Emesene 1.5 – The BEST Messenger for MSN?

By , Published October 5, 2009

Emesene 1.6 has now been released €“ find out more @ omgubuntu.co.uk/emesene-1.6-released-whats-new.html

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Emesene 1.5 is one of the best instant messengers available for use with the MSN Network thanks to its massive feature set (which includes full webcam support), super stable nature and all-round ease of use.

You may also notice it bears a passing resemblance to the official MSN client.

I’ve blogged about Emesene over and over and then some previously, but this is an up-to-date guide to the best instant messenger for MSN available

If you’re used to Live Messenger/MSN in Windows and want the closest thing to it on Ubuntu €“ Emesene 1.5 is for you!

Plugins

Emesene 1.5 comes with a large set of option plug-ins. These include: –

  • Now Playing Status (supports every major linux player)
  • Window Trembling (Nudge)
  • Inline Spell Checker
  • GMail notifications
  • Tiny URL
  • Auto response
  • Conversation logging
And, like, a bazillion more.

You can enable and configure them from the handy Plugin manager reachable via Options > Plugins
Themes
You can customize Emesene further thanks to theme support! Hurrah!

Simply install any downloaded themes in

  • /usr/share/emesene/themes.
Restart Emesene and then select them from
  • Options > Preferences > Theme .

Smilies

If you don’t like the default Emesene smilies (hey, who does?!) then you can install different sets for your instant-messaging pleasure.

Simply unpack any download smilies into

  • /usr/share/emesene/smilies
and then select them from
  • Options > Preferences > Themes
Message Layouts
You choose between5 default message layouts:
  • GTalk
  • Messenger
  • IRC
  • Default
  • Pidgin

I’m most comfortable using the messenger layout as ex-tenuous timestamps annoy me!

ROFL!
Emesene is pronounced MSN.

Avatars
Shock! Emesne also supports avatars. The way in which avatars are set and changed is akin to WLM/MSN – you simply click on your avatar to change it! Neat!

Status/Personal Messages

These are positioned in the same place as with the official WLM/MSN. Status at the top and personal underneath it.

If you have the now playing plugin enabled you can click on the musical note next to the personal message field to toggle between showing your currently playing track and your current personal message.

Webcam
Emesene 1.5 supports webcam sending and receiving between MSN users. Yes, really! Even works on x64 bit, too!

Webcam quality is good, and although you can’t view a contacts webcam inside the chat window, it has it’s own good sized pop-up window which you can position close by.

You can configure your own webcam through the Preferences > Webcam menu.

The options are basic yet all you’ll likely need.

Download
Emesene 1.5 is available in Karmic Koala from the repos. Just search for it in Ubuntu Software Centre or Synaptic. Alternatively just issue the following at the terminal: –
  • sudo apt-get install emesene
Emesene 1.5 is also installable through Ubuntu-Tweak and via the following PPA:
Tested using:
Emesene 1.5 "Awesome"
Ubuntu Karmic Koala Beta x64

© omgubuntu.co.uk 2010. | Ubuntu News, Tips, Apps and more.
Article originally appeared on omgubuntu.co.uk

Related posts:

  1. Emesene 1.5 Released – Adds MSN Webcam Support
  2. Try Emesene 2!
  3. Emesene €“ Now with webcam & Jaunty notification support
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  • Anonymous

    Easily the best MSN client for Linux. I only use MSN, so I never bother with Pidign! Emesene 2 is in development, but still very alpha.

  • http://www.last.fm/user/x-ArtOfLife-x Adam

    Thanks for posting this! I love Emesene now that I have tried it =) I was using Pidgin, hadn’t really looked for another client since it worked fine, but this is much better! Thanks again =)

  • Steffen

    What about voice chat? aMSN also supports every MSN feature but not voicechat.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      If you’re really in need of voice chat you might want to take a peek at Empathy which recently gained MSN webcam and audio chat support.

  • http://twitter.com/kinesthesia kinesthesia

    Looks good, thanks for the heads up.

    I’ve been using Pidgin ever since I switched to Ubuntu about 4 months ago and it’s done basically every thing I want, and I was used to using it on Windows. But.. I only ever use MSN and the lack of some features in Pidgin make this look pretty nifty.

  • Anonymous

    Im a emesene developer and i really happy to see a review like this! :D … Nice blog!

    • Ben

      Dude, you get a million thanks.

      Best MSN client available for Linux, hands down. Very nice feature set, fantastic UI…just, win. Constant win.

  • http://myswiat.wordpress.com/ mariusz

    yes, it’s the best messenger msn for linux.
    amsn is worse, it has several significant things, but it works.

  • http://flirates.blogspot.com/ David Moraes

    I installed it but webcam doesn’t work for me. It says I need libmimic and I can’t figure out how to install that. It isn’t an available package in Synaptic and I tried compiling a .tar.gz libmimic file and that did not work.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Easily solved my friend! I used to get this issue on Jaunty.

      Are you using Jaunty by any-chance?!

      try this: -

      sudo apt-get install python-libmimic libmimic0 libmimic-dev

    • Ubuntuhal

      sudo apt-get install python-libmimic

  • martín

    hey yeah, its the best!

    i just wanted to coment about the pronunciation. this is an argentinian project (i’m from argentina too, i feel very proud =p), and “emesene” is the quick way we say “eme ese ene”.
    i don’t think in english it should be pronounced as MSN, because it’s a spanish word, but who cares? xD

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Haha, okay. MSN in English is pronounced Em-Ess-En so i always assumed that’s why it was called emesene… so what does ‘eme ese ene’ mean in Spanish?

      • http://jado92mx.wordpress.com/ jado92mx

        eme is the “m” name in spanish
        ese is the “s” name in spanish
        ene is the “n” name in spanish

        i hope it can help you ;)

        See Ya!

        JaD!

  • Kent

    This IM client for MSN is just great. I’m glad things like this are popping up, a few years ago this kind of thing didn’t exist.

    PS. I love your site :)

  • rAX

    Have you tried the latest stable version of KMess? I still didn’t play with the 1.5 yet but I find KMess way better than Emesene, shame though, it looks odd in the GNOME env.

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Kmess is a good app… but it lacks webcam chat which emesene has in the bag, amongst other features.

      Also i try to focus on Gnome apps where possible (unless it’s a truly revolutionary app) as this is omg! ubuntu! and not omg! kubuntu!

  • mrjack

    My Jackalope had a really hard time dealing with emesene’s facebook plugin.
    I can say that pidgin, using msn account/facebook/irc + plugins
    is pretty much what everyone would ask.
    (though, you cant make webcam work, not my cup of tea.)

  • http://jado92mx.wordpress.com/ jado92mx

    really I love emesene.. now i’m testing empathy in karmic, but always give me errors with msn and gtalk..

    someone knows how to integrate the emesne to the new power on/session button in karmic??

    if someone, there’s my gmail: jado.92.mty@gmail.com

    Se Ya!

    JaD!

  • christian

    my emesene dosent have the webcam in preferences
    wat can i do to get it

    • http://omgubuntu.co.uk/ d0od

      Where did you install emesene from? Go to Help > About and tell me the version number.

 
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