view plugins/PERL-HOWTO @ 775:9614e69f68ca

[gaim-migrate @ 785] beep beep m beep beep m yeah! committer: Tailor Script <[e-mail]>

This is really the wrong place for a HOWTO on writing perl scripts for gaim,
but there didn't seem to be a much better place.

If you've ever written a perl script for X-Chat then you've basically written
one for gaim as well. perl.c in gaim's source is basically an exact copy of
X-Chat's perl.c file, with small modifications to suit AIM rather than IRC.

Basically the reason for including perl is based on the experience with the
plugins. X-Chat's docs on Perl Scripting sums it up nicely:
   it's not quite as simple to stick a module together in C and make it
   stable compared to the development time of perl code

Plugins are more powerful as they can directly access gaim's functions and
variables; as such they should be used for things like modifying the UI or
when something takes quite a bit of trickery not offered by perl. But for
the most part things should be written in Perl. It's more stable than
plugins.

Right now, the only way to test that your script is working correctly is to
load the perl plugin and load the script through that. Though, right now
there really isn't much point in writing a script, since the two major
functions in the AIM module (message_handler and command_handler) haven't
been implemented yet.

Everything available in normal perl scripts should be available in gaim's
perl interface, so I'm not going to bother describing that. The important
things are the functions provided by gaim's internal AIM module, which is
what most of this document is about. So, onto the functions.

AIM::register(name, version, shutdownroutine, unused)
	Just like X-Chat. This is the first function your script should call.
	shutdownroutine is a function that will be called when the script
	gets unloaded (like when gaim gets closed). This function returns
	gaim's version number.

AIM::get_info(integer)
	This function returns different information based on the integer passed
	to it.
	0 - the version of gaim you're running ("0.10.0" for example).
	1 - the screenname to last attempt to sign on
	2 - either "Offline", "TOC", or "Oscar"

AIM::print(title, message)
	This displays a nice little dialog window.


AIM::buddy_list()
	This returns the buddy list (no groups, just the names of the buddies)

AIM::online_list()
	This returns the list of online buddies.

AIM::deny_list()
	This returns the deny list. This is probably going to be modified before
	0.10.0 is released to return either the deny or the permit list and the
	current mode.


AIM::command(command, ...)
	This sends commands to the server, and each command takes various
	arguments. The command should be self-explanatory:
	"signon" - no args.
	"signoff" - no args.
	"away" - the second arg is the away message
	"back" - no args.
	"idle" - the second arg is how long (in seconds) to set the idle time
	"warn" - the second arg is the name of the person to warn

AIM::user_info(nick)
	Returns 7 data items:
		the screenname of the buddy
		"Online" or "Offline"
		their warning level
		signon time, in seconds since the epoch
		idle time, in seconds (?)
		user class, an integer with bit values
			AOL		1
			ADMIN		2
			UNCONFIRMED	4
			NORMAL		8
			AWAY		16
		their capabilites, an integer with bit values
			BUDDYICON	1
			VOICE		2
			IMIMAGE		4
			CHAT		8
			GETFILE		16
			SENDFILE	32

		This is probably going to change before 0.10.0 is released to
		also return the alias of the buddy.

AIM::print_to_conv(who, what)
	This should be obvious. If you can't figure this out on your own, you
	shouldn't be using a computer.

AIM::print_to_chat(room, what)
	This should be just as obvious as the last command.

AIM::add_message_handler
	This actually hasn't been implemented yet, so don't worry about it

AIM::add_command_handler
	This hasn't been implemented yet either. Pay no attention.

AIM::add_timeout_handler(integer, function)
	This calls function after integer number of seconds. It only calls function
	once, so if you want to keep calling function, keep reading the handler.