Mercurial > pidgin
view HACKING @ 1123:bc718030af96
[gaim-migrate @ 1133]
mods to applet
committer: Tailor Script <tailor@pidgin.im>
author | Eric Warmenhoven <eric@warmenhoven.org> |
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date | Wed, 22 Nov 2000 10:39:53 +0000 |
parents | 4416ead31db7 |
children | 72692c70317e |
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A lot of people have tried to hack gaim, but haven't been able to because the code is just so horrid. Well, the code isn't getting better anytime soon, so to help all you would-be hackers help out gaim, here's a brief tutorial on how gaim works. I'll quickly describe the logical flow of things, then what you'll find in each of the source files. As an added bonus, I'll try and describe as best I can how multiple connections and multiple protocols work. Hopefully that's enough to get most of you going. If you're going to hack gaim, PLEASE, PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE send patches against the absolute latest CVS. I get really annoyed when I get patches against the last released version, especially since I don't usually have a copy of it on my computer, and gaim tends to change a lot between versions. (I sometimes get annoyed when they're against CVS from 3 days ago, but can't complain because it's usually my fault that I haven't looked at the patch yet.) To get gaim from CVS (if you haven't already), run the following commands: $ export CVSROOT=:pserver:anonymous@cvs.gaim.sourceforge.net:/cvsroot/gaim $ cvs login (hit enter as the password) $ cvs co gaim (you'll see it getting all of the files) $ cd gaim $ ./gen You'll now have your normal gaim tree with ./configure and all. (If you want to make your life really simple, learn how CVS works. CVS is your friend.) There's one little thing that's just a pet peeve, and it's really stupid. In ./configure there's an --enable-debug option. This does two things: compiles with -Wall, and prints debugging information to stdout. The debugging information is printed to the debug window (which can be turned on in the preferences) whether or not --enable-debug was selected. Most of the information that's printed is useless anyway though; so the --enable-debug option really doesn't do a whole lot. This file was last modified by $Author: warmenhoven $ on $Date: 2000-11-16 02:35:58 -0500 (Thu, 16 Nov 2000) $. PROGRAM FLOW ============ Before gaim does anything you can see, it initializes itself, which is mostly just reading .gaimrc (handled by the functions in gaimrc.c) and parsing command-line options. It then draws the login window by calling show_login, and waits for input. At the login window, when "Accounts" is clicked, account_editor() is called. This then displays all of the users and various information about them. If the user clicks the "Signon" button instead, serv_login is called. When the "Sign on/off" button is clicked, serv_login is passed the username and the password for the account. If the password length is zero (the password field is a character array rather than pointer so it will not be NULL) then the Signon callback will prompt for the password before calling serv_login. serv_login then signs in the user using the appropriate protocol. We'll assume TOC for the rest of this discussion; Oscar has a lot of bad hacks to get it working that I don't even want to think about. After you're signed in (I'll skip that discussion - I doubt many people are going to change the login process, since it pretty much just follows PROTOCOL), Gaim draws the buddy list by calling show_buddy_list, and waits for input from two places: the server and the user. The first place it gets input from after signon is usually the server, when the server tells Gaim which buddies are signed on. When there is information ready to be read from the server, toc_callback is called (by GDK) to parse the incoming information. On an UPDATE, serv_got_update is called, which takes care of things like notifying conversation windows of the update if need be; notifying the plugins; and finally, calling set_buddy. New connections happen the exact same way as described above. Each aim_user can have one gaim_connection associated with it. aim_user and gaim_connection both have a protocol field; gaim_connection's should be constant once it is set in the appropriate (protocol)_login function. There are lots of details that are connected with multiple connections that are best explained by reading the code. When the user opens a new conversation window, new_conversation is called. That's easy enough. If there isn't a conversation with the person already open (checked by calling find_conversation), show_conv is called to create the new window. All sorts of neat things happen there, but it's mostly drawing the window. show_conv is the best place to edit the UI. That's pretty much it for the quick tutorial. I know it wasn't much but it's enough to get you started. Make sure you know GTK before you get too involved. Most of the back-end stuff is pretty basic; most of gaim is GTK. SOURCE FILES ============ about.c: Not much to say here, just a few basic functions. aim.c: This is where the main() function is. It takes care of a lot of the initialization stuff, and showing the login window. It's pretty tiny and there's not really much to edit in it. Watch out for bad Oscar sign in hacks. away.c: This takes care of most of the away stuff: setting the away message (do_im_away); coming back (do_im_back); drawing the away window; etc. To be honest I haven't looked at this file in months. browser.c: Code for opening a browser window. Most of the code is trying to deal with Netscape. The most important function here is open_url. Have fun. buddy.c: This takes care of not only nearly everything buddy-related (the buddy list, the permit/deny lists, and the window), but also a lot of the code flow and util functions. Look for good things like find_buddy, set_buddy, and signoff() here. buddy_chat.c: This takes care of the buddy chat stuff. This used to be a lot bigger until the chat and IM windows got merged in the code. Now it mostly just takes care of chat-specific stuff, like ignoring people and keeping track of who's in the room. This is also where the chat window is created. conversation.c: This is where most of the functions dealing with the IM and chat windows are hidden. It tries to abstract things as much as possible, but doesn't do a very good job. This is also where things like "Enter sends" and "Ctrl-{B/I/U/S}" options get carried out (look for send_callback). The chat and IM toolbar (with the B/I/U/S buttons) are both built from the same function, build_conv_toolbar. dialogs.c: A massive file with a lot of little utility functions. This is where all of those little dialog windows are created. Things like the warn dialog and the add buddy dialog are here. Not all of the dialogs in gaim are in this file, though. But most of them are. This is also where do_import is housed, to import buddy lists. gaimrc.c: This controls everything about the .gaimrc file. There's not really much to say about it; this is probably one of the better designed and easier to follow files in gaim. The important functions are towards the bottom. gnome_applet_mgr.c: A hideous creation from the days before I started working on gaim. Most of it works, but it has functionsLikeThis. I hate looking at this file, but I'm too lazy to change the functions. The best functions are things like set_applet_draw_open, whose sole purpose is to set a global variable to TRUE. [ note 8/22/00 - I finally changed this file. ] gtkhtml.c: This is really just one big hack. It started off as an HTML widget that was written for Gnome as far as I can tell. The current version is huge, requires way too many libs, and is too hard to upgrade to. But we've managed to hack this poor old version into basically what we need it for. I recommend not looking at this file if you want to save your sanity. gtkticker.c: Syd, our resident GTK God, wrote a GtkWidget, GtkTicker. This is that widget. It's cool, and it's tiny. html.c: Don't ask my why this is called html.c. Most of it is just grab_url, which does like the name says; it downloads a URL to show in the GtkHTML widget. http.c would be a more appropriate name, but that's OK. idle.c: This file used to be entirely #if 0'd out of existance. However, thanks to some very generous people who submitted patches, this takes care of reporting idle time (imagine that). It's a pretty straight-forward file. multi.c: This is the file that tries to take care of most of the major issues with multiple connections. The best function in here by far is the account_editor(). auto_login() is also in here (I'm just reading multi.h now...); auto_login has problems. Someone please fix it. account_editor is really the only function that the UI needs to be concerned with. If you want to remove multiconnectivity from gaim, all you would really need to do is comment out any lines that make reference to this function (there are only two - one in aim.c and one in buddy.c). Or you could just run ./configure --disable-multi. oscar.c: One big hack of copied code. This is supposed to be the libfaim tie-in in gaim. Most of it is just copied straight from faimtest, the small program that comes with libfaim. I'm not even sure how half of it works, if that makes you feel any better. perl.c: This was basically copied straight from X-Chat through the power of the GPL. Perl is the biggest, most confusing piece of C code I've ever seen in my life (and keep in mind I'm a gaim hacker). I have a basic idea of what's going on in it, but I couldn't tell you exactly. The top half sets up perl and tells it what's going on and the bottom half implements the AIM module. plugins.c: This is the "plugin plug", as the file states. This file is probably the only file in all of gaim that at the top has all of the functions and global and static variables named out for you. It makes reading it a little easier, but not by much. A lot of the code in here deals with the plugin window rather than the plugins themselves. prefs.c: The important function in here is build_prefs, but the most useful function is gaim_button. build_prefs draws the window, and calls gaim_button probably 30 or 40 times. (I don't really wanna run grep | wc to count.) This is where you add the toggle button for gaim preferences. It's very simple, and if you look at a couple of the calls to gaim_button you'll figure it out right away. prpl.c: This file is what lets gaim dynamically load protocols, sort of. All of the actual dlopen(), dlsym() stuff is in plugins.c. But this contains all of the functions that the protocol plugin needs to call, and manages all of the protocols. It's a pretty simple file actually. proxy.c: Adam (of libfaim glory) got bored one day and rewrote this file, so now everything actually works. The main function is proxy_connect, which figures out which proxy you want to use (if you want to use one at all) and passes off the data to the appropriate function. This file should be pretty straight-forward. rvous.c: This was originally going to be the stuff for all of the Buddy Icon and Voice Chat stuff, but I got really sick of protocol hacking really quick. Now it only houses the file transfer stuff, which only works for TOC. server.c: This is where all of the differentiation between TOC and Oscar is done. Nearly everything that's network related goes through here at one point or another. This has good things like serv_send_im and serv_got_update. Most of it should be pretty self-explanatory. sound.c: The main function in this file is play_sound, which plays one of 8 (maybe 9?) sounds based on preferences. All that the rest of the code should have to do is call play_sound(BUDDY_ARRIVE), for example, and this file will take care of determining if a sound should be played and which file should be played. ticker.c: Syd is just so cool. I really can't get over it. He let me come visit him at Netscape one day, and I got to see all of their toys (don't worry, I'm under an NDA). Anyway, this file is for the buddy ticker. This is also a damn cool file because it's got all of the functions that you'd want right up at the top. Someday I want to be as cool as Syd. toc.c: This handles everything TOC-related, including parsing gaim's buddy list. Most of this file is toc_callback, which parses the incoming information from the server. I really don't like TOC though. util.c: There's not really a lot of cohesion to this file; it's just a lot of stuff that happened to be thrown into it for no apparent reason. None of it is particularly tasty; it's all just utility functions. Just like the name says. MULTIPLE CONNECTIONS AND PRPLS ============================== OK, let's start with the basics. There are users. Each user is contained in an aim_user struct, and kept track of in the aim_users GList (GSList?). Each aim_user has certain features: a username, a password, and user_info. It also has certain options, and the protocol it uses to sign on (kept as an int which is #define'd in prpl.h). The way the management of the users works is, there will (hopefully) only be one user for a given screenname/ protocol pair (i.e. you may have two user warmenhoven's, but they'll both have a different protocol number). Now then, there are protocols that gaim knows about. Each protocol is in a prpl struct and kept track of in the protocols GSList. The way the management of the protocols is, there will only ever be one prpl per numeric protocol. Each prpl defines a basic set of functions: login, logout, send_im, etc. The prpl is responsible not only for handling these functions, but also for calling the appropriate serv_got functions (e.g. serv_got_update when a buddy comes online/goes offline/goes idle/etc). It handles each of these on a per-connection basis. So why's it called a PRPL? It stands for PRotocol PLugin. That means that it's possible to dynamically add new protocols to gaim. However, all protocols must be implemented the same way: by using a prpl struct and being loaded, regardless of whether they are static or dynamic. Here's how struct gaim_connection fits into all of this. At some point the User (capitalized to indicate a person and not a name) will try to sign on one of Their users. serv_login is then called for that user. It searches for the prpl that is assigned to that user, and calls that prpl's login function, passing it the aim_user struct that is attempting to sign on. The prpl is then responsible for seeing that the gaim_connection is created (by calling new_gaim_connection), and registering it as being online (by calling account_online and passing it the aim_user and gaim_connection structs). At that point, the aim_user and gaim_connection structs have pointers to each other, and the gaim_connection struct has a pointer to the prpl struct that it is using. The gaim_connections are stored in the connections GSList. The way connection management works is, there will always only be one gaim_connection per user, and the prpl that the gaim_connection uses will be constant for the gaim_connection's life. So at certain points the User is going to want to do certain things, like send a message. They must send the message on a connection. So the UI figures out which gaim_connection the User want to send a message on (for our example), and calls serv_send_im, telling it which gaim_connection to use, and the necessary information (who to send it to, etc). The serv_ function then calls the handler of the prpl of the connection for that event (that was way too many prepositions). OK, each prpl has a send_im function. Each connection has a prpl. so you call gc->prpl->send_im and pass it the connection and all the necessary info. And that's how things get done. I hope some of that made sense. Looking back at it it makes absolutely no sense to me. Thank god I wrote the code; otherwise I'm sure I'd be lost.