What: Coccinella
Where: http://www.thecoccinella.org/
Description: Tcl/Tk whiteboard, shared desktop, text chat with images, MP3,
etc. supporting plugins and compatible with Jabber.
Uses GPL licensing. Should run on most
Linux, MacOS, Windows, and other platforms with appropriate
Tcl/Tk extensions ported.
Currently at version 0.96.0
Updated: 06/2007
Contact: See web siteA Starkit of version 0.94.4 is available from [L1 ] (way cool!).
Coccinella is a winner of ActiveState's 2004 Tk Screenshot Contest.
Comments
LV Can Coccinella and other jabber clients talk to users of AOL Instant Message?
PT - Yes. A number of jabber servers provide gateways to AIM, Yahoo, MSN and ICQ. These can be found using the discovery protocol or by checking http://xmpp.org/services/ or http://www.jabberes.org/servers/ . For instance, the jabber.org.uk server provides IRC, MSN, AIM, ICQ and Yahoo. amessage.info has a similar set and includes a e-mail gateway.
To use a foreign messaging system you normally need an account in that system. So you need to create a Yahoo account and then provide the account details to the jabber gateway when registering. After that users on the foreign system can be seen as if they were jabber users.
LES: Just for the sake of letting off some frustration, I'd like to point out that Coccinella or even Jabber in general are not the best thing for everyone. I've been testing Coccinella every few months for quite some time and, based solely on my own experience, I would have to say it just sucks like a tornado. The connection has always been very slow and unstable, the bridge to other protocols is very confusing and I miss tons of GUI customisation features that are so common in most popular IM clients. Actually, I really dislike Coccinella's GUI. I can't believe it took ActiveState's prize. Several other Tcl-based apps look better than this. Maybe their authors just were not interested or informed of the contest... Coccinella is not alone in my complaint. I've tested several other Jabber clients and they all look and feel like second or third-league to me. Worst of all, the connection has always been quirky. I have tried, I really have tried, but can't find a single way to acquire any faith in this Jabber thing. If anybody cares, I use Miranda on Windows 98. I don't think it's relevant, but someone might be wondering. I know this is a rude post, but it is very honest. I just wanted to jump on the bandwagon, but find it too inadequate to use it and actually enjoy it.
LV Well, les, the primary problem with your post is that you have been a bit vague with your complaints. Also, have you communicated with the author of Coccinella about the specific problems and shortcomings you see?
I've tried tkabber and coccinella and find coccinella to be less intimidating. But I've not had much success in getting either to work. For instance, I've tried connecting to the tcler's wiki chat, following the instructions on the tkabber page. I actually have seen some chat information appear, but I've been unsuccessful in communicating. I find all the configuration info that one needs to supply before chatting to be daunting, regardless of the application. Compared to the AIM or tkchat interface - a login and password - the maze of servers, chat rooms , logins, etc. are overwhelming for a user new to the application. Then there's the difficulty managing logins on jabber - I don't recall what password I used when creating my login, and can't find any way to query the system to determine that info.
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