Trekkie101 has just informed me of a new testing version of Google Talk. It's not mentioned by Google's blogs, so there's no page on Google's site that links you to the download. You'll have to get it with this direct link. customizetalk.com has a longer review of this new version. It's got screenshots, too .

The two main features of this version are the avatars and the themes. Google Talk users will be able to select a custom avatar for display. It'll appear on both the contact list and the chat dialogs. It doesn't appear in the logs stored on your gmail account, though.
You can select a custom theme to display in the chat dialog. There are five default themes. I think you can download other themes, but I'm not sure where. They are coded with CSS, so you can also create your own. However, I'm unable to find the themes folder on my computer, so I don't know what the code looks like .

Another useful feature is the new notification dialog that pops up when a friends signs on. And on the contact list, there's a new scroll bar that appears when you have many friends on the list. You can turn it off by clicking the new View button, then select Show One Page. There's a mail icon next to the View button that shows you how many new mails you have in your gmail box.

Remember that this is a testing release, so it may have some bugs.

EDIT: Fixed the link

The Themes folder is located in "C:\Documents and Settings\<user>\Local Settings\Application Data\Google\Google Talk\themes" where C: is your Windows drive.

Installing this new version of Google talk was a little strange coz it installed over the old version automatically without even displaying a single dialog box or license agreement or anything. Considering that it is a testing version it should hv atleast displayed a warning message. Anyway the new version of Google Talk looks better than its plain vanilla predecessor. Though there is still some time before Google Talk matures to the same level as Yahoo and MSN Messenger. I hope it will have an offline message feature also soon. Currently I use Google Talk only coz of its Voice Calls feature which has a superior quality than Y! Messenger's voice calls.

Yeah, I know where it's supposed to be located, but it's just not there. Not even after a restart...


Well, Google doesn't intend for you to download this version yet. Some Google Talk users just found the link themselves. That's why it didn't warn you.


I hope Google Talk will still be a compact IM client in the future. Its size and appearance is the main reason that it's my favorite client.

Hey nice find szupie I've been using it for a good part of the day - and haven't come across any bugs so far. Certaily like it more than the vanilla edition. Load time's the same.

At the time of the original post, the GTalk client with avatar and theme support was an ALPHA, so it wasn't available to general BETA users via the automati update version. Soon after, this was incorporated into the BETA and is now available to the BETA community too.

i just don't like google talk... very few options and weak customization methods...google are trying to expand in a lot of areas... and that is a good thing, because google is a nice company, and they do stuff well, but just like the web browser the develop, it still has a long way to go.... at the moment i whould say Google Talk is not in the top 3 message service on the net... but the are upgrading the software quite often, but i will wait for a non-beta version to use it as a favorite...

i personally stick to my yahoo messenger (even tough it is using a lot of memory)

smyke

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