Version 72 of Tkabber

What: Tkabber

 Where: http://tkabber.jabber.ru/en/
 Description: A very complete implementation of Jabber. According to
        http://www.jabber.org/user/clientlist.php?Platform=Linux
        it is the most complete version of Jabber for Linux.
        Should run under other platforms too (it's pure Tcl/Tk).
 Updated: 03/2004
 Contact: (Alexey Shchepin)

 Source: http://www.jabberstudio.org/projects/tkabber/releases/

Starkits

http://mini.net/sdarchive/ Get tkabber, tls and snack starkits.
http://tclsoap.sourceforge.net/tkabber-pat.kit (PT - development version)

Enhancments in the starkit version

kroc 26/03/2004 - My tkabber starkit can be downloaded from the sdarchive, tkabber website or here http://www.kroc.tk/tclkit/tkabber.0.9.7Starkit.kit

This customized version is based on 0.9.7 with new features (gtklook.tcl, some bugs removed by me, SRIV and PT, custom sounds and icons to match wiki chat needs, etc..). It also can source snack and/or tls starkits from auto_path, launch dir or ~/.tkabber if available. It can use platform dependent stakit packages (named tls-[string tolower [string range $::tcl_platform(os) 0 2]].kit) or cross platform starkit packages (named tls.kit). See http://mini.net/sdarchive to get wanted packages (snack is for sound support and tls for SSL). This version also has a number of features from tkchat - namely automatic history loading when you join a conference linked to the tclers chat, and support for /tip, /bug and /google commands from that application.

Connection to jabber

To connect to the jabber network you need to create an account on a public jabber server. If your primary aim is to join the tclers chat, then sr-tech.com is a good one. Otherwise jabber.org or perhaps amessage.info. There a list of public servers at [L1 ] (if you have to work around a web-proxy see below). Fill in the login dialog with your chosen username and password for the selected server. The resource item doesn't matter but you are advised to use hashed passwords. The other pages can be left with their default settings. If tls is available then a tls tab will be present and you can select Use SSL to use a secure link.

Once you are connected you'll want to join the tcl chat. Select the Services->Join group menu item and provide a nick-name for use in this chatroom and set the group to tcl and the server to conference.sr-tech.com. This is a jabber groupchat that is linked to the tcl irc channel. If you prefer there is also a general irc gateway at tcl%irc.freenode.net on server irc.e.jabber.ru.

If you have to deal with a web-proxy then it's useful to know that one of the public jabber servers is listening on port 80 and port 443. If you need to use this server, you should create your account on jabber80.com and use SSL and set the SSL port to 443.

If you would like to test jabber without creating an account, you can temporarily use [email protected]

 login: tcler
 password: tkabber
 server: jabber.org

Web access

There is also a web access into this network setup at http://sr-tech.com/ . This will require a javascript and CSS capable web browser (IE or Mozilla are known good).

IM transports

The jabber network is especially good at providing connections to other IM networks. If you have an account on ICQ, MSN, AIM or Yahoo then you can still be present on these networks while using Jabber. For instance, to connect to MSN - select the Services->Browser menu item and enter amessage.info as the JID. You should get a tree with various transports shown. Double-click on the register element under your chosen transport and fill in the dialog that results. For MSN your user id is usually the e-mail address you used to create your MS Passport with. Once you have registered you can send messages and open chats to $userid@$transport.amessage.info

PT The current version can look a bit like this under Windows at the moment.

Kroc The current starkit version looks a like this under Linux at the moment.

2004-03-19 SRIV Update! I changed the conference name above to [email protected] (took off the #). This was to enable compatibilty with a web chat interface to my jabber server. Try the web interface by going to [L2 ] and play around. JCW, tell me what you think. It was tricky to set up the jwchat, but, I'll be glad to supply you with my configs if you want to try it on your server.

jcw - Neat. It might be an idea to think about adaptive functionality: a convention, whereby a starkit which works just fine by itself would discover other packages that enable more functions (both Snack and TLS would be an example here.

If this were done in a generic manner, such adaptive apps could have a user interface to see what sort of things it can deal with, and perhaps even grab them. In a way this is just another packager/downloader, but the key would be that the process is driven from usage (which is VERY different from todays delayed gratification schemes!). It means you can get an adaptive app and make it work for you right away, but if you want more features you can invest some more time to get them.

Another related idea: a server which serves packages to any adaptive app, located either on the same machine or perhaps on the same LAN. So apps could go and check what packages there are on such a "package server" and grab things on package require (every time). Last step: make the package server be a caching server for a bunch of repositories on the internet, and you have a scalable distribution mechanism: deploy-on-demand?

Anyway... I'm straying a bit from the topic of this page.

SRIV You may be straying from the topic of this page, which we can always move, but, this is a good example of an app that can work without the optional packages if they aren't available. AJB wrote a few line "which" script to find files in your exe path, which I would prefer to use. So, any starkit in your exe path would be available for loading. This makes for simple file placement for beginners on windows or linux, esp if for example, exec'ing the snack.kit would automagically copy itself into the exe path for you.

AJB I posted the which script, which has worked for me in a similar situation.

LES on March 29: Is this a good time to make feature requests or should we wait a little more?

See also Coccinella and Jabber

Category Application | Category Internet