HGKeeper

version 0.11.0pre5:

The build process for plugins has changed slightly. Everything still

works more or less the same from a user point of view, that is, 'make

file.so' will still turn file.c into a plugin. The build now uses

libtool in an attempt to increase portability. By using libtool the

act of compiling and linking has been divided into two steps (to be

precise it always was two but we only called gcc once; now we call

libtool twice). PLUGIN_CFLAGS has also been added. Any -D switches you

were passing in PLUGIN_LIBS should be passed in PLUGIN_CFLAGS now.

version 0.11.0pre1:

Gaim is now multi-connection based. This represents a significant

change. Most of the code was modified, though most of the modifications

were small (referencing an int as part of a struct as opposed to as a

global int). Plugins need to be modified to match the new function

declarations and such.

Gaim now uses GModule from the GLib library for plugins. This brings

a few changes. gaim_plugin_init is now passed a GModule *, which it

should use for all of its callbacks. gaim_plugin_init now returns

char * instead of int instead of void. If gaim_plugin_init returns

NULL then gaim assumes everything was OK and proceeds. Otherwise, it

displays the error message and unloads your plugin. There is no more

gaim_plugin_error (at least, that gaim itself will use. You may wish

to simply return gaim_plugin_error() in gaim_plugin_init).

Because gaim now uses GModule, plugins are opened with RTLD_GLOBAL. I

had previously wanted to avoid this, but there are simply too many

benefits gained from using GModule to reject it for this reason. This

means that plugins can now call each other's functions. Beware, this

has good and bad implications. If you call a function, it will look

first in your plugin, and then in gaim's global symbol table, including

other plugins.

The new system allows for protocol plugins. New protocols (including

Yahoo, MSN, IRC, ICQ, etc) can be loaded dynamically. However, most

of these plugins are going to be controlled by the gaim maintainers.

If you have interest in writing a protocol plugin, please talk to one

of us before you start.

That's about all that I'm going to talk about. My SN is EWarmenhoven

if you have any questions (like what the hell struct gaim_connection is

and what its relation to struct aim_user is).

version 0.10.0:

Rather than have a separate CFLAGS and LDFLAGS for the plugins than

for gaim, and doing all kinds of crazy things to work around the

problems that creates, the plugins now have the same CFLAGS and LIBS.

The plugins also have PLUGIN_LIBS which can be passed at make time.

This makes things like #ifdef USE_APPLET and #ifdef USE_PERL much more

reliable. (#include "config.h" in order to get all the #defines)

The internals of gaim plugin events got modified slightly. It should

have no effect on existing plugins or the way plugins are made. The

change was to make my life easier adding perl. It should also make

adding new plugin events even easier than before (though I doubt that

any more will ever be added). Also, events are printed to the debug

window.

event_buddy_away was being triggered every blist_update for every away

buddy. This got fixed, but now when you sign on, event_buddy_away may

be called before event_buddy_signon. Not that it should matter much.

Just after I finish saying that no more events will be added, I go and

add one. Go figure. Anyway, it's event_new_conversation. Enough people

asked me to add it, and I found it useful enough, that I finally did

add it. It gets passed a char *, the name of the person who the

conversation is with. This gets triggered when a new conversation

window is created, in case you couldn't figure it out on your own.

event_blist_update wasn't being called if you weren't reporting idle

time or if you were idle. This got fixed.

version 0.9.20:

It's 3 am the night before finals, it's obviously a good time to hack

gaim.

This became quite long, and if you don't want to read it all, here's

the important stuff summed up:

- 9 new events (see SIGNALS file for more details)

- int gaim_plugin_init(void *) (no longer returns void, see error.c)

- void gaim_plugin_unload(void *) (to allow plugin to remove itself)

- can only load 1 instance of the same plugin

- PLUGIN_LIBS for extra libraries for plugin

The first thing to note is that there are about 9 new events plugins

can attach to, most of them dealing with chat, since I know that was a

big thing that was missing. Please note that I was nice and decided to

tack these extra events onto the end of the enum, which means that

plugins do not have to be recompiled in order for them to still work.

The big change is that gaim_plugin_init no longer returns void, but

int. If it returns 0+, gaim interprets this as there being no error,

and continues with loading as normal. (This should be backwards-

compatible: returning 0/1 is the equivalent of returning void.) If it

returns a number less than 0, there was an error loading detected by

the plugin. At that point, gaim will try to clean things up by removing

any callbacks that have been added by the plugin. It will then try to

call the plugin's gaim_plugin_error function, if there is one. The

function should take an int (the int returned by gaim_plugin_init) and

return a char*. If the char* is not NULL, it is displayed by gaim as an

error message. The plugin is then unloaded and closed and life goes

back to normal. If any of that was confusing, it was confusing to me,

too. I added a plugin, error.c, which should help clear things up.

Another big thing to note is that plugins can unload themselves. A good

example of why this is useful is a ticker plugin. If the user closes

the ticker window, they obviously want the plugin to be unloaded. Gaim

has no way of knowing that; therefore, the plugin must tell gaim that

it is to be unloaded. To have a plugin unload itself, simply call

gaim_plugin_unload(void *) (the void* is the handle passed to

gaim_plugin_init). Because you are explicitly asking to be removed,

gaim assumes that you have done any cleanup already, and so does not

call gaim_plugin_remove. Rather, it simply removes your callbacks and

unloads the plugin. (There is some trickery to this. Think about it:

your plugin calls the function, your plugin is unloaded, and execution

returns to your plugin, which no longer exists. This would cause a

segfault if it behaved exactly as described. Instead, the plugin is

removed from the list of plugins, and removed 5 seconds later. By then

the plugin should be effectively gone, though still in memory.)

In previous versions of gaim, you could load multiple copies of the

same plugin. This is no longer the case. The reason for this was that

there were not two instances of the plugin in memory; rather, one copy

and two structures representing the same plugin. Then, the callbacks

would be called twice (since the plugin would most likely act the same

across multiple instances), and when one was unloaded, all callbacks

for both instances would be removed. Rather than deal with two copies

of the same plugin, it is easier and cleaner to only handle one.

Sometimes it's necessary to link a plugin with libraries other than the

ones needed for GTK. Before, it was necessary to modify the Makefile to

do so (which was usually messy since it's generated by GNU automake).

Now, you can simply set the environment variable PLUGIN_LIBS to be the

extra libraries you want to link in. For example, to link plugin.c with

the math library, you can run the command

PLUGIN_LIBS=-lm make plugin.so

To link with multiple plugins, make sure to indicate spaces, e.g.

PLUGIN_LIBS='-lm -lcrypt' make encrypt.so

There is a new event, event_quit, which signifies that gaim has exited

correctly (i.e. didn't segfault). Also, after this event is called, all

plugins are removed, and their gaim_plugin_remove function is called.

This behavior is different from previous versions; however, it is the

proper way of doing things, and should have no effect on current

plugins. The reason event_quit exists despite plugins being removed at

quit is because a plugin can be removed without gaim quitting. They are

distinctly separate events.

The new events mean that some versions of gaim have certain events,

others don't. The thing I find fascinating though is that even if a

plugin is compiled for a later version, it will still be backwards-

compatible, even if it makes use of the newer events. The reason why

is the names of the events are stored as integers, and those integers

will never match an event in a prior version. This means you don't

have to worry about which version the person is using, only which

version the person is compiling against. For simplicity's sake, please

assume people are compiling against the latest version. For

practicality's sake, VERSION is #define'd to be the version you're

compiling against, starting with 0.9.20. Prior versions do not have

this defined in the standard plugin Makefile.

gaim/gaim