annotate libfaim/README @ 780:c714def9cebb

[gaim-migrate @ 790] You may be a geek if... You've ever used a computer on Friday, Saturday and Sunday of the same weekend. You find yourself interrupting computer store salesman to correct something he said. The first thing you notice when walking in a business is their computer system. ...and offer advice on how you would change it. You've ever mounted a magnetic tape reel. You own any shareware. You know more IP addresses than phone numbers. You've ever accidentally dialed an IP address. Your friends use you as tech support. You've ever named a computer. You have your local computer store on speed dial. You can't carry on a conversation without talking about computers. Co-workers have to E-mail you about the fire alarm to get you out of the building. You've ever found "stray" diskettes when doing laundry. Your computer has it's own phone line - but your teenager doesn't. You check the national weather service web page for current weather conditions (rather than look out the window). You know more URLs than street addresses. Your pet has a web page. You get really excited when Yahoo adds your link. committer: Tailor Script <[e-mail]>

libfaim pre-0.90 or so
----------------------

This is libfaim, the purpose of which is to implement as much as the
AOL AIM/OSCAR protocol as possible (which should be all of it).  After
over a year of development, its still nowhere close.  

This is not a full client and never will be.  libfaim only implements
the routines to implement a client (ie, there's no user interface).  

Status
------

I would not recommend using this version of libfaim in any form yet.  It's
beta-quality and I know it leaks memory quite badly.  It seems fairly
stable, however.  YMMV, YAYOR, etc.  I suppose I should say regardless of
that warning, that several clients use it and people use those clients
on a daily basis (in particular, me).


Building
--------

Everything in this libfaim dist should build cleanly on any UNIX(-like)
operating system.  Originally developed on Linux+glibc.  Past versions 
known to work on Linux+libc5, FreeBSD, HP/UX, Solaris, Mac OS X Server, 
Win32 using VC++ 98/6 and others.

libfaim builds as both libfaim.a and libfaim.so.  If your platform for
some reason does not support dynamic libraries (eg, you get errors when
building libfaim.so), you'll have to tweak the makefiles a bit to get
the utils/ directory to build.  

Otherwise, just do a 'make'.  I don't believe I use any specific features
GNU make, but if something fails, make sure you have it.  And bash too.


Accessories
-----------

In utils/, you'll find a few things extra:

  faimtest:   very rudimentary front-end.  no user interface, but does
              illustrate the basics of logging in and sending/recieving
              messages and buddy list notifications.  Potential front-
              end authors start here.

  aimpasswd:  utility to change an AIM password without using a full
              client.  Note that at the time of this writing, this
              didn't work quite right yet.  See the top of the code for
              latest status.

License
-------

libfaim is covered under my copyright under the terms of the Lesser GNU
Public License, as documented in the file COPYING in the top level directory.


Documentation
-------------

Unfortunatly, there is not currently any documentation on the libfaim API.
Use the source and utils/faimtest/faimtest.c as a reference when coding
front-ends.  

Mailing Lists
-------------

Thanks to Sourceforge, we have our mailing lists back. See:
http://www.sourceforge.org/mail/?group_id=920  for instructions
on subscribing to the lists:

  libfaim-devel: Discussion of libfaim and its developement.
  libfaim-aim-protocol: Discussion of the finer points of OSCAR hacking
 

Contact Info
------------

The author (Adam Fritzler), can be reached at [e-mail].

Front-end information:
  http://www.auk.cx/faim/
Protocol information:
  http://www.auk.cx/faim/protocol/