FILES DOWNLOAD: pidgin

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Wednesday, October 21, 2015

Pidgin Indicator: Ubuntu AppIndicator Plugin For Pidgin

Pidgin uses the Ubuntu Messaging Menu but many people prefer its old tray icon, which you could whitelist to use the systray.

That's no longer possible out of the box with Ubuntu 13.04 and 13.10 because the Unity systray whitelist was removed (there is a PPA that restores the systray whitelist though) but luckily, Philip Langdale has created a plugin for Pidgin that provides an Ubuntu AppIndicator.

"I've found this indicator [Messaging Menu] to be much less usable than the original Pidgin tray icon, so I decided to build this plugin to restore the icon's functionality in a maintainable way (in constrat to having to run a patched version of Unity)."

- app description @ GitHub

Pidgin Indicator provides the same functionality as the original tray icon but a bit differently. For instance, to show the buddy list or unread messages you must middle click instead of left click (because left and right click on an AppIndicator do the same thing).

There is one small bug, but it shouldn't affect too many users: the Plugin Action menu items are not refreshed and you must restart Pidgin or reload the plugin to update these menu items. Hopefully this will be fixed in a future release.

Because there were no deb packages for Pidgin Indicator, I've uploaded it to the main failsdownloads PPA, for Ubuntu 14.10, 14.04, 13.10, 13.04, 12.10 and 12.04, so you can install it easily.

Install Pidgin Indicator plugin in Ubuntu

To install Pidgin Indicator plugin in Ubuntu, use the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install pidgin-indicator

If you don't want to add the main failsdownloads PPA, you can download the Pidgin Indicator deb from HERE and install it manually.

Once installed, open Pidgin and from its menu select Tools > Plugins, then scroll down until you see a plugin called "Ubuntu Indicator" and enable this plugin:

That's it, Pidgin should now use an Ubuntu AppIndicator.

For source code, bug reports, etc., see the Pidgin Indicator GitHub page.

How To Install Facebook (And Others) Emoticons In Pidgin [Quick Tip]

Quick tip: If you're using the new Facebook Chat plugin for Pidgin, you may want to add support for Facebook's official emoticons, so here's how to do it.

To add Facebook (including secret) emoticons to Pidgin, you can use pidgin-EAP, a project which provides emoticon themes for most available protocols, including Facebook. The pack even contains some sound and buddy list themes.

To install pidgin-EAP emoticon themes in Linux, use the following commands in a terminal:

cd /tmp
wget https://github.com/Hernou/pidgin-EAP/archive/master.tar.gz
tar -xvf master.tar.gz
cp -rf pidgin-EAP-master/{.fonts,.purple} ~

Or, if you want to install it manually, go to the pidgin-EAP GitHub page, click "Download ZIP" on the right, extract the zip and copy its contents to your home directory (note that the zip contains two hidden ".fonts" and ".purple" folders so you'll have to use Ctrl + H in your file manager to see them).

For Windows, see the instructions available on GitHub.

Then, open Pidgin, from its menu select Tools > Preferences and on the Themes tab select "EAP" under "Smiley Theme":

This will use pidgin-EAP's custom smilies for all the protocols it supports. If you only want this for Faceook, select "Facebook" from the drop-down instead.

Add Telegram Support To Pidgin With Telegram Purple

Telegram Purple is a Pidgin (and other Libpurple-based messengers) plugin which adds support for Telegram.

The plugin is based on Telegram-cli, a full-featured terminal-based client for Telegram, and is in early (pre-alpha) development stages. Right now, it supports the following features:

chats / group-chats:

send / receive messages;
discover buddies/chats;
discover buddy state and info;

profile pictures: download and use profile pictures;

Update Nov 24, 2014: Telegram Purple was updated to version 0.5, receiving the following new features / changes:

display incoming photos;
respect received user and chat property updates;
support changing own profile picture;
support adding new contacts;
display service messages;
works with libpurple proxy settings.

Features which will probably be added to Telegram Purple in the future include:

encrypted chats;
picture, audio and video messages;
file transfers;
geolocation;
multiple accounts on one client;

If you're looking for a more featureful Telegram client for Linux desktops, see: Sigram and Telegram Unity WebApp.

Even though it lacks some important features for now, Telegram Purple has some advantages over stand-alone solutions, like the ones mentioned above: since you can use it with Pidgin, you don't have to open multiple chat clients and you have all your contacts in a single list. And since it's under heavy development, we'll hopefully see some of these missing features implemented soon.

Tip: to use the Telegram iOS or Android Emojis, download them from HERE, copy the Emoji folder to ~/.purple/smileys/ and select the new smiley theme from the Pidgin preference (Themes > Smiley Theme).

Install Telegram Purple plugin for Pidgin

To make it easier to install in Ubuntu / Linux Mint (and derivatives), I've packaged Telegram Purple and uploaded it to the main failsdownloads PPA. Add the PPA and install the plugin using the following commands:

sudo add-apt-repository ppa:nilarimogard/failsdownloads
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install telegram-purple

If you don't want to add the PPA, you can download the Telegram Purple deb from HERE.

Arch Linux users can install the latest Telegram Purple from Git via AUR.

For other Linux distributions, check out the installation instructions available on Telegram Purple's GitHub page.

To report bugs or contribute to Telegram Purple, see its GitHub page.

Using Telegram Purple with Pidgin

Using Telegram Purple with Pidgin is pretty easy. After installing the plugin (see above), start Pidgin (restart it if it was already running) and from its menu select Accounts > Manager Accounts. Here, click "Add" and from the protocol drop-down list, select Telegram.

Next, enter your phone number under "Username" (including the country prefix) and click "Add":

The first time you add your Telegram account, a popup will be displayed, asking you to enter the Telegram code you've received via SMS:

Enter the code and you're done setting up Telegram with Pidgin.

Telegram Purple seen @ lffl.org

Use Facebook Chat In Pidgin With Purple-Facebook

Facebook shut down their XMPP service earlier this year and because of this, Pidgin/libpurple no longer supports Facebook Chat. For those of you who want to use Facebook Chat in Pidgin, there's a new plugin which makes this possible, called purple-facebook.

The plugin has been in development for about two months and is still a work in progress, but it is already functional and most things work as expected, including opening existing group chats and creating new ones.

According to its wiki, the Facebook Chat plugin is already implemented for the development version of libpurple, purple3, which has yet to be released and the purple-facebook project is a backport of the purple3 plugin to purple2, the released version of libpurple which is used by Pidgin and other clients.

The reasons for using this plugin instead of a stand-alone Facebook Chat alternative are having all the messaging protocols in one place and of course, the tight desktop integration provided by Pidgin, such as native desktop notifications, taskbar alerts, Unity Launcher unread count and Messaging Menu support (for the Unity features to work, make sure the Unity Integration plugin is enabled in Pidgin).

At the time I'm writing this article, the plugin doesn't support chat/friend additions or removals, but these are on the todo list. Some more advanced features like link previews or stickers are also not supported.

Install purple-facebook in Ubuntu, Linux Mint and derivatives

To install purple-facebook in Ubuntu, Linux Mint and derivatives, you can use its official repository. To add the repository and install the plugin, use the following commands:

sudo sh -c "echo 'deb http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/jgeboski/xUbuntu_$(lsb_release -rs)/ /' >> /etc/apt/sources.list.d/jgeboski.list"
cd /tmp && wget  http://download.opensuse.org/repositories/home:/jgeboski/xUbuntu_$(lsb_release -rs)/Release.key
sudo apt-key add - < Release.key  
sudo apt-get update
sudo apt-get install purple-facebook

If you don't want to add the PPA, you can download the DEB from HERE (but you won't receive any updates unless you add the repository). Or, grab the source and build it yourself.

Arch Linux users can install purple-facebook via AUR. On Windows, follow the instructions from HERE.

Once installed, add a new account in Pidgin (Accounts > Manage Accounts > Add) and in the Protocol dropdown, select "Facebook" (important: NOT "Facebook (XMPP)"):

I should also mention that in the username field, you can enter either your emil, your Facebook username or phone number associated with your Facebook account.

Report any bugs you may find @ GitHub.

If you're a Pidgin user, also see:

plugin seen @ HumanOS