Hi,

First off, I would like to confirm that I am a solidly, dedicated customer and offer my suggestions in the best interest of AwareIM and all users. I realize that you are moving forward on various fronts and that you probably don't want endless wishlists from users but hopefully the following specific suggestions may be of some help.

Like a number of other users, we develop custom web applications for clients whose expectations continue to raise over time. While I am really excited about the general direction that you are taking and am happy some of the improvements that you have made it is the same old story of 'give us an inch and we will take a mile'.

My primary issue is around better graphical control of the applications that I develop. Right now, I am struggling with the new features to even maintain some of the designs that I have being used by clients today. For example if you look at the screen capture below you will see that the menu bar and operation bar totally clash with the existing colour scheme of this business space. Since I only have four styles to work with, I have limited options here.

I have been trying to apply workarounds by working directly with the style cascading style sheets and some of the graphics but I keep running into brick walls as I find more and more things are tied together and by changing one style, you change other elements where change is not desired. In addition, the work required to maintain these manual tweaks is extensive as new business space versions and AwareIM versions are released.

The following screencapture identifies a few 'pet peeves' that I have right now. It would be hugely appreciated if these could be addressed sooner rather than later. Perhaps a private email to some of the 'more vocal' enthusiastic users like myself with a rough overview of how you guys plan to proceed and a rough timeline would alleviate a lot of concerns that I know are out there right now.

Again, please don't take this as criticism, it is not. I am a staunch supporter and have every intention of remaining so.

Cheers,
Pete