Ceruleanstudios opened a sneak preview information area on their website that presents further details about Trillian Astra. Besides a flash movie, a lot of infomation is presented on seven pages.

According to this information, Trillian Astra tries to be more than just a universal messenger. The basic idea is kept, Trillian Astra still tries to unify the different messenger networks. But in addition, each user has a Astra profile that serves as a general contact and combines all other messenger accounts. This profile can be enhanced with additional information and is available via  a personal website on trillianastra.com. Privacy and security are guaranteed, as the visibilty for each piece of information can be controlled. The personal profile also offers a chat and can be integrated in other web services such as blogs and social networking sites.

In addition to new features and drastically increased performance, there are now plugins for Google Talk and Myspace IM. The contact list is always stored on the Astra server so it is available everywhere. A guest option allows to login into Trillian on public computers without leaving any personal information. 

The new version is currently in alpha stage, the testing team will be increased in one or two weeks. Initially, the 50 testers that were recruited on the blog will get access to Trillian Astra. Later on, there will be a new possibilty to sign up as a tester. A stable version will most likely be available next year.

Astra 

The astra service does not only allow to exchange messages between users, it also offers a general profile that does contain all existing messener accounts as well as links to personal blog or foto sites. It servers as a universal user profile for chat and web services. Visibility can be set for each piece of information, ensuring privacy. Access can be limited to personal contacts or completely forbidden. The profile can be extended with so-called social widgets. They are programmed in Flash and show additional information in the profile, e.g. weather and time at the current location of the user or the music a user is currently listening to. A mini version of the widget is shown in the chat window, a larger one is available on the web profile site.

The Astra protocol and the social widget interface will be published later on. This will allow other programs to implement Astra and to develop additional widgets.  

New Messenger services 

In addition to ICQ, AIM, Yahoo, MSN and Jabber, Trillian Astra will support new messenger networks. This includes a plugin for the social networking site MySpace. A seperate plugin will be available for Google Talk to support this messenger better than it is now possible with the Jabber plugin. While not yet confirmed, this could include the video and audio chat features of Google Talk as well.

Chats between ICQ and AIM users will work better now, MSN support has been  improved as well. All Messenger will use a common library, called IMCore. This library and all plugins run under Windows, Linux and MacOS X. It is unknown if this also means that we will see Trillian versions for these systems, but chances have increased quite a bit.

The IRC plugin of Trillian 3.1 works in Astra but it will not be improved. However, an extended IRC plugin for Astra is currently build by third party developers.  

File transfer and skins

File transfers, traditionally a weak point of Trillian, have been improved drastically. In addition, Astra allows to send mutliple files at once by combining them in a single zip file. Skin changes are now possible without restarting Trillian. Skins are loaded twice as fast and a basic skin is available for use on older computers. The new default skin is called Cordonata. It supports Themes that allow to easily adjust the skin. The contact list can not only be shown as a list, but also in a grid view. Trillian astra is also optimized for Windows Vista.

Chat

Trillian Astra allows to send handwritten notes. They can be entered via a pen on a tablet PC or via the mouse. Images can be shared by just dragging them onto the chat window or pasting them into a chat. News from RSS feeds can be displayed in the chat window. If desired, these feeds can be automatically adjusted to the topic of the chat. Buttons for not available features are automatically suppressed

As Trillian Astra is still in alpha stage, the devlopers actively ask for features that should be included in the upcoming version. Ideas can be submitted in a dedicated thread in the official forums. The current alpha version does deliberately not include any audio or video support. This allows to concentrate on a small feature set during testing. It is also still unkown which features the free version will contain. It still takes some time until a final version is ready and the waiting time will most likely bring some exciting suprises.