Installation was very fast and simple - took less than a minute to be completely ready. On the first start, Astra helps you set up your chat accounts. By default it hooks you up with the proprietary Astra network, but I also added AIM, MSN/Live Messenger, Yahoo!, and Google Talk (GTalk). Like most multi-protocol messengers, Trillian offers the option to check the inbox for each account (if applicable). I use Gmail for my e-mail, so now I've ditched my Gmail Notifier in favor of this integrated tool.
Customizing Trillian is very easy with the built-in preferences window. The options are very friendly and well-worded. For instance, instead of saying "Start-up Actions" for one of the sections, the Trillian team chose a more polite phrase: "When Trillian loads up..." followed by the different check-boxes. A plethora of options are separated into over a dozen different pages - it may seem overwhelming, but Cerulean pulled it off with more grace than most extremely customizable applications. One minor quip I have is that some of the options are in weird places; for instance, widgets (newly added feature) can only be customized in the Astra profile section, when it seems like it should have its own section.
Trillian's new default skin is simply stunning. Combining a soft, glassy effect with smooth crisp lines and blurred transparency results in a sleek, professional-looking piece of eye-candy worthy of any power user's desktop. Its brilliance is in the simplicity - I have not once had to hunt for a button or menu on the main contact list. Everything is exactly where it should be. No guessing, no hidden menus, no mysterious buttons. The icons are very descriptive of the functions they represent.
Once I customized Astra exactly how I wanted it - which included picking from one of over a dozen pleasant color schemes - here's what I got:
The one thing that struck me about Astra was that it did everything my last messenger did (Miranda IM), but with no plug-ins or frustrating configuration. All common features are integrated, and the preferences are extremely well-organized and simple.
The message windows follow basically the same trend: simple layout, blur transparency (the color is synchronized with the contact list), easily-located functions, full text formatting, and a million little tweaks and features that create a very pleasing experience, although hardly worth mentioning individually.
I compare Astra to Google or Apple, just as Miranda is to Microsoft or Yahoo. Google, Apple and Astra focus on simplicity and common sense - there are plenty of features for the power user, but by default they're all configured in a way that just "makes sense." Miranda, Microsoft and Yahoo provide similar options, but their products are generally packaged with bare-bones options for you to spend lots of time customizing. In my opinion, the common-sense approach takes the cake every time when it comes to desktop applications such as instant messengers.
There are lots of other features of Astra that I haven't covered - different contact list views, widgets (I haven't been able to get them to work for some reason...), tons of preferences, Away/Idle modes, profile editing, avatars, searching - it's all too much for one review. Rest assured, though, if Astra is this stable and feature-packed in Alpha stage, it will be fabulous when it's finally released to the public. When this goes gold, I'll be among the first to become an Astra Pro customer.
NOTE: According to Cerulean Studios, they will be integrating Audio, Video and other features for various protocols before moving to the Beta stage. Stay tuned to the Astra blog as developments continue...
