view README @ 12645:fc28451f5d96

[gaim-migrate @ 14983] SF Patch #1314512 from Sadrul (who has a patch for everything) "This patch introduces a flag for protocol plugins that support offline messages (like Y!M and ICQ). This was encouraged by the following conversation: <sadrul> should offline buddies be listed/enabled in the send-to menu? <rekkanoryo> i would think only for protocols that support offline messaging, if it's indicated that the buddy is offline -- <snip> -- <Bleeter> sadrul: personally, I'd like to see a 'supports offline' flag of some description <Bleeter> one could then redirect (via plugins) through email or alternative methods <Bleeter> just a thought <Paco-Paco> yeah, that sounds like a reasonble thing to have This patch uses this flag to disable the buddies in the send-to menu who are offline and the protocol doesn't support offline messages." I made this make the label insensitive instead of the whole menuitem. This should address SimGuy's concerns about inconsistency (i.e. you could create a conversation with someone via the buddy list that you couldn't create via the Send To menu). I also hacked up some voodoo to show the label as sensitive when moused-over, as that looks better (given the label-insensitive thing is itself a hack). I think this works quite well. BUG NOTE: This makes more obvious an existing bug. The Send To menu isn't updated when buddies sign on or off or change status (at least under some circumstances). We need to fix that anyway, so I'm not going to let it hold up this commit. Switching tabs will clear it up. I'm thinking we just might want to build the contents of that menu when it is selected. That would save us a mess of inefficient signal callbacks that update the Send To menus in open windows all the time. AIM NOTE: This assumes that AIM can't offline message. That's not strictly true. You can message invisible users on AIM. However, by design, we can't tell when a user is invisible without resorting to dirty hackery. In practice, this isn't a problem, as you can still select the AIM user from the menu. And really, how often will you be choosing the Invisible contact, rather than the user going Invisible in the middle of a conversation or IMing you while they're Invisible? JABBER NOTE: This assumes that Jabber can always offline message. This isn't strictly true. Sadrul said: I have updated Jabber according to this link which seems to talk about how to determine the existence offline-message support in a server: http://www.jabber.org/jeps/jep-0013.html#discover However, jabber.org doesn't seem to send the required info. So I am not sure about it. He later said: I talked to Nathan and he said offline message support is mostly assumed for most jabber servers. GTalk doesn't yet support it, but they are working on it. So I have made jabber to always return TRUE. If there is truly no way to detect offline messaging capability, then this is an acceptable solution. We could special case Google Talk because of its popularity, and remove that later. It's probably not worth it though. MSN NOTE: This assumes that MSN can never offline message. That's effectively true, but to be technically correct, MSN can offline message if there's already a switchboard conversation open with a user. We could write an offline_message function in the MSN prpl to detect that, but it'd be of limited usefulness, especially given that under most circumstances (where this might matter), the switchboard connection will be closed almost immediately. CVS NOTE: I'm writing to share a tragic little story. I have a PC that I use for Gaim development. One day, I was writing a commit message on it, when all of a suddent it went berserk. The screen started flashing, and the whole commit message just disappeared. All of it. And it was a good commit message! I had to cram and rewrite it really quickly. Needless to say, my rushed commit message wasn't nearly as good, and I blame the PC for that. Seriously, though, what kind of version control system loses your commit message on a broken connection to the server? Stupid! committer: Tailor Script <tailor@pidgin.im>
author Richard Laager <rlaager@wiktel.com>
date Fri, 23 Dec 2005 19:26:04 +0000
parents 8e0a91d11362
children c4a5d8950d8c
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gaim
========================
Rob Flynn <gaim@robflynn.com> IM: RobFlynn (current maintainer)
Syd Logan - Super Hacker and Resident Designated Driver
Jim Duchek <jimduchek@ou.edu> IM: Zilding (former maintainer)
Eric Warmenhoven <eric@warmenhoven.org> (retired)
Mark Spencer <markster@marko.net>

Gaim is an IM client that supports many protocols, including AIM, ICQ,
MSN, IRC, and Jabber. Gaim is NOT endorsed by, nor affiliated with,
AOL nor any other company in ANY way.


BUILD
=====

Read the 'INSTALL' file for more detailed directions.

Gaim uses the standard ./configure ; make. You need to use gmake, BSD
make probably won't work. Remember, run ./configure --help to see what
build options are available.

In order to compile Gaim, you need to have GTK+ 2.0 installed (as
well as the development files!). The configure script will fail if you
don't. You can get it from http://www.gtk.org/.

For sound support, you also need libao
(http://freshmeat.net/projects/libao/) and libaudiofile
(http://www.68k.org/~michael/audiofile/). For spellchecking support, you
need libgtkspell (http://gtkspell.sf.net/). Your distro of choice
probably already includes these, just be sure to install the development
packages.

RUN
===

You should run 'make install' as root to make sure plugins and other files
get installed into locations they want to be in. Once you've done that,
you only need to run 'gaim'.

Protocol plugins (prpls) are now automatically loaded. Simply go to the
account editor, add a new account, and all supported protocols will be
there. Be sure to use OSCAR (AIM/ICQ) and not the old TOC or ICQ plugins.

Read below for protocol-specific information.


PLUGINS
=======

If you do not wish to enable the plugin support within Gaim, run the
./configure script with the --disable-plugins option and recompile your
source code.  This will prevent the ability to load plugins.

'make install' puts the plugins in $PREFIX/lib/gaim (PREFIX being what
you specified when you ./configure'd - it defaults to /usr/local). Gaim
looks for the plugins in that directory by default, but they do not have
to be there to use them. Also, plugins have a .so extension by default,
though they do not have to.

To build a plugin from a .c file, put it in the plugins/ directory in
the source and run 'make filename.so', e.g. if you have the .c file
'kickass.c', put it in the plugins/ directory, and from that directory,
run 'make kickass.so'.


NOTES
=====

If you manually set a command for your browser or sound player options,
make sure to put double-quotes around the "%s", otherwise bad things may
happen.

If you come across a bug, please report it to http://gaim.sf.net/bug.php.

See README.CVS for information on the bleeding edge CVS version of Gaim.
You probably shouldn't use it, as it may eat your children, as well as
your settings.


PROTOCOL INFORMATION
====================

Each protocol is hacked by both Rob and Eric, though there is one person
that kind of "owns" a protocol (mostly indicating that they were the
person that originally wrote it). Their name will be next to the protocol;
they're the people to complain to when something doesn't work ;).


TOC (Mark)
===

You shouldn't use TOC, you should use Oscar instead. TOC can sync your
buddy list with the server (if it's not too long), and can respond to file
transfer requests (both sending and receiving). Other than that, there's
nothing it can do that Oscar can't, yet. The TOC protocol doesn't allow
retrieval of away messages; isn't capable of sending or receiving buddy
icons; it also can't make file transfer requests.


Oscar (Mark)
=====

Oscar is the default protocol. It is recommended that you use Oscar for
both AIM and ICQ, as TOC isn't very featureful and the old ICQ protocol no
longer works. 

For AIM, Oscar can get people's away messages. It can request and accept
Direct Connections, and has limited support for file transfer. IM Image 
does not currently work. It can send and receive buddy icons if you have 
GdkPixbuf.

For ICQ, it supports nearly everything that the old ICQ plugin supported,
which isn't much. To use Oscar for ICQ, enter your ICQ UIN as the
screenname. The default host/port will work. You'll need to use a different
client to register a new ICQ account if you don't have one yet.


Yahoo (Sean)
=====

Yahoo is currently using the new YMSG protocol that newer official Yahoo
clients are using. This protocol is much better than the old one, and
tends to be somewhat more reliable. However, the Yahoo service is still
flaky at best. 


IRC (Ethan)
===

There are three ways to join an IRC chat room. The first is the File->Join
A Chat menu option in the Buddy List window. The second is the "Chat"
button at the bottom of the buddy list. The third is to type "/join #name"
in an IM window where the "Send Message As" menu is set to your IRC
account. There are other / commands that work in IM and Chat windows for
IRC, /help will give you a list of them.


MSN (Christian)
===

With MSN you can join a conversation with several people, but you can't
invite people from the IM window yet.


ICQ (Mark)
===

The ICQ plugin is deprecated and will probably be removed soon. The
protocol only marginally works. You should use Oscar for ICQ. You'll
need a different client to register an ICQ account if you don't have
one yet.


Jabber (Nathan)
======

Transports aren't currently supported at all, though if you have a
transport already subscribed Gaim will use it (you can't add or remove
transports though). In order to use a server other than jabber.org, set
your username to include the server, e.g. warmenhoven@mycompany.com. This
is the actual format of the Jabber ID anyway; Jabber is email with online
notification. You can register a new Jabber account by checking the
appropriate box in the account editor for your Jabber account.


Napster (Mark)
=======

Heh.  Ok, so I (Rob) am on crack!  Gaim can sign on/off of Napster,
add/remove people to your hotlist (buddylist) as well as chat privately
and in chat rooms.  You can search for files and browse a list of other
user's files.  You can currently download files as long as the person
you're retrieving files from is not firewalled.


Zephyr (Sean)
======

Let me start off by saying how much I really despise Zephyr. They do a
lot of things that make me realize why this never caught on. For those
of you who are unfortunate enough to feel compelling need to use this,
gaim now has a Zephyr plugin. It can currently sign on/off, handles
presence/buddy lists (it even imports your .anyone file!), and can
send/receive personal messages. A lot of stuff is missing, this is just
a real rough first stab at it.


Gadu-Gadu (Sean)
=========

I really shouldn't be taking credit for Gadu-Gadu, I'm just the person who
commits the patches that Arkadiusz Miskiewicz gives me. Gadu-Gadu is an IM
system most similar to ICQ that is quite popular in Poland. It can manage
your server-side buddy list through the Protocol Actions menu. You'll need
to use a different client to register a new account if you don't have one
yet.