annotate README @ 47:6774859df10b

revised README

pidgin-twitter-0.6.0


1. What is this?

pidgin-twitter is a pidgin plugin to help twittering via pidgin. This
plugin translates any @username and the sender name to the link to the
user respectively. pidgin-twitter also can play a sound when an
incoming message contains any recipient name or sender name which is
listed in the each dedicated lists.

From version 0.5.0, pidgin-twitter automatically escapes annoying
"pseudo command" in sending message. A pseudo command is a message
like "¤Ë¤Û¤ó¤´w" or "....w" and it will be wrongly interpreted as an
incomplete command message so that twitter gives us an error massage.

*update*
In version 0.6.0, various new features have been added. Letter counter
for composing message is useful for keeping track of the length limit
of twitter message and oops suppression will give users who mainly use
multi byte characters comfortable twittering. And also, from version
0.6.0, pidgin-twitter strips any markup elements from sending message,
so the posts from pidgin-twitter are always kept sane.


2. Dependency

This plugin requires pidgin 2.4.0 or newer and glib-2.14.0 or newer.


3. How to build

Building pidgin-twitter plugin is very simple. Please do

./configure
make
sudo make install


4. Usage

To enable pidgin-twitter, please check it "Enabled" in pidgin's
plugins window. If it is enabled, it replaces each @username string
and sender string with the link to the corresponding user, by
default. You can enable/disable these via plugin's configure window.

Play sound for matched recipients or sender is also enabled by
default, however it might not work until you specify user lists for
this feature.

Recipient list accommodates names of watched recipients. Usually, the
first name might be your user name. Sender list accommodates names of
watched senders, instead.  These lists are independent to each other
so that you can maintain different groups to be watched. An user list
is a enumeration of usernames separated by a letter in ",:;". For
example, "foo bar" or "foo,bar" is a valid user list and a list like
"foo, bar" also works. This functionality is also able to be toggled
on/off via configuration window.

Event type of sound to play is also configurable. By default, the
"Pounce Default" sound is specified since it may not be disabled by
configuration in pidgin's preferences. You can specify other sounds,
but be aware, you have to enable the event type of sound which you
specified for pidgin-twitter in pidgin's preferences.

Escape pseudo command functionality is enabled by default. To disable
this feature, please uncheck it in the plugin configuration window. I
recommend you to leave it always enabled.

Letter counter will appear on the format bar in a pidgin conversation
window. This counter keeps track of length of composing string in
character since the hard limit of message length is applied by
character count basis. If the composing message exceeds 140
characters, the displayed number will turn red to notify the excess.
This feature is enabled by default. You can disable this via configure
window.

Suppress oops message feature may require explanation. If we send a
message which is longer than 140 bytes, twitter will send us back an
oops message to notify the excess of the limit. However, the actual
limit is computed on internal representation of characters so that the
messages which does not exceed 140 letters will actually be
accepted. Suppress oops message feature will silently discards *false*
oops message in this situation. This feature can also be configured
via configure window.

Strip markup feature is for keeping posts sane by striping excess
markup in sending message. This feature is always enabled and cannot
be configured.


5. History

0.4.0 (May 01 2008)
First public release.

0.5.0 (May 05 2008)
Added escape pseudo command functionality.

0.5.1 (May 05 2008)
Fixed a crash bug that each unload and reload pidgin-twitter cycle
resulted in crash.

0.6.0 (In near future in 2008)
- Added letter counter.
- Suppress "False positive oops message" when sending message which
exceeds 140 bytes but actual length is within 140 characters.
- pidgin-twitter now strips all markup elements on sending a
message. This feature prevents this plugin from posting unexpected
excessively markuped message.


6. Acknowledgments

I got some valuable feedbacks from nosuke (@konosuke) and mojin
(@mojin).

The original letter counter has been developed by Dossy Shiobara in
convcharcount plugin.

In development for 0.6.0, mikanbako (@mikanbako) joined our team and
contributed numerous efforts. The original strip markup feature has
been developed by him.


Yoshiki Yazawa (@yazuuchi) and the pidgin-twitter team
[e-mail]