README.md

   1 #libPurple core-answerscripts plugin
   2   * Framework for hooking scripts to **respond received messages** (and maybe bit more in future) for various **libpurple** clients such as **pidgin or finch**
   3   * This simple plugin just passes every single message received by any libPurple-based client (pidgin,finch) to sript(s) in user's home directory... So **you can add various hooks.**
   4   * There are already few sample (answer)scripts in ./purple directory, so you can check how easy it is to write some script for pidgin or finch...
   5
   6 ##What can this do for me?
   7
   8 There are lot of hacks that you can do with this simple framework if you know some basic scripting. eg.:
   9
  10 - **Forward your instant messages** to email, SMS gateway, text-to-speach (eg. espeak) or something...
  11   - Smart auto-replying messages based on regular expressions
  12   - Remote control your music player (or anything else on your computer) using instant messages
  13 - Simple IRC/Jabber/ICQ bot (currently accepts PM only, you can run finch in screen on server)
  14 - Providing some service (Searching web, Weather info, System status, RPG game...)
  15 - BackDoor (**even unintentional one - you've been warned**)
  16 - Loging and analyzing messages
  17 - Connect IM with Arduino
  18 - Annoy everyone with spam (and probably **get banned everywhere**)
  19 - **Anything else that you can imagine...** (i'm looking forward to hearing your stories)
  20
  21 ##Writing own (answer)scripts
  22
  23   * Check example scripts in **./purple/answerscripts.d/** to see how easy it is
  24   * Basically
  25     * Each time you receive message, the main **answerscripts.sh script (answerscripts.exe on M$ Windows) is executed** on background
  26     * Every line that is outputed by this script to it's **STDOUT is sent** as response to message that executed it
  27     * Following **environment values are passed** to the script:
  28       * ANSW\_MSG       (text of the message)
  29       * ANSW\_FROM      (who sent you message)
  30       * ANSW\_PROTOCOL  (protocol used to deliver the message. eg.: jabber, irc,...)
  31       * ANSW\_STATUS    (unique ID of status. eg.: available, away,...)
  32       * ANSW\_STATUS\_MSG       (status message set by user)
  33     * **WARNING: You should mind security (don't let attackers to execute their messages/nicks!)**
  34     * I guess that you will want to use more than one answerscript, so i made such answerscript which will execute all answerscripts in **~/.purple/answerscripts.d**
  35       * It's quite smart and all you need to do is set the filenames and permissions of answerscripts in that directory properly...
  36       * See it's (**./purple/answerscripts.sh**) comments for rest of documentation...
  37
  38 ###Example
  39 Following answerscript will reply to each incoming message if you are not available. Reply will consist of two messages: one with username of your buddy who sent you a message and text of that message; and second with your status message. Simple huh?
  40
  41     #!/bin/sh
  42     [ "$ANSW_STATUS" != 'available' ] && echo "<$ANSW_FROM> $ANSW_MSG" && echo "My status: $ANSW_STATUS_MSG";
  43
  44 ##Building & installation
  45
  46 ###From packages
  47 - ArchLinux: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=37942
  48 ###Manually
  49 - The libpurple header files are needed to compile the plugin.
  50 - To build and install :
  51   You can compile the plugin using
  52
  53         $ make
  54
  55   and install it with
  56
  57         $ make install
  58
  59   This will install it in ~/.purple/plugins so that only the user who install it can use it.
  60
  61         $ make user
  62
  63   Install main script and sample answerscripts to ~/.purple/answerscripts.d/
  64
  65 - To install it for everybody on your computer,
  66
  67         $ make
  68         $ su
  69         # make install PREFIX="/path/to/libpurple" (this command as root user)
  70
  71   generally /path/to/libpurple is /usr or /usr/local. If you don't know the path then you can find out using
  72
  73         $ whereis libpurple
  74
  75   and look for the part before "/lib/libpurple.so".