HGKeeper

Gaim: The Pimpin' Penguin IM Clone Thats Good For The Soul

1. Compiling and Installing

1.1. What does "Gaim" stand for?

1.2. Why can't I compile Gaim?

1.3. I'm trying to install Gaim, but it complains that I don't have

libgtkspell.so.0, from where can I get this?

1.4. What do I need to use the SILC protocol?

1.5. Is there some way I can compile just Gaim, without all of these

protocols?

1.6. I installed a new version of Gaim, but the about window says I'm

still using the old version.

1.7. Are the packages signed? If so, by who, and how can I get the

key?

1.8. Can I use Gaim for GTK+ 1.2?

1.9. Can I run Gaim on IRIX?

1.10. Can I run Gaim on HPUX?

1.11. Can I run Gaim on MacOSX?

1.12. How do I apply the patch "something.diff"?

1.13. Why is Gaim crashing when I start it?

1.14. Gaim <non-current version> is buggy. Gaim SVN is buggy. Why?

1.15. Why do you always say not to use SVN?

2. Using Gaim

2.1. How do I register for a new account?

2.2. How do I use AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Jabber, ICQ, or any other

protocol?

2.3. How do I use Google Talk?

2.4. How do I change the font Gaim uses? The empty left padding? The

background color?

2.5. Where did my ability to use Ctrl-Enter to send a message go?

2.6. When I click the status selector, I see blank space and have to

scroll. What can I do about this?

2.7. The status selector has extra padding in it. How can I make it

smaller?

2.8. How do I make gaim use emacs-like keybindings, or assign a

custom hotkey?

2.9. How do I make Escape close the conversation window?

2.10. How do I use smiley themes?

2.11. Why are the status icons so big?

2.12. Why do the emblems move around the status icon?

2.13. How do I get sound to work correctly?

2.14. How do I make Gaim use ALSA or OSS for playing sounds? What does

the "Automatic" option do?

Why does Gaim use the same WM_CLASS for every window? It makes

2.15. it impossible to control window size and placement for the buddy

list separately from the conversations.

2.16. I blocked someone accidentally, how can I unblock them?

2.17. What is a "Buddy Pounce"?

2.18. Where does gaim store its logs?

2.19. Can I use Gaim for e-mail, blogging, an RSS feed, or something

else that isn't IM-related?

3. Features

3.1. Does Gaim support file transfer?

3.2. Can I turn the tray icon off?

3.3. What do those colors in the conversation tab mean?

3.4. Can I import or export my buddy list?

3.5. Does Gaim support animated smileys?

3.6. Can I make Gaim group screen names by the person that owns them?

You know, like Trillian's Meta Contacts?

3.7. What happened to my timestamps? Can I change them?

3.8. How does Gaim decide which saved statuses to show in the status

selector?

3.9. Why are no states listed when I go to set a state for Auto Away?

4. AIM/ICQ (OSCAR) Protocol

4.1. Can I set my profile?

4.2. Can I set a buddy icon?

4.3. I just changed my buddy icon, and I can't see the new one.

4.4. Some of my buddies are not showing up as online, why is that?

4.5. Can I use AIM URI's such as "aim:goim?screenname=robflynn"?

4.6. Does Gaim support DirectIM and IM Image?

4.7. Can I send SMS messages?

4.8. Can I add SMS numbers to my buddy list?

5. IRC Protocol

5.1. How do I join a channel with the IRC plugin?

5.2. Is there a way to make Gaim automatically identify me and/or join

IRC chats on login?

5.3. Is it possible to change the user name that appears in

username@hostname?

5.4. How can I set/change my real name?

6. Jabber Protocol

6.1. How do I choose which Jabber server to use?

6.2. How do I change my Jabber resource to be other than the default

of "/Home" (or the old default of "/Gaim")?

6.3. Can I remove a buddy from my Jabber roster entirely?

6.4. What does "Cancel Presence Notification" do?

7. Y!M (Yahoo) Protocol

7.1. I cannot connect to Yahoo! and I'm behind a firewall or NAT. Why

doesn't Gaim have Yahoo's "Firewall with no proxy" option?

7.2. I blocked someone, but it doesn't seem to have worked.

7.3. Can I get a list of Yahoo! Chat rooms? What about localized

lists?

7.4. What protocol does Gaim use to connect to Yahoo!?

8. MSN Protocol

8.1. Will Gaim support MSN video chat?

8.2. Why are my file transfers so slow?

8.3. Is there a way to invite more than one person to an MSN chat?

8.4. Is MSNP11 (MSN7) going to be supported?

8.5. Why can't I sign on to MSN?

8.6. The MSN plugin won't load, but I have Mozilla NSS!

8.7. What does "MSN: S: 911 3" in the debug window mean when I cannot

connect to MSN?

8.8. How do I set an MSN avatar?

8.9. What does "Has you" in the buddy tooltip mean?

8.10. How do I set my MSN Friendly Name (the name other users see)?

8.11. What does "Error reading from switchboard server" mean?

9. Gadu-Gadu Protocol

9.1. What is Gadu-Gadu?

9.2. I compiled Gaim from source and now it doesn't have Gadu-Gadu

support. Why?

10. Zephyr Protocol

10.1. What is Zephyr?

10.2. Other Zephyr clients (zwgc, owl, tzc) work, but Gaim dies with

"Couldn't initialize zephyr".

10.3. Gaim isn't working, but I never got any other Zephyr client

working on this machine.

10.4. How do I use Zephyr from behind my firewall, or without

recompiling with kerberos support if needed?

11. SILC Protocol

11.1. What is SILC?

12. Novell Protocol

12.1. Are there any public servers for Novell?

12.2. I can't seem to get it to work.

13. Scripts and Plugins

13.1. How do I use perl scripts with Gaim?

13.2. How do I compile a plugin for Gaim?

13.3. I have a plugin or perl script for Gaim that used to work, but

does not with the current version.

13.4. Where can I find documentation on writing plugins and Perl

scripts?

14. Development

14.1. Can I help?

14.2. Gaim never leaves a core file.

14.3. Will you support features such as voice chat, internet phones,

or video chat?

14.4. Where should I report bugs?

14.5. Where should I submit patches?

14.6. Did you guys reverse engineer it?

15. Miscellaneous Questions

15.1. Can I IM you guys?

15.2. Hello?

15.3. Does Gaim support secure instant messaging (encrypted IMs)?

15.4. Why are the passwords in accounts.xml not encrypted?

15.5. When will the next version of Gaim be released?

15.6. What will the next version be?

15.7. So, can I look forward to mega-sexy super functionality with

Gaim?

15.8. How do I change the language for the Highlight Misspelled words

option?

15.9. Can I make Gaim transparent/translucent?

15.10. Can I "skin" Gaim?

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 1. Compiling and Installing

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1.1 What does "Gaim" stand for?

For freedom! No, seriously, it doesn't stand for anything. It's our name and

we're sticking to it. The two acceptable forms of capitalization are "Gaim"

and "gaim" (and not "GAIM").

1.2 Why can't I compile Gaim?

Make sure you have relatively recent versions of automake, autoconf, and

gettext. HOWEVER, generally speaking, having the absolute newest of them is

not as good as having one version short of newest since we might not have

found work-arounds for the latest set of changes. Also, some versions of

automake require certain ranges of gettext versions, and we are utterly

unable to keep track of what versions will work with what other versions.

If you have Slackware < 9.1, you need to get non-slack packages for autoconf,

automake and libtool. You also have to copy the contents of /usr/local/share/

aclocal to /usr/share/aclocal. This is due to bugs in Slackware and the auto*

packages.

*BSD users may also have problems with libtool and will also have to remove

the --no-verify from the configure script.

Having problems getting SSL and MSN working? See http://gaim.sf.net/

faq-ssl.php for distribution specific hints.

1.3 I'm trying to install Gaim, but it complains that I don't have

libgtkspell.so.0, from where can I get this?

libtgtkspell.so.0 is provided by gtkspell. This library is used by Gaim to

provide the "Highlight misspelled words" feature. You can find an RPM of

gtkspell at freshrpms.net. You can find the source and a non-Red Hat specific

RPM at gtkspell.sourceforge.net.

1.4 What do I need to use the SILC protocol?

You need to install the SILC toolkit (http://silcnet.org/software/download/

toolkit/) and the Gaim SILC plugin. This plugin is generally provided as a

separate package (such as a gaim-silc RPM). If you're compiling yourself, see

the ./configure --help for specifying the SILC includes and libs. If you're

compiling an SRPM, use --with silc to build the gaim-silc RPM.

In Windows, the SILC toolkit is installed with Gaim.

Some distributions provide the SILC toolkit and include Gaim's SILC plugin in

their Gaim package.

1.5 Is there some way I can compile just Gaim, without all of these protocols?

Yeah. There are actually three ways to do it.

1. Use the --with-static-prpls option to ./configure along with

--disable-plugins. This will let you choose which protocols are compiled

in with Gaim, but you will not be able to use any other protocols or

plugins.

You'll need to compile any protocols that you specified in

--with-static-prpls. Oscar is the default.

2. Use the --with-dynamic-prpls option to ./configure

3. Change to the directories for the protocols you want to compile (e.g. src

/protocols/jabber), and run make from there. Then after you've compiled

all of them, change back to src/ and run make gaim.

1.6 I installed a new version of Gaim, but the about window says I'm still

using the old version.

If you compiled yourself, and you previously had an RPM or a Debian package

installed, you need to remove that first. rpm -e gaim or dpkg -p gaim should

work.

Likewise, if you want to use an RPM or deb and you have previously compiled

Gaim from source, you need to make uninstall to remove all Gaim files from /

usr/local.

1.7 Are the packages signed? If so, by who, and how can I get the key?

Yes, all packages are signed. The signature for the tarball and bzip2 archive

are provided by separate downloads. The RPMs we provide are signed by either

Ethan Blanton, Mark Doliner, or Stu Tomlinson. Usually the Mandrake RPMs are

signed by, Mark Doliner, the Fedora Core RPMs are signed by Stu Tomlinson,

and the Red Hat 8 and 9 RPMs are signed by Ethan Blanton. The keys can be

obtained from any key server. http://pgp.mit.edu/ is popular.

1.8 Can I use Gaim for GTK+ 1.2?

As of version 0.60, Gaim has been completely converted to using GTK+2.0. We

really really really recommend using the most current version of Gaim and not

a GTK+1.2 version of Gaim. However, if you are living in the '90s, or you're

afraid GTK+2.0 will insult your mother, you can use Gaim 0.59.9, which is the

last version of Gaim that used GTK+1.2. We should warn you though, this

version of Gaim hasn't had any new features since the middle of 2002, and

some protocols likely do not work. Also, the 0.59.x releases aren't

breathtakingly beautiful.

1.9 Can I run Gaim on IRIX?

Sure you can - the amount of effort involved depends on which compiler you

use; there is however no official support.

GCC (tested with 3.4 on IRIX 6.5.29): All but one necessary changes were

included in the official sources. You will notice GnuTLS will not be included

by default, even if the necessary includes and libraries are available; to

add SSL support, open the configure script in your favourite editor and

replace all instances of "-lnsl" by "-lnsl -lgnutls". Ask no questions :-) it

Just Works. Mozilla-NSS wasn't tested.

MIPSPro CC (tested with 7.4.4m on IRIX 6.5.29): Less trivial for obvious

ANSI-tightness reasons. There's an unofficial patch for 2.0.0 beta3 available

http://jesuschrist.be/gaim/gaim-2.0.0beta3_irix.patch, which applies (amongst

others) the SSL hack described above. You will need to configure WITHOUT the

Zephyr protocol plugin.

NOTE: Jabber crashed gaim when using TLS. This is a bug inside GnuTLS that

might or might not be fixed by the time you read this.

1.10 Can I run Gaim on HPUX?

Yes, you can; with GCC 4.1.1 on HPUX 11.11 at least it worked fine. There is

however no official support.

The build scripts that are shipped with the "official" releases are

unfortunately incompatible with the HPUX linker; fetching the svn version and

running autogen.sh however gives you a healthy build dir. Configure gaim

WITHOUT the X screensaver extension and disable the gtk- and glibtests; no

source hacks are needed.

1.11 Can I run Gaim on MacOSX?

Yes you can, but we do not provide a package for it. The reason being that in

order to use Gaim on MacOSX, you need to install an X server and GTK+, which

we are not prepared to support. You can either compile Gaim (and its

dependencies) yourself, or you can use the fink installer available from

http://fink.sf.net. If you would like a native aqua interface or a

user-friendly installer, we suggest trying Adium (http://www.adiumx.com/).

1.12 How do I apply the patch "something.diff"?

Type patch -p0 < something.diff from inside the Gaim directory. If that

doesn't work, try patch -p1 < something.diff.

1.13 Why is Gaim crashing when I start it?

First of all make sure you are using the most recent version of Gaim. If you

still have problems, try the following:

• Make sure only one version of Gaim is installed. "whereis gaim" can

sometimes be useful for determining this.

• "export GDK_USE_XFT=0" in a terminal and then run Gaim from the same

terminal.

• If Gaim is not crashing, but is just sitting there not displaying

anything, try turning off anything else that might be using the sound

device (ie xmms) and then starting Gaim. If this fixes the problem, it is

a libao issue, not a Gaim issue, and can be worked around by the use of

esd or arts.

• Try disabling or deleting any 3rd party plugins, especially anything

related to encryption.

• If you use 0.75 or higher on win32, try deleting tcl.dll.

1.14 Gaim <non-current version> is buggy. Gaim SVN is buggy. Why?

Non-current versions have old bugs which may be fixed in the current

version--that's why we make new releases. SVN is frequently unusable because

of changes in the code. Bugs are introduced during the development process

and are hopefully fixed before a release is made.

1.15 Why do you always say not to use SVN?

That's a long story. For starters, see the previous question. It is often the

case that Gaim SVN exhibits bad behavior due to features and bugfixes which

are in a transitory state or which are not yet well understood. These bad

behaviors range from the harmless (maybe a graphical glitch in a dialog box)

to the irritating (a particular protocol may not work), to the downright

damaging (recently a bug in SVN destroyed the user's buddy lists). While

behaviors like this are acceptable to some users (particularly developers,

who are used to such things), they tend to cause many Gaim SVN users to

contact Gaim developers and report the same (usually egregious) bug over and

over - using time which could be better spent fixing the bugs.

A second major point involves public resources - an SVN checkout is not a

cheap operation. As many Sourceforge users are aware, at various points in

the recent past Sourceforge CVS has been less than pleasant to work with.

This is, of course, because Sourceforge hosts dozens and dozens of useful and

active projects which use[ed] CVS as a primary method of source code

collaboration. Unfortunately, when too many users are poking around in that

CVS just for the sake of poking around, it prevents other users who are

trying to do work to improve those very same projects from accomplishing

their tasks. Naturally, this could easily become true of Sourceforge's SVN

offering as well. It is better for the community if an enterprising

individual wishing to fix a particular bug [s]he has seen can get to the code

and create a patch, even if this means that some users have to wait a few

weeks for the next release to see what new features it might hold.

The third point is not a problem which has yet come up, but it is in the back

of the mind of the developers who bring you Gaim. As a third-party IM client,

Gaim is not a priority (and indeed may be an irritant) for the IM service

providers. We do our best to keep Gaim playing nice and being friendly on the

IM networks it uses; however, at times there are bugs in the protocol

support. If a few dozen people are using this buggy client, the IM providers

are not likely to go out of their way to do anything about it. However, if

hundreds of people are pointing an ill-behaved client at an IM server, the

server administrators may be forced to take action. (This is particularly

likely if the buggy behavior is damaging in some way.) Gaim releases

represent code which the Gaim developers feel is relatively well-behaved and

stable. This includes not only the interface seen by Gaim users, but the

traffic seen by IM service providers. Gaim SVN bears no such guarantees.

In short, there are a lot of good reasons to not use Gaim SVN if one does not

wish to develop Gaim, Gaim plugins, or a codebase which interacts with Gaim

in some intimate way. There are, however, only a few reasons to use Gaim SVN

outside of the above. Please weigh these things carefully and decide whether

you wish to use Gaim SVN for a good reason which furthers the community, or

for selfish reasons which are not entirely important.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 2. Using Gaim

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

2.1 How do I register for a new account?

This depends on the protocol.

AIM: Go to http://my.screenname.aol.com/_cqr/login/login.psp?siteId=

snshomepage&authLev=1&mcState=initialized&createSn=1.

MSN (including Hotmail email): Go to http://registernet.passport.com/.

MSN (using your own email address): Go to http://register.passport.net/.

Yahoo: Go to http://edit.yahoo.com/config/eval_register.

Jabber: See the question How do I register a new Jabber account? below.

ICQ: Go to http://web.icq.com/register.

Gadu-Gadu: Use the official client to create an account.

Novell: See your Novell server administrator.

2.2 How do I use AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, Jabber, ICQ, or any other protocol?

Use the Account Editor (Accounts->Add/Edit) to add the account of the

appropriate messaging service. Use the checkbox in the account editor to

enable the account.

2.3 How do I use Google Talk?

Create a Jabber account as per Google's FAQ. The Audio component is not

currently supported and will not be until work on it is finished. We have no

time frame for that as yet.

2.4 How do I change the font Gaim uses? The empty left padding? The background

color?

The font preference in Gaim is used only for the formatting of outgoing

messages. The display fonts used by the rest of Gaim are those specified by

GTK+. To change this font you need to edit your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 file. If you

need help you can see our example .gtkrc-2.0 (http://gaim.sf.net/gtkrc-2.0)

file. On Windows, this file is located at C:\Documents and Settings\username

\.themes\Default\gtk-2.0\gtkrc. If the file does not exist, create it.

You can also just switch to a different GTK+ theme. You can find GTK+ themes

(and information on using them) by visiting themes.freshmeat.net,

art.gnome.org, or searching on Google.

Similarly, the other font preferences are the defaults for outgoing messages,

and gaim's global settings are controled by the gtk theme. Additionally, some

settings to specific parts of gaim can be set by a Gtk+ theme.

2.5 Where did my ability to use Ctrl-Enter to send a message go?

Gaim used to have an option in the preferences window which let you choose

whether to use Enter or Ctrl-Enter to send a message. This was less than

optimal for many reasons, not least of which was because it only let you

choose between those two options. It also caused large problems for people

who required an alternate input method (people who were typing in Chinese or

Japanese for example). On top of all this gtk provides an incredibly nice

mechanisms which allows keybindings to be set for things via the gtk theme

files. Gaim decided to use this gtk interface as a method of allowing people

to use Ctrl-Enter to send but to also allow people to use anything else they

felt like and to reduce the clutter in the User Interface. The gtk interface

is, unfortunately, not as immediately obvious as a simple checkbox, however

it is still simple. The example gtkrc file seen http://gaim.sf.net/gtkrc-2.0

shows you how to do it (among other things).

2.6 When I click the status selector, I see blank space and have to scroll.

What can I do about this?

Edit your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 to contain the appropriate lines from http://

gaim.sf.net/gtkrc-2.0. Search for "appears-as-list".

2.7 The status selector has extra padding in it. How can I make it smaller?

Edit your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 to contain the appropriate lines from http://

gaim.sf.net/gtkrc-2.0. Search for "xthickness". There are two examples. Start

by trying the first one. If that makes the status selector look worse, then

try the second one.

2.8 How do I make gaim use emacs-like keybindings, or assign a custom hotkey?

You need to edit your ~/.gtkrc-2.0 to contain the appropriate lines from

http://gaim.sf.net/gtkrc-2.0. If you are using gtk-can-change-accels = 1,

then you hover over the menu item then press your desired key stroke.

2.9 How do I make Escape close the conversation window?

Sadly, you can't use the hover-and-press technique just described for this,

because Escape closes the menu. You have to hand-edit ~/.gaim/accels. Close

Gaim, and open ~/.gaim/accels in your favorite text editor. Find

(gtk_accel_path "<main>/Conversation/Close" "[something]"), remove the

semi-colon (which is the comment character) from the start of the line if it

is there and replace whatever is between the second pair of quote marks with

Escape. Save and close, and restart Gaim.

2.10 How do I use smiley themes?

To select a theme, open Gaim's preferences to the "Smiley Themes" page and

click on whichever theme you want to use. To install a theme, simply drag it

into the theme selector. You can find themes on the Gaim Smiley Themes (http:

//sourceforge.net/tracker/?atid=746976&group_id=235&func=browse) tracker.

You can also install themes manually by uncompressing them to their own

directory in ~/.gaim/smileys/

2.11 Why are the status icons so big?

We believe that, by adding a second line of text to each buddy list entry,

we're able to show more information about each buddy on the buddy list. The

'Big List,' as we call it, shows status text and idle time concisely and

attractively. It shows more than one status "emblem" for each buddy,

indicating at the same time a mobile user who is away. Most importantly, it

puts the buddy icon in the list, making it far easier to locate buddies

within a large list where names are harder to pick out than images. Due to

the increased usability of this interface, we have made it the default.

We are aware that some people feel more comfortable using an interface more

similar to IM clients they may have used in the past. The 'Big List' can be

disabled by un-checking "Show buddy details" in the Buddies menu.

2.12 Why do the emblems move around the status icon?

The four corners of the icon have different precedence. The lower-right is

the highest, lower-left is second-highest, etc. The most important emblem is

in the lower-right, always. When an AOL buddy is not away, the fact that [s]

he's an AOL user is the most important information shown in the icon. The

consistency is that the user can always look in the same place on the icon to

find out what he needs to know. Also, importantly, the lower-right corner

emblem is the only emblem that shows up when "Small list" is on, as only one

emblem would fit.

2.13 How do I get sound to work correctly?

Gaim uses gstreamer to play sounds. Playing sounds directly through esound or

arts is no longer supported.

To compile Gaim with support for gstreamer you need libgstreamer0.10-dev and

its dependencies. If you do not wish to install these packages you can also

just change your sound playing method in preferences to Command and use

esdplay %s or artsplay %s.

2.14 How do I make Gaim use ALSA or OSS for playing sounds? What does the

"Automatic" option do?

The "Automatic" option lets gstreamer pick how the sounds are played. You can

use the gstreamer-properties tool to control this.

2.15 Why does Gaim use the same WM_CLASS for every window? It makes it

impossible to control window size and placement for the buddy list

separately from the conversations.

Both strings in the WM_CLASS property are supposed to be the same for all

windows in the same instance of an application. ICCCM states that one is

meant to be the same for all instances of the application, the other is meant

to be unique to that instance of the application. ICCCM also states "If a

client has multiple windows with identical WM_CLASS and WM_NAME properties,

then it should provide a WM_WINDOW_ROLE property."

Gtk+ sets these WM_CLASS values for us so that they are unique for Gaim

instances, and the documentation for the gtk_window_set_wmclass function says

explicitly not to use it for anything else. Gaim uses the WM_WINDOW_ROLE hint

to differentiate windows. If your window manager is having problems

differentiating between Gaim windows, please ensure that it uses the

WM_WINDOW_ROLE hint per the ICCCM.

2.16 I blocked someone accidentally, how can I unblock them?

See the "Privacy" option under the "Tools" menu of the Buddy List.

2.17 What is a "Buddy Pounce"?

Gaim introduced buddy pounces a few releases before AOL came out with "Buddy

Alerts." Despite this though, you could think of a buddy pounce as an Alert

and get an idea of the most minimal uses of a buddy pounce. In reality, a

buddy pounce is much like a macro, or a recorded action. When you set a

pounce on someone, you choose from a number of events, such as sign on or

someone going away, and then you choose from a number of actions. These

actions include everything from playing a sound (like an Alert would do) to

sending a message to the person, to executing a command. This action will

occur the next time gaim detects the event, ie the next time the person in

your buddy list who you have pounced signs on.

2.18 Where does gaim store its logs?

On unix, they are in ~/.gaim/logs, on win32 they are in the C:\Documents and

Settings\user\Application Data\.gaim\logs directory. (NOTE: Application Data

is a hidden directory.) In either case, new logs (new as of 0.73) are in

subdirectories that correspond to protocol/yourscreenname/theirscreenname.

2.19 Can I use Gaim for e-mail, blogging, an RSS feed, or something else that

isn't IM-related?

No, you can't. We get requests for this often, but Gaim is indeed a messaging

client. Aside from the capabilities each protocol may support, the Gaim

developers have no intention to turn Gaim into a multi-feature Internet

client capable of doing everything under the sun. We also won't be helping to

develop plugins to turn it into that. There are many Internet applications

available for Linux, Windows, or whatever operating system you use that would

undoubtedly do a better job.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 3. Features

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

3.1 Does Gaim support file transfer?

Somewhat, yeah. As of 1.2.1 The following is supported:

• Sending and receiving files on AIM/ICQ (although it might be a bit buggy)

• Sending and receiving files on IRC

• Sending and receiving files on Jabber

• Sending and receiving files on MSN

• Sending and receiving files on SILC

• Sending and receiving files on Yahoo when not using an HTTP proxy

(sending is limited to an unknown file size)

Most of the protocols themselves support file transfer, but Gaim has not been

written to support it yet. If you would like file transfer to work better or

be more complete, get SVN and submit a patch using the generic file transfer

API.

3.2 Can I turn the tray icon off?

Sorry, no. The tray icon will load if you have a Notification Area.

3.3 What do those colors in the conversation tab mean?

• Red - A message is waiting for you

• Blue - Someone sent a message containing your name

• Green - The buddy is typing

• Yellow - The buddy began typing, and then stopped

• Gray - There has been a join or a part in that chat, or the buddy has

signed off

3.4 Can I import or export my buddy list?

The plugin pack hosted at http://guifications.sourceforge.net/PluginPack has

a plugin to do this.

3.5 Does Gaim support animated smileys?

Yes, but there is a bug which can cause animation to be lost if gaim has to

resize the image.

3.6 Can I make Gaim group screen names by the person that owns them? You know,

like Trillian's Meta Contacts?

Sure! Right click a buddy on your list and at the bottom of the menu click

"Expand". Then just drag other screen names to the same person below it. When

you're done, click on the arrow to collapse them. When the contact is

collapsed, Gaim will select a buddy to display based on the status of the

buddies in the contact, and their order.

You may need to turn off the preference option to automatically expand

Contacts in order to be able to edit an existing Contact.

3.7 What happened to my timestamps? Can I change them?

As of 2.0.0, timestamps follow the system locale. This is a significant

difference from previous versions of gaim, and though it was requested more

than once, we know it will prove to be a controversial decision. Fortunately

for all of you out there, we also provide plugins to change it.

As of 2.0.0, there are two plugins that relate to timestamps. One, the

"Timestamp" plugin, has existed for some time. It allows you to have iChat

style timestamps, though implemented to behave slightly differently. The

other plugin is new. The "Message Timestamp Formats" plugin allows you to

manipulate your timestamps in a couple different ways. Notably, you can

restore the 1.x timestamp format, and/or cause all timestamps to have dates

in them.

3.8 How does Gaim decide which saved statuses to show in the status selector?

Gaim shows six "popular" saved statuses in the status selector. These are

your six most recently used statuses, offset by a weight. Gaim sorts all your

saved statuses by the timestamp when they were last used. And then, for each

time you've used a status, the timestamp is increased by one day.

If you are upgrading from 1.x or lower, gaim is unable to determine which are

the most popular states, as these older releases did not save that

information. As a result, the initial contents of the menu will be somewhat

random. It will settle over the first few uses of (distinct) states into the

behavior described above.

3.9 Why are no states listed when I go to set a state for Auto Away?

Gaim can only use saved states for this feature. You need to create and save

a named state first.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 4. AIM/ICQ (OSCAR) Protocol

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

4.1 Can I set my profile?

In AIM, yes, you can. Go to Accounts->account name. Set your ICQ profile is

not supported yet.

4.2 Can I set a buddy icon?

Yes. Go to the Account Menu, and click to "Modify" the AIM/ICQ account you

wish to have an icon. Enter the full path to the image you wish to use in the

box labeled "Buddy Icon File." The file must be smaller than 4KB. It can have

any dimensions, and can be in any format. However, if you wish Windows users

to see it, it must be in a format Windows understands, such as .bmp, .gif,

and .jpg.

4.3 I just changed my buddy icon, and I can't see the new one.

First, try IMing yourself a few times. Buddy icons are checked when you IM

people, so depending on the protocol, that may work. If it still doesn't

update, check the file size (buddy icons must be smaller than 4kb) and the

image size (it should be 48x48 or 50x50 in most cases). Also, check the file

type. GIF or JPEG images are best supported; most other formats do not work

at all. If all of that checks out and it still doesn't work, and you're sure

the protocol supports it, try restarting Gaim.

4.4 Some of my buddies are not showing up as online, why is that?

AOL has set a limit for the maximum number of people you can have in your

buddy list. This number is currently 500 for AIM, if you don't think you are

anywhere near that limit, it is possible that your server-stored buddy list

is corrupt.

If you think this might be the case, you can try signing on with an official

AIM program from AOL. This will usually correct any problems with the list.

4.5 Can I use AIM URI's such as "aim:goim?screenname=robflynn"?

Yes, you need to register gaim-url-handler in your browser. This requires

that Gaim be built with dbus support.

4.6 Does Gaim support DirectIM and IM Image?

Yeah, kind of. This tends to be one of the buggier areas of Gaim. If it's not

working for you, make sure that at least one person is not behind a firewall.

4.7 Can I send SMS messages?

Yep, just send an IM to the person's phone number. For example, if the phone

number is (919) 555-1234, you would message +19195551234 We think this should

work for countries with a country code of 1 (the United States and Canada).

Sending SMS messages using "the ICQ method" is not yet supported.

4.8 Can I add SMS numbers to my buddy list?

Yes. You should be able to add phone numbers to your buddy list using the

same format as above.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 5. IRC Protocol

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

5.1 How do I join a channel with the IRC plugin?

Create an IRC account and then sign on. After you have signed on, you can use

Buddies->Join A Chat on the buddy list to join a channel. In any window,

either a conversation or a chat, in which your IRC user is the sender, you

can also use /join to connect to a new channel.

5.2 Is there a way to make Gaim automatically identify me and/or join IRC

chats on login?

Yes. Add NickServ to your buddy list and place buddy pounces on him/her/it.

Do not include "/msg nickserv" as part of the message to send.

In version 0.64 or higher, you can add a chat to your buddy list, right click

it, and tell Gaim to auto-join it.

5.3 Is it possible to change the user name that appears in username@hostname?

Yes. Go to the Accounts menu. Select your IRC account and click to edit.

Click the Advanced tab. Enter a name in the Username field.

5.4 How can I set/change my real name?

Go to the Accounts menu. Select your IRC account and click to edit. Click the

Advanced tab. Enter a name in the Real name field.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 6. Jabber Protocol

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

6.1 How do I choose which Jabber server to use?

The Jabber server name is part of your Jabber I.D., such as

somebody@server.name. So when entering your Jabber "screen name", the server

is specified as part of your JID.

6.2 How do I change my Jabber resource to be other than the default of "/Home"

(or the old default of "/Gaim")?

In the buddy list window, click the Accounts menu. Next, find your Jabber

account and click Edit Account. Change the value in the Resource field. Click

Save. Note: This setting cannot be changed while the account is connected.

6.3 Can I remove a buddy from my Jabber roster entirely?

With Gaim 0.60 or later, the deletion code will do this. Gaim currently does

not retain invisibility settings between logins, just as it doesn't currently

retain "away" status.

6.4 What does "Cancel Presence Notification" do?

This selection, available in Gaim version 0.60 and later, and found by

right-clicking on a buddy entry in the buddy list, prevents that Jabber I.D.

from receiving future presence notifications when you log on to the server.

After you do this, that buddy will have to re-request a subscription to your

presence (and you will have to approve it) for them to again see you on-line.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 7. Y!M (Yahoo) Protocol

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

7.1 I cannot connect to Yahoo! and I'm behind a firewall or NAT. Why doesn't

Gaim have Yahoo's "Firewall with no proxy" option?

Yahoo!'s firewall with no proxy option connects to Yahoo! by wrapping the

YMSG protocol inside HTTP. Gaim currently doesn't support doing this.

Gaim does support changing the port it connects to. Try changing the

Pager Port in the Account editor under "Show more options". Ports known to

work are: 20, 23, 25, 80, 119, 5050, 8001, and 8002. While this doesn't work

for as many people as actually tunneling through the HTTP protocol would, it

helps many users.

7.2 I blocked someone, but it doesn't seem to have worked.

As of 0.81, this is a known bug in our Yahoo code. We're not sure what

exactly is wrong, but it seems to fail most often when automatically removing

the buddy from your buddy list at the same time it blocks them. It also

always seems to fail if Gaim already thinks the buddy is blocked, and you try

to block them again.

We suggest manually removing Yahoo! buddies before attempting to block them.

For buddies which Gaim reports are blocked but which are not, unblocking them

and reblocking them from the Tools->Privacy dialog will often get things

working.

7.3 Can I get a list of Yahoo! Chat rooms? What about localized lists?

Tools->Room List will let you list available Yahoo! Chat rooms. Yahoo! has

currently disabled user-created rooms. The option to create rooms still

exists in Gaim but is non-functional unless Yahoo! re-enables user-created

rooms.

Please note that defaults to US localized chat rooms. To get a localized room

list, you'll need to change the Chat Room Locale setting in the account

editor, under "Show more options". In previous releases, this was known as

"Chat Room List URL". The URL is no longer used; it has been replaced by a

country code. These codes are the same as the country codes previously used

in the URLs. Certain country codes no longer seem to work (most notably de).

The list of known country codes is:

• aa => Asia

• ar => Argentina

• au => Australia

• br => Brazil

• ca => Canada

• cf => Central African Republic

• cn => China

• dk => Denmark

• es => Spain

• fr => France

• hk => Hong Kong

• in => India

• it => Italy

• kr => Korea, Republic of

• mx => Mexico

• no => Norway

• se => Sweden

• sg => Singapore

• tw => Taiwan

• uk => United Kingdom

• us => United States of America

If you discover any of these no longer work, or find other country codes that

do work, please don't hesitate to contact the development team. (See the

Contact Information (http://gaim.sf.net/contactinfo.php) page.)

7.4 What protocol does Gaim use to connect to Yahoo!?

Normally Gaim uses the YMSG protocol, which is the same protocol that the

official Yahoo! clients use. If an attempt to login returns the "Invalid

Password" error code, Gaim automatically tries to log in using the "Web

Messenger" method. This method still uses the YMSG protocol, but

authenticates differently, and connects to a different server.

While in Web Messenger mode, several things work differently or not at all.

Adding, moving, and removing buddies doesn't work, and the only available

statuses are "Available" and "Invisible". In addition, the Yahoo! server

seems to ignore all Yahoo! Chat related packets. For this reason, we use the

YCHT protocol to join Yahoo! Chat rooms while connected using the Web

Messenger method.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 8. MSN Protocol

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

8.1 Will Gaim support MSN video chat?

See #vv.

8.2 Why are my file transfers so slow?

Gaim only supports tranferring files over MSN via the MSN servers. This means

all your data is sent to an MSN server and then forwarded to the person at

the other end of the transfer. It is unknown whether we will support true

peer to peer file transfer over MSN.

8.3 Is there a way to invite more than one person to an MSN chat?

Yes. Right click a buddy on your list and choose "Initiate Chat". In the

conversation window that appears, choose "Invite" from the "Conversation"

menu to invite another user. When the conversation framework gets another

rewrite, it is possible that this will be simplified.

8.4 Is MSNP11 (MSN7) going to be supported?

It is being worked on.

8.5 Why can't I sign on to MSN?

You probably did not compile Gaim with SSL support, or the SSL plugin failed

to load. The MSN protocol requires the use of SSL, which Gaim provides by

either GnuTLS or the combination of NSS and NSPR from the Mozilla project.

Install one or both of these and recompile Gaim, and see the next question.

8.6 The MSN plugin won't load, but I have Mozilla NSS!

Some distributions, including Slackware, install Mozilla NSS to a

non-standard directory. The fix is simple. Edit /etc/ld.so.conf and add /usr/

lib/mozilla-1.4 (or whatever version you're using, but it's usually 1.4) to

the file, and run ldconfig as root. Then re-run configure and recompile Gaim.

You may also need to specify where the include file are for NSS and NSPR, see

./configure --help for the options.

Mozilla 1.5 has a broken .pc file and does not install the necessary .h

files, and so will not be detected.

See http://gaim.sf.net/faq-ssl.php on getting SSL to work with Gaim.

8.7 What does "MSN: S: 911 3" in the debug window mean when I cannot connect

to MSN?

See http://gaim.sf.net/911.txt.

8.8 How do I set an MSN avatar?

Gaim calls these Buddy Icons. Go to Tools->Accounts and click to Modify your

MSN account. You can drag and drop a file to the resulting dialog, or use the

Open button.

8.9 What does "Has you" in the buddy tooltip mean?

It shows you if that MSN user has added you to his/her buddy list. "Has you:

No" does not mean you can't talk to that person.

8.10 How do I set my MSN Friendly Name (the name other users see)?

In the Buddy List window, go to Accounts->account->Set Friendly Name.

8.11 What does "Error reading from switchboard server" mean?

We haven't fully figured that out yet, but even Microsoft's client seems to

get similar errors, although with less frequency than we do. See Bug 1060205

for further information.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 9. Gadu-Gadu Protocol

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

9.1 What is Gadu-Gadu?

Gadu-Gadu is an IM protocol popular in Poland. You can find more about it at

www.gadu-gadu.pl (website in Polish).

9.2 I compiled Gaim from source and now it doesn't have Gadu-Gadu support. Why?

We now use an external libgadu. Install your distro's libgadu-dev or

libgadu-devel package and rebuild Gaim (making sure to rerun ./configure). If

your distro doesn't provide libgadu, you can download it from http://

toxygen.net/libgadu/files/libgadu-1.7.0.tar.gz. Unpack the tarball and run:

./autogen.sh --prefix=/usr --disable-libgadu-openssl --disable-static --enable-shared

make

su -c "make install"

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 10. Zephyr Protocol

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

10.1 What is Zephyr?

Zephyr is an IM protocol developed at MIT for use with Project Athena. Its

features include Kerberos IV authentication, multi-level chats (aka

"subscriptions"). You're probably using this because your college/employer/

organization uses it as a local IM/chat system. If not, you probably don't

have a server to connect to.

10.2 Other Zephyr clients (zwgc, owl, tzc) work, but Gaim dies with "Couldn't

initialize zephyr".

Your site might require the use of Kerberos 4 for authentication, though few

prepackaged Gaim binaries use Kerberos. One solution is to compile Gaim with

the --with-krb4 flag to point to the location of your Kerberos 4 devel files,

usually one of /usr, /usr/local, or /usr/athena, e.g. ./configure --with-krb4

=/path/to/kerberosIV

10.3 Gaim isn't working, but I never got any other Zephyr client working on

this machine.

You need to have zhm (which comes with the standard Zephyr distribution)

installed, and running, and pointed at your Zephyr servers. e.g.

zhm z1.example.com z2.example.com z3.example.com

Alternatively, there might be a firewall or a NAT between you and the Zephyr

servers. Zephyr generally doesn't work in an environment where incoming

connections cannot be made to arbitrary UDP ports.

10.4 How do I use Zephyr from behind my firewall, or without recompiling with

kerberos support if needed?

You can use tzc, "Trivial Zephyr Client" and ssh to run Zephyr from a machine

that is behind a firewall or NAT. First, make sure that tzc is installed and

working on the remote machine. The best version of tzc to use can be found

http://www.club.cc.cmu.edu/debian/dists/testing/contrib/source/

tzc-cclub_001-3.tar.gz. Second, make sure that you can make a passwordless

ssh connection to the remote machine and get kerberos 4 tickets. Then, click

on "Show more options", enable "Use tzc", and set the tzc command to

/path/to/ssh username@hostname /path/to/tzc -e "%s"

Alternately, if you have tzc working on your machine, you can enable "Use

tzc", and set the tzc command to

/path/to/tzc -e "%s"

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 11. SILC Protocol

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

11.1 What is SILC?

SILC is an open protocol designed from the ground up with security in mind.

It is, or should be, the protocol of choice for the paranoid. See http://

www.silcnet.org for more details.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 12. Novell Protocol

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

12.1 Are there any public servers for Novell?

Not really. This protocol is designed to connect to a Novell GroupWise server

running on a corporate LAN.

12.2 I can't seem to get it to work.

Novell tells us that this protocol plugin will only work with either the

GroupWise Messenger for Linux server or the GroupWise Messenger SP2 (or

higher) server for NetWare and Windows. In addition, the server must be

secure (SSL enabled). If you have any trouble, see the FAQ question about

submitting bugs, and they will be forwarded to Novell, who have been kind

enough to continue active maintenance to the protocol plugin code they

provided us.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 13. Scripts and Plugins

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

13.1 How do I use perl scripts with Gaim?

Save the perl script to ~/.gaim/plugins/ or $prefix/lib/gaim/, restart Gaim,

and load the perl script by checking the check box next to its name in the

Plugins dialog.

13.2 How do I compile a plugin for Gaim?

To compile a plugin for Gaim, you must have Gaim's source code. To download

Gaim's source code, get the most recent tarball from http://

gaim.sourceforge.net/downloads.php (http://gaim.sf.net/downloads.php) and

untar it with the command: tar zxvf filename where filename is the file you

downloaded.

After you have a Gaim source code tree:

1. Change to the resulting directory and run the command: ./configure This

will create the necessary make files.

2. Move the plugin you wish to compile into the plugins/ directory in the

Gaim source code tree.

3. Change to the plugins/ directory.

4. On Unix/Linux Type:

make name.so

where the name of the file you wish to compile is name.c.

On Win32 Type:

make -f Makefile.mingw name.dll

where the name of the file you wish to compile is name.c.

Note well the difference in the extensions. If you type make name.c

instead of name.so, it won't work.

5. After make finishes, you can move the plugin to a place that is more

convenient. $prefix/lib/gaim is suggested. If you installed Gaim by

compiling it yourself, $prefix is /usr/local by default. Otherwise,

$prefix is /usr.

13.3 I have a plugin or perl script for Gaim that used to work, but does not

with the current version.

The plugin and perl script API has changed several times, which means plugins

and perl scripts must be modified in order to work. The plugin or perl script

must be located in $prefix/lib/gaim/ or in ~/.gaim/plugins/, and must

implement the new API, as documented by the make docs command from the root

of the Gaim source code tree. This will generate html documentation in the

doc/html directory. Also note that plugins and perl scripts are now

controlled from a separate Plugins dialog.

13.4 Where can I find documentation on writing plugins and Perl scripts?

If you look in the plugins/ directory in the Gaim source, you should see a

HOWTO file with some details for C plugins. Also be sure to check out our

online documentation (http://gaim.sf.net/api/index.html). Be especially sure

to look at the Related Pages, which lists all of Gaim's signals, as well as a

nice perl script HOWTO.

This documentation can be generated directly from the Gaim source by running

make docs. You will need doxygen and graphviz dot installed for this to work.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 14. Development

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

14.1 Can I help?

But of course. Just find something that's bugging you and fix it. There are a

slew of a bug reports in Gaim's bug report tracker - you could pick one and

try to tackle it and submit a patch. You could also help with general bug

triage by going through the bug reports and leaving comments such as "this

has been fixed" or "this is a duplicate of bug #12345." As always, make sure

you follow the same coding style used in Gaim, and make sure you don't break

the core/UI split.

14.2 Gaim never leaves a core file.

On most installs core files are limited in size to 0 bytes, and are therefore

not created. To rectify this situation, add ulimit -c unlimited to your

startup scripts (~/.bash_profile is a good place) or run it manually in a

terminal before starting Gaim from that terminal. You can also run Gaim

directly in gdb with gdb gaim.

14.3 Will you support features such as voice chat, internet phones, or video

chat?

Merging the gaim-vv code will take time, and we are not sure when it will be

ready. Even then, there will remain work to be done before voice chat, video

sharing, or internet phones will work on all protocols. Right now there is

nothing in subversion related to -vv, we are not sure when that will change.

14.4 Where should I report bugs?

http://gaim.sf.net/bug.php.

14.5 Where should I submit patches?

http://gaim.sf.net/patches.php.

14.6 Did you guys reverse engineer it?

Jabber, MSN and IRC are published protocols, so we didn't have to reverse

engineer those. Oscar, ICQ, and Yahoo are not published, and were reverse

engineered by other people. Novell was provided by Novell, and SILC was

written by one of the developers of the protocol.

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

| 15. Miscellaneous Questions

+------------------------------------------------------------------------------

15.1 Can I IM you guys?

Sure! Look at the Contact Information (http://gaim.sf.net/contactinfo.php)

page!

15.2 Hello?

We don't know how to answer this question. Stop asking it.

15.3 Does Gaim support secure instant messaging (encrypted IMs)?

Short answer: Yes, use the SILC protocol.

Long Answer (for other protocols): Not natively. Doing secure instant

messaging right is a big deal and requires, among other things, an

authentication scheme. Simply encrypting your data stream without verifying

the party with whom you are chatting is not secure in any way; some other

clients offer options like this, but we feel that such measures instill a

false sense of security that is more harmful than helpful.

There are a number of 3rd party plugin developers working on developing a

secure IM framework. See the Plugins (http://gaim.sf.net/plugins.php) page

for links.

15.4 Why are the passwords in accounts.xml not encrypted?

This is a case of a really long answer to a short question. Read our

explanation at http://gaim.sf.net/plaintextpasswords.php.

15.5 When will the next version of Gaim be released?

The schedule for releases is every third Thursday. However, a new version

will only be released if it meets a certain standard of quality (i.e., it

will not be released if it still has a large number of serious bugs).

Therefore, some releases will take longer than others. Major rewrites means

lots of new bugs to work out. The new version will be released as soon as it

is possible to do so.

15.6 What will the next version be?

Starting with version 1.0.0, Gaim version numbers have 3 parts to them. The

format is major.minor.micro. If we change something internally in Gaim such

that some plugins won't work with the newer version, we will increment the

major version number. If we don't increment the major version number, and

we've added things to the Gaim API that won't break any older stuff, we will

increment the minor version number. In any other cases, we will increment the

micro version number. Even and odd numbers have nothing to do with stability,

and you should always be running the latest release of Gaim to get new

features and bug fixes.

15.7 So, can I look forward to mega-sexy super functionality with Gaim?

Yes, that is the intended idea. In fact, there have been quite a number of

unpopular geeks who have made the switch to gaim. In a matter of days, the

number of dates and awesomeness points received by the geek increased ten

fold! You, too, can have an exciting life with Gaim. Get Gaim. Get the babes.

Get uhh... hmm.

15.8 How do I change the language for the Highlight Misspelled words option?

Gaim currently only supports spell checking in your locale language. This is

because gtkspell 2 does not offer a good way for us to know which

dictionaries are available or to switch between them. This functionality has

long been promised for gtkspell version 3, which has been delayed somewhat

indefinitely. See gtkspell.sf.net.

15.9 Can I make Gaim transparent/translucent?

You can make Gaim translucent in most versions of Windows using the

"Transparency" plugin. It is not possible to make Gaim translucent in Linux

and other platforms that use X11.

X.org provides a COMPOSITE extension that allows applications to have true

translucency, but it is X.org-specific and it requires support at the GTK+

level (if it is to be per-widget). We do not wish to support this form of

translucency until it is supported by GTK+. We also do not wish to implement

the psuedo-translucency offered by other programs (by copying a section of

your background image, tinting it, and plastering it onto a Gaim window).

15.10 Can I "skin" Gaim?

The UI can be customized using GTK themes. Read http://gaim.sourceforge.net/

skins.php for more information.

pidgin/pidgin