[b]Citation :[/b]
 
 
Changes:
Status System:
* The code dealing with buddy and account status, away messages,
  away states, online/offline, etc has been completely rewritten.
  Huge thanks to Christian Hammond, Dave West, Daniel Atallah and
  Sadrul Habib Chowdhury.
* Your status can now be set from inside the buddy list using the
  selector at the bottom of the window.
* To see messages when a buddy signs on or off, goes away, or
  becomes idle, load the "Buddy State Notification" plugin
 
Buddy List:
* Buddy icons are now shown in tooltips (Felipe Contreras)
* Tooltips now contain additional information about a "Person" that
  contains multiple online buddies
* Added a "Last Seen" field to buddy tooltips (Richard Laager)
* Contacts will auto-expand when buddies are dragged around
* If Gaim is exited with the buddy list hidden in the docklet, it
  will remain hidden when Gaim is started again (Scott Shedden)
* Improved buddy list searching with CTRL+F
 
Conversations and Chats:
* Messages from buddies in the same "Person" will automatically
  use the same conversation window.
* The "Send As" menu has been replaced with a more appropriate
  "Send To" menu based on "Persons" on your buddy list
* Message formatting persists between messages (Igor Belyi)
* Full message background colors are now supported
* Smooth scrolling when receiving a new message
* Screenname colors in chats now chosen intelligently from GNOME
  color palette
* Conversation buffer scrollback limited to avoid large memory
  usage in active conversations
* Control-Shift-Tab will reverse cycle through the conversation tabs
  (James Vega)
* Many problems related to having an IM conversation and a chat open
  with the same name are fixed (Andrew Hart)
* Warning dialog when closing a window with unread IM messages
* In chats right-click on names in the conversation window to
  IM/Send File/Get info/ignore the user
* Added tab management options to the tab right-click menu (Sadrul Habib
  Chowdhury)
* Brand new message queueing system (Casey Harkins)
 
Sounds:
* Beautiful new default sounds (Brad Turcotte)
* Use libao for playing sounds via NAS instead of accessing NAS directly
 
Log Viewer:
* Log viewer aggregates logs from the same Contact (Richard Laager)
* When opening the log viewer, show the most recent log by default
  (Peter McCurdy)
 
Plugins:
* Plugins are now accessed through a separate dialog from the Tools
  menu of the Buddy List
* Newly installed plugins can now be activated without restarting
  Gaim (Sadrul Habib Chowdhury)
* Overhauled the system tray/docklet plugin (Casey Harkins)
* Text Replacement Plugin rewritten, works in real time and far more
  intuitively (Benjamin Kahn with help from Richard Laager)
* Entries in the text replacement plugin are now sorted
  alphabetically (Richard Laager)
* The Evolution Integration plugin now supports Groupwise contacts
* Mono plugin loader (Eoin Coffey)
* Perl plugin loader has been rewritten (John Kelm, Google Summer
  of Code)
* New music messaging plugin (Christian Muise, Google Summer of Code)
* gaim-remote has been superceded by new DBUS bindings within Gaim
  (Piotr Zielinski, Google Summer of Code)
* The functionality of the auto-reconnect plugin has been
  moved into the Gaim core, and the plugin itself has been
  removed.
 
MSN Features:
* Custom smiley receiving support (Irving Cordova & Francesco Fracassi)
* Added support for sending (with the /nudge command) and receiving
  "nudges" (Julien Cegarra, Martin Bayard)
* Added an account action to open your Hotmail inbox from MSN
 
Yahoo Features:
* Stealth Settings have been implemented
* Doodle is now supported (Andrew Dieffenbach, Google Summer of Code)
* Buddies' requests to add you to their lists now prompt for
  authorization
 
AIM/ICQ Features:
* ICQ file transfer support with newer ICQ clients (Jonathan Clark,
  Google Summer of Code)
* Many overall improvements to OSCAR file transfers (Jonathan Clark,
  Google Summer of Code)
* Ability to set ICQ "require authorization" and "web aware"
  setting (Ettore Simone)
* ICQ encoding fix for offline buddies (Ilya Konstantinov)
 
IRC Features:
* SSL support for IRC connections (Daniel Atallah)
* Show an error message when temporarily unable to join an IRC
  channel or change your nick (Richard Laager)
* Added /nickserv, /memoserv, /chanserv and /operserv
  commands (Joao Luís Marques Pinto)
 
Jabber Features:
* Support for SRV lookups
* Support for buddy icons
* Jabber User Directory searching
 
SILC Features:
* Whiteboard support (Pekka Riikonen)
* Sending/receiving images in IMs (Pekka Riikonen)
* Cipher and HMAC selection support (Pekka Riikonen)
 
Other Protocol Changes:
* Bonjour (Rendezvous) protocol support (Juanjo Molinero Horno, Google
  Summer of Code)
* Updated Gadu-Gadu protocol support (Bartosz Oler, Google Summer of
  Code)
* SIP/SIMPLE support (Thomas Butter, Google Summer of Code)
* Sametime protocol support
 
Other Noteworthy Changes:
* UPnP and NAT traversal support (Adam J. Warrington, Google Summer of
  Code)
* The modify account dialog now contains two tabs, which should display
  better at lower resolutions (Sadrul Habib Chowdhury)
* New "find buddy" results dialog (Alex Converse)
* People using input methods can now use Enter again
* GNOME users can open received files by clicking on "Open" in the
  file transfer window
* Mouse-over hyperlink coloring is now themeable
* Buddy Pounces now have a proper management window. (Kevin Stange)
* Buddy icons maintain aspect ratio when resized
* The last used directory is remembered for opening or saving files and
  buddy icons
 
Preference Changes:
* Preferences have been substantially reorganized and cleaned up
* Smiley theme descriptions are now shown correctly for the highlighted
  smiley theme (Levi Bard)
* All Buddy List preferences have been moved to the Buddies menu of
  the buddy list window.
* Proxy settings will be taken from Gnome if it is running.  These may
  still be overridden on a per-account basis.
* Removed "Dim idle buddies;" behavior is now always enabled
* Removed keyboard shortcut preferences for ctrl-B/I/U; enabled by
  default, but won't interfere with bindings set by the GTK theme
* Removed keyboard shortcuts preferences for ctrl-# to insert a smiley;
  behavior removed from Gaim
* Removed "Enter" vs. "Ctrl-Enter" to send; "Enter" sends by default,
  but it is now possible to change this binding in your GTK theme
* Removed "Show multi-colored screennames in chats;" behavior is now
  always enabled and screenname colors automatically adjust themselves
  to compensate for background color.
* Removed "Raise Buddy List Window on Events" and the related behavior
* Removed "Display remote nicknames if no alias is set"
* Removed "Show idle times" and "Show warning levels" on the buddy
  list; behavior is now always enabled
* Removed "Auto-expand contacts;" contacts expand only when dragging
  buddies around the buddy list
* Removed conversation and buddy list buttons and related preferences
* Removed "Raise conversation window" preferences; moved feature to
  the notify plugin
* Removed "Show alias in tabs/titles;" behavior is now always enabled
* Removed "Show formatting toolbars;" the setting in conversations'
  "Options" menu now affects the global preference
* Removed "Show timestamps;" behavior is now enabled, but is overridden
  by the timestamp plugin
* Removed all protocol options pages
* Removed "Escape closes windows;" default key binding is now Ctrl-W
* Removed "Gaim usage" and "Idle time reporting" preferences; behavior
  now always uses mouse/keyboard when available
* Removed "Log when buddies sign on/sign off/become idle/become
  un-idle/go away/come back" and "Log your own actions;" all of these
  will be logged when the system log is enabled
* Removed the separate ignore formatting preferences; behavior has been
  consolidated into a single preference