TKABBER-PLUGINS(7) Miscellaneous Information Manual TKABBER-PLUGINS(7)
NAME
tkabber-plugins -- the set of standard plugins for Tkabber, an XMPP (Jabber) client
SYNOPSIS
mkdir -p ~/.tkabber/plugins
ln -s /usr/share/tkabber-plugins/PLUGIN_NAME ~/.tkabber/plugins
rm ~/.tkabber/plugins/PLUGIN_NAME
DESCRIPTION
tkabber-plugins is the full set of standard plugins for Tkabber, an XMPP (Jabber) client. They are maintained as a part of Tkabber and
implement various kinds of useful but non-essential functionality.
This manual page explains how to install and uninstall Tkabber plugins and briefly describes all plugins provided by this package.
MANAGING PLUGINS
Each plugin is just a directory containing necessary files. The directories of all the plugins are located under /usr/share/tkabber-plugins
When Tkabber starts up it looks for a special directory ~/.tkabber/plugins (i.e. the directory named .tkabber/plugins located under the
user's home directory). If it exists, Tkabber considers all its subdirectories as installed plugins and "loads" them. So the installation
and removal of plugins is just a matter of maintaining proper symbolic links under ~/.tkabber/plugins to the actual directories of plugins.
Note that the directory ~/.tkabber/plugins as well as ~/.tkabber might well not exist at the time you will be installing plugins. This is
normal, so just go on and create the necessary directory structure if needed.
A word of caution: Please do not install a plugin if you do not understand what kind of functionality it is supposed to provide! This is
because some plugins may have impact on usage experience unsolicited by the user. For instance, ctcomp plugin "hijacks" several keyboard
shortcuts from the chat input windows for its own usage, etc. So to be on the safe side always read at least the introductory section of a
plugin's README file if one is provided.
INSTALLING PLUGINS
To install a plugin simply copy or -- much better -- symlink the directory of the chosen plugin under ~/.tkabber/plugins -- a directory
Tkabber searches for plugins when it starts up.
If the ~/.tkabber/plugins directory doesn't exist just create it:
mkdir -p ~/.tkabber/plugins
It's better to create a symbolic link rather than copying because this greatly simplifies the upgrade process: when a new version of tkab-
ber-plugins is installed, symbolic links under ~/.tkabber/plugins will automatically start to point to the new versions of installed plug-
ins. Contrary to this, if you copy plugin directories rather than symlink them, you will be required to reinstall the plugins being used.
After the plugin is installed you have to restart Tkabber for it to find and load the plugin.
UNINSTALLING PLUGINS
To uninstall a plugin simply delete its directory from under ~/.tkabber/plugins directory.
UPGRADING PLUGINS
Provided you created symbolic links to actual directories of needed plugins to install them, uprgading to the next version of tkabber-plug-
ins will be fully automatic.
Otherwise you will have to remove obsoleted versions of plugins from under ~/.tkabber/plugins and then install their new versions back.
AVAILABLE PLUGINS
Below is the list of all provided plugins and their brief descriptions.
The proper name of each plugin is also the name of its directory located under /usr/share/tkabber-plugins so is's that name you use for
installing and uninstalling that particular plugin.
aniemoticons
Plugin which adds support of animated emoticons.
attline
Plugin which draws so-called attention line - a line before the first message in a chat window where the window has lost keyboard
focus. All messages after the line are unread messages.
bc A word game. Inludes a russian file.
browser
Plugin which implements Jabber Browser (XEP-0011). This protocol is deprecated in favor of Service Discovery (XEP-0030), but may be
useful for pre-XMPP servers/transports.
checkers
Checkers game for two players (including Straight, Russian, Spanish, Brazilian, Pool, Italian checkers). When installed, you can
send an invitation to your contact (contextual menu on the roster). If the other player has also Tkabber and the plugin installed,
he will recieve the invitation. If he accepts, a window will open on both.
chess Chess game for two players. When installed, you can send an invitation to your contact (contextual menu on the roster). If the other
player has also Tkabber and the plugin installed, he will recieve the invitation. If he accepts, a window will open on both.
ctcomp Plugin adds support for "text completion" in Tkabber's chat input windows which works like the similar features of the Vim and Emacs
text editors. The matching words are picked from the corresponding chat log and input windows.
custom-urls
Provides regexp-based mechanism to convert strings with numbers to URLs in chat windows.
cyrillize
Utility to translate misprinted characters to cyrillic pressing Ctrl+'.
debug Allows to see debug messages in separate tab/window.
ejabberd
Utility to check your Ejabberd Jabber server remotely.
floatinglog
Plugin reports incoming messages, presence changes, status changes in a separate floating window.
georoster
World map. It tries to position your contacts using the data on vcard. You can also drag and drop your contacts from the roster on
their possitions.
gmail Plugin allows Gmail/Googlemail users to receive mail notifications.
iconsets
Several iconsets, borrowed from other Jabber clients, now are represented in this plugin.
jidlink
Implements Jidlink file transfer protocol. It's undocumented and obsolete, but may be useful for transferring files to old Tkabber
versions.
latex Displays formulas in LaTeX notation as embedded images, generated by LaTeX and ImageMagick.
mute Experimental implementation of XEP-0058: Multi-User Text Editing, now deferred.
openurl
Plugin which adds several items to a URL popup menu. Each item allows to open the URL in a certain browser.
osd Displays certain events (presence and chat messages) notification using osd_cat utility.
presencecmd
Plugin which adds several commands in a chat window. They change user's presence information (global or directed).
quiz Adaptation of He3hauka (a russian quiz game for IRC).
quotelastmsg
Provides a way to "quote" the message located at the very bottom of the conversation log of a chat window -- that is, to copy such
message into the input box of the same chat window with some decorations added (by default the ">> " string is prepeneded to the
message). By default, quoting is done using the <Alt-q> keyboard shortcut.
receipts
Implements XEP-0184 "Message receipts": in one-to-one chat sessions it is able to request confirmations of reception of outgoing
messages and reply to such requests coming from remote party.
renju Gomoku and Renju (in fact, renju is not implemented yet) game for two players. When installed, you can send an invitation to your
contact (contextual menu on the roster). If the other player has also Tkabber and the plugin installed, he will recieve the invita-
tion. If he accepts, a window will open on both.
reversi
Reversi (othello) game for two players. When installed, you can send an invitation to your contact (contextual menu on the roster).
If the other player has also Tkabber and the plugin installed, he will recieve the invitation. If he accepts, a window will open on
both.
singularity
Keeps the conversation with a person in just one window when that person sends messages from different resources of his/her JID:
when the new window for a one-on-one chat is about to be opened the plugin checks whether there are any active chat sessions with
the same bare JID (that is, without the "/resource" part) as that of the new chat. If there are, they are closed with their conver-
sation log and input history preserved, the new chat window is opened and then the saved data is inserted into the new window. So
effectively this plugin makes Tkabber keep just one chat window per bare JID open.
socials
Adds many 'social' commands like /dance. Includes english and russian files.
spy Logs your contacts presence changes to a window or to a file. Allows to setup alert window for certain contacts.
stripes
Allows to colorize backgrounds of the whole messages placed in the conversation logs of Tkabber chat windows. Backgrounds of even
and odd messages can be configured separately from each other (or not configured at all).
tclchat
Plugin, which makes chatting in Tclers' chat (tcl@tach.tclers.tk) easier. It recognises a bot, which connects Jabber room with IRC
channel, and maps IRC users to Jabber conference participants.
tkabber-khim
Plugin that adds KHIM (an alternative input method by Kevin Kenny) support to Tkabber. It can be used to input characters not
directly available from installed keymaps.
traffic
Approximately accounts incoming and outgoing XMPP traffic by addressees. Traffic estimation is good only if no stream compression
or encryption is used. But even if the absolute values are incorrect, it still allows to find which remote JID consumes the highest
traffic amount.
unixkeys
Adds support for "Unix-style" (in fact, GNU Readline and GNU bash -style) keyboard shortcuts for text editing to all text entry wid-
gets in Tkabber.
whiteboard
Shared whiteboard, allows two contacts or a whole chatroom to draw collaboratively.
EXAMPLES
To install a plugin:
1. Create the directory which Tkabber searches for plugins installed for the user:
mkdir -p ~/.tkabber/plugins
You have to do this only once.
2. Pick the plugin you would like to install. Suppose this is the georoster plugin providing the World map which depicts the geograph-
ical coordinates of the contacts on your roster.
3. Install it by creating a symbolic link from the plugin's directory to the directory of user's plugins. Continuing with our georoster
example, you will have to issue this command:
ln -s /usr/share/tkabber-plugins/georoster ~/.tkabber/plugins
4. Repeat for any other plugins you want to install.
5. Restart Tkabber.
To uninstall a plugin just remove its directory from the directory of the user's plugins. For example, to remove the installed georoster
plugin issue this command:
rm ~/.tkabber/plugins/georoster
SEE ALSO
README files for various plugins under /usr/share/doc/tkabber-plugins
tkabber(1).
Tkabber reference manual: /usr/share/doc/tkabber/tkabber.html
Tkabber WWW site: http://tkabber.jabber.ru/
Tkabber wiki pages: http://tkabber.jabe.ru/
AUTHORS
The plugins comprising the tkabber-plugins package were written by various people. Please consult the /usr/share/doc/copyright file for
further details.
This manual page was written by Konstantin Khomoutov <flatworm@users.sourceforge.net>, for the Debian project (but may be used by others).
October 27, 2009 TKABBER-PLUGINS(7)