Skype 1.4 Beta for Linux

Today we have released Skype 1.4 for Linux beta version, codename The Great Cucumber.

The new beta version has better user experience and many new features in comparison with the previous alpha.

We would like to thank everyone for the feedback it has been real pleasure to get your input.

You are welcomed to continue leaving us issue reports in Jira and discuss about thins in forums or learn more about Skype for Linux in our development page.

This newborn has major update to audio you will find in it:

Skype’s own audio codec
Skype improved conference mixer
Skype Jitter Buffer and concealment
Skype audio preprocessing components

We recommend for everyone to upgrade.

New features and bug fixes in this version of Skype 1.4.0.74 for Linux are:

feature: Animated Emoticons
feature: Call Forwarding
feature: Change Password dialog
feature: Start Conference Call Dialog in Main Menu.
feature: Remember Deleted and Seen birthdays between sessions.
feature: Disabling Birthday notifications in Options/Notifications will disabled all Birthday reminders.
feature: Animated ‘Connecting’ logo for Create Account and Change Password.
feature: Incoming call popup — can be disabled for old behaviour.
feature: Ability to change SkypeOut name and number.
feature: Ability to remove your avatar from profile editor.
feature: Ability to ignore incoming calls without refusing them.
cleanup: Remove initial 5 second delay on first birthday scan.
cleanup: Nicer chat view with continuation messages.
cleanup: Change chat timestamp to be grey and remove says: from chat.
cleanup: Keep popup open whilst we’re hovered over it.
bugfix: E-mail addresses are now saved correctly.
bugfix: Use cleaner avatars for default avatar and echo123.
bugfix: Change Clear Birthday image to “Clear Birthday” text.
bugfix: Don’t set user’s country to “0” upon selecting — Unspecified —
bugfix: If other people clear their custom avatar, this is now reflected in Linux UI.
bugfix: Trim the displayed name a bit better (work in progress)
bugfix: Update tooltip for contact card on status change.
bugfix: Don’t display past birthdays in the future.
bugfix: Fix for text escaping in mood message entry in Myself Area.
bugfix: Allow quickfilter whilst new events area is open.
bugfix: Quickfilter hint text is now left-aligned.
bugfix: Fix some names being sorted to top of list when custom name is removed.
bugfix: Avoid ghost status in Call Conference
bugfix: Avoid duplicate events in Call Conference (like Call on Hold twice causing sound)
bugfix: Display Call priority pop-ups in any status mode
bugfix: Only display incoming call pop-ups once for a conference
bugfix: Closing Call Window when it’s ringing (non popup mode) should ignore call, not reject it.
bugfix: Make Quickfilter calling just a tad smarter.
bugfix: Add ‘Insufficient Credit’ call failure text.
bugfix: Do not allow call operations on Undisclosed Number contacts.
bugfix: Close call window after 4 second timeout on Call Refused message.
bugfix: Handle call window cleanups a bit differently, may avoid crash on event delete bug.
bugfix: Close call windows on sign out.
bugfix: Reverse icon displayed for Mute/Unmute microphone in call
bugfix: Use a font-based width calculation to choose chat member list width.
bugfix: Focus chat input area on window focus.
bugfix: Chat topic should revert to non-edit state when focus is lost.
bugfix: Chat topic text is now escaped to avoid hidden text and HTML alterations.
bugfix: Animated emoticons options dialog option now enables Apply button.
bugfix: Allow double-clicking on chat members again.
bugfix: Testing workaround for 1:1 chat mess-up.
bugfix: Display Undisclosed Number as opposed to +000000 for voicemails.
bugfix: Escape close chat window - in chat input, chat text history, userlist, everywhere.
bugfix: Make shift-Backspace work in chat input.
bugfix: Remember all recent chats (for historical reasons), but only show last 20 in Recent Chats menu.
bugfix: Change b to B for Bytes per second for file transfers.
bugfix: Open Directory button now works after successful file transfer.
bugfix: Only show “Accept/Decline” button instead of “Accept All/Decline All” when a new single transfer arrives into a multi-transfer widget.
bugfix: Add transfer failure messages.
bugfix: Fix some transfer progress issues.
bugfix: Place initial cursor in search box when displaying search widget.
bugfix: Search widget layout issues.
bugfix: Centre search widget, auth widget and options dialog.
bugfix: Don’t reveal our own view profile button in search widget.
bugfix: Search button doesn’t get activated properly on advanced searches.
bugfix: Authorisation request popup now closes if you click a button on it.
bugfix: Fix popup manager to not draw popups below desktop boundaries.
bugfix: More popup notification stretching fixes.
bugfix: Remove contact’s authorisation when we delete them.
bugfix: Hitting a key on About Box should close it.
bugfix: Clicking anywhere in About Box should close it.
bugfix: Don’t quit when last visible window is closed (Qt 4.3.x).
bugfix: Fix fonts for mood message / user time in Qt 4.3.x.
bugfix: Don’t crash on login failure or sign-up failure after successful sign-in.
bugfix: Possible crash on close/signout

Comments

Hey congrats on this new release and for the improved download page !

Raul,

This is *completely* off-topic, but please bear with me. There has long been a serious snag in the language arbitration of the Skype website for connections coming in from Japan, which is impossible to report through other channels.

All browsers, regardless of the browser's preferred language settings, and regardless of the registered language preference in the site user profile, come up in Japanese, and have done for yonks.

This is irritating, and for non-Japanese readers in Japan (the kind of homesick souls who would, uh, be most likely to use Skype services) it can be a show-stopper. I (among others) have attempted to submit a note through the site feedback machinery, but it gets rejected by the Artificial Idiocy robot, with a claim that an on-point answer is already lurking somewhere in the "Knowledgebase". I checked. The robot doesn't know what it's issuing strings about. There is no mention of this behaviour anywhere in there.

People out here in the wild are unable to get through on this; could you contact the web maintainers directly, and tell them that their language arbitration design is badly screwed up and needs to be fixed?

Setting that aside, congratulations on this milestone! The download area is very friendly and should prove very popular. And I, for one, definitely like the new client.

Sorry, the sound quality in this beta is gone back to the horrible crap that was the old OSS-based release. The sound is choppy, garbled and of poor quality.

Also, most of the time, it still complains about not being able to access the sound device. Hint: instead of blindly reporting "problems accessing the sound device", actually tell us what the problem is. Device already used by another application (if yes, which one)? No sound device found?

Also note that one key benefit of ALSA is the ability to share audio devices. Why isn't Skype capable of living with that?

The new UI looks promising, at least.

Although a lot of people are complaining, I think that the complete remake of Skype for Linux shows that you are serious about Linux, and that can only be a good thing.

The new UI is much better than the old one, and provides a good base for future functionality.

Also, I love that you have debs for ubuntu avaliable at the download site, makes installation extremely simple.

Keep up the good work!

NIce job, but we still wait the support for sms, webcam and live casts.

Hi,

this release is getting close to the point. Besides the small bugs like the expanded name in contact list that garbles the other names underneath, it's ok.

I had asked Berkus for a small feature which he promised to add, a "send file" button inside the chat window. Do you know when it's gonna be implemented?

Thanks

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Skype 1.4 Beta for Linux

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