free Software Magazine
. The FSM reviewer remarked CenterICQ for its windows-like interface built on top of the usual curses
library, which provides a lot of information, but can also look cluttered on smaller terminal windows, including the standard 80 by 25 terminal. It also found that IRC support was "excellent" due to support for multiple servers and channels and the ease of switching between them in the “windowed” interface. In September 2002, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols found it "the greatest of all console IM clients" due to its "excellent interface and a huge number of features and configuration options" in a category review on Freshmeat
. In 2005 it was also reviewed in The Unofficial Apple Weblog, but despite support for .mac accounts, the reviewer was displeased with the "annoying key combos" required to access the menus, because on Mac OS X
the usual function key
assignments of CenterICQ could not be used. He could also not access the MSN network. Despite this he concluded: "All things considered, I've decided that Centericq is the most stable and intuitive terminal based chat client."
In November 2007, the project's website stated that CenterICQ is dead. Because CenterICQ is not actively maintained anymore, other developers forked the project to CenterIM, and applied several security patches and updates. , CenterIM is still in development; version 4.22.9 was released on December 14. Neither CenterICQ nor CenterIM 4 support Unicode
, but support for UTF-8
is planned for CenterIM 5.
Instant messaging
Instant Messaging is a form of real-time direct text-based chatting communication in push mode between two or more people using personal computers or other devices, along with shared clients. The user's text is conveyed over a network, such as the Internet...
interface that supports the ICQ
ICQ
ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, which was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company Mirabilis, then bought by America Online, and since April 2010 owned by Mail.ru Group. The name ICQ is a homophone for the phrase "I seek you"...
, Yahoo!
Yahoo!
Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...
, AIM
AOL Instant Messenger
AOL Instant Messenger is an instant messaging and presence computer program which uses the proprietary OSCAR instant messaging protocol and the TOC protocol to allow registered users to communicate in real time. It was released by AOL in May 1997...
, MSN
MSN
MSN is a collection of Internet sites and services provided by Microsoft. The Microsoft Network debuted as an online service and Internet service provider on August 24, 1995, to coincide with the release of the Windows 95 operating system.The range of services offered by MSN has changed since its...
, IRC, XMPP
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol
Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol is an open-standard communications protocol for message-oriented middleware based on XML . The protocol was originally named Jabber, and was developed by the Jabber open-source community in 1999 for near-real-time, extensible instant messaging , presence...
, LiveJournal
LiveJournal
LiveJournal is a virtual community where Internet users can keep a blog, journal or diary. LiveJournal is also the name of the free and open source server software that was designed to run the LiveJournal virtual community....
, and Gadu-Gadu
Gadu-Gadu
Gadu-Gadu is a Polish instant messaging client using a proprietary protocol. Gadu-Gadu is the most popular IM service in Poland, with over 15 million registered accounts and approximately 6.5 million users online daily. Gadu-Gadu’s casual gaming portal had some 500,000 active users at the end of...
protocols. It allows you to send, receive, and forward messages, URLs, SMSes (both through the ICQ
ICQ
ICQ is an instant messaging computer program, which was first developed and popularized by the Israeli company Mirabilis, then bought by America Online, and since April 2010 owned by Mail.ru Group. The name ICQ is a homophone for the phrase "I seek you"...
server and email gateways supported by Mirabilis
Mirabilis (company)
Mirabilis is an Israeli company that developed the ICQ instant messaging program, a pioneer of online chatting that revolutionized communication over the Internet.-History:...
), contacts, and email express messages, and it has many other useful features. Known to work in Linux
Linux
Linux is a Unix-like computer operating system assembled under the model of free and open source software development and distribution. The defining component of any Linux system is the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released October 5, 1991 by Linus Torvalds...
, FreeBSD
FreeBSD
FreeBSD is a free Unix-like operating system descended from AT&T UNIX via BSD UNIX. Although for legal reasons FreeBSD cannot be called “UNIX”, as the direct descendant of BSD UNIX , FreeBSD’s internals and system APIs are UNIX-compliant...
, NetBSD
NetBSD
NetBSD is a freely available open source version of the Berkeley Software Distribution Unix operating system. It was the second open source BSD descendant to be formally released, after 386BSD, and continues to be actively developed. The NetBSD project is primarily focused on high quality design,...
, OpenBSD
OpenBSD
OpenBSD is a Unix-like computer operating system descended from Berkeley Software Distribution , a Unix derivative developed at the University of California, Berkeley. It was forked from NetBSD by project leader Theo de Raadt in late 1995...
, Solaris, Windows
Microsoft Windows
Microsoft Windows is a series of operating systems produced by Microsoft.Microsoft introduced an operating environment named Windows on November 20, 1985 as an add-on to MS-DOS in response to the growing interest in graphical user interfaces . Microsoft Windows came to dominate the world's personal...
and Mac OS
Mac OS
Mac OS is a series of graphical user interface-based operating systems developed by Apple Inc. for their Macintosh line of computer systems. The Macintosh user experience is credited with popularizing the graphical user interface...
X/Darwin Operating Systems.
Its heyday was in the first half-decade of the 2000s, with reviews appearing in Softpedia
Softpedia
Softpedia is an Internet web site that indexes information and provides software downloads. The site also covers major technology, science, health, and entertainment news from both external and in-house sources and provides software and game reviews. , it is one of the top 500 websites according to...
, and Czech
Czech language
Czech is a West Slavic language with about 12 million native speakers; it is the majority language in the Czech Republic and spoken by Czechs worldwide. The language was known as Bohemian in English until the late 19th century...
online magazines ABC Linux and Linux.cz. It was also recommended in a 2004 OSNews
OSNews
OSNews is a computing news web site with a focus on operating systems and their related technologies that launched in 1997. The content is managed by a group of editors and the owner. The managing editor of OSNews is Thom Holwerda . David Adams is a publisher for OSNews, and also contributes...
article on console applications, and in a similar article in the Russian magazine Computerra
Computerra
Computerra was a Russian computer weekly publication. The first edition was released on December 21, 1992 and was published by C&C Computer Publishing Limited...
. Two tutorial articles appeared in the German magazine LinuxUser in 2001 and 2004; the latter article also appeared in the English version of Linux Magazine
Linux Magazine
Linux Magazine is a European professional journal. It addresses itself to readers who work professionally with operating systems based around the Linux kernel. Linux Magazine is published by Linux New Media AG and was born after the great success of Linux-Magazin...
. It was included in a 2002 round-up of ICQ clients in the Russian XAKEP magazine, and in a 2005 round-up review of IRC Clients in Free Software Magazine
Free Software Magazine
Free Software Magazine is a website which produces a mostly free-content e-zine about free software....
. The FSM reviewer remarked CenterICQ for its windows-like interface built on top of the usual curses
Curses (programming library)
curses is a terminal control library for Unix-like systems, enabling the construction of text user interface applications.The name is a pun on the term “cursor optimization”. It is a library of functions that manage an application's display on character-cell terminals .- Overview :The curses API...
library, which provides a lot of information, but can also look cluttered on smaller terminal windows, including the standard 80 by 25 terminal. It also found that IRC support was "excellent" due to support for multiple servers and channels and the ease of switching between them in the “windowed” interface. In September 2002, Steven J. Vaughan-Nichols found it "the greatest of all console IM clients" due to its "excellent interface and a huge number of features and configuration options" in a category review on Freshmeat
Freshmeat
Freecode, formerly Freshmeat, is a website owned by Geeknet that allows computer users to keep track of the latest software releases and updates as well as write/read reviews and articles, send or receive comments to or from the author, and many other features...
. In 2005 it was also reviewed in The Unofficial Apple Weblog, but despite support for .mac accounts, the reviewer was displeased with the "annoying key combos" required to access the menus, because on Mac OS X
Mac OS X
Mac OS X is a series of Unix-based operating systems and graphical user interfaces developed, marketed, and sold by Apple Inc. Since 2002, has been included with all new Macintosh computer systems...
the usual function key
Function key
A function key is a key on a computer or terminal keyboard which can be programmed so as to cause an operating system command interpreter or application program to perform certain actions...
assignments of CenterICQ could not be used. He could also not access the MSN network. Despite this he concluded: "All things considered, I've decided that Centericq is the most stable and intuitive terminal based chat client."
In November 2007, the project's website stated that CenterICQ is dead. Because CenterICQ is not actively maintained anymore, other developers forked the project to CenterIM, and applied several security patches and updates. , CenterIM is still in development; version 4.22.9 was released on December 14. Neither CenterICQ nor CenterIM 4 support Unicode
Unicode
Unicode is a computing industry standard for the consistent encoding, representation and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems...
, but support for UTF-8
UTF-8
UTF-8 is a multibyte character encoding for Unicode. Like UTF-16 and UTF-32, UTF-8 can represent every character in the Unicode character set. Unlike them, it is backward-compatible with ASCII and avoids the complications of endianness and byte order marks...
is planned for CenterIM 5.
See also
- naim is another text-based messaging client with support for multiple protocols
- List of XMPP client software
- Comparison of instant messaging clientsComparison of instant messaging clientsThe following tables compare general and technical information for a number of instant messaging clients. Please see the individual products' articles for further information. This article is not all-inclusive or necessarily up-to-date...
Further reading
- Alexandru Voiculescu (September 2002) Interview with Konstantin Klyagin, PC MagazinePC MagazinePC Magazine is a computer magazine published by Ziff Davis Publishing Holdings Inc. A print edition was published from 1982 to January 2009...
Romania, original in Romanian - Petr Krčmář (12 March 2007), Interview with the CenterICQ author, Konstantin Klyagin, root.cz