README.md

   1 #libPurple core-answerscripts plugin
   2   * **Most hackable pidgin plugin!**
   3   * Framework for hooking scripts to **respond received messages** (and maybe bit more in future) for various **libpurple** clients such as **pidgin or finch**
   4   * 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.**
   5   * 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...
   6
   7 ##What can this do for me?
   8
   9 There are lot of hacks that you can do with this simple framework if you know some basic scripting. eg.:
  10
  11 - **Map any response to any incomming message** (You can even use some substitutions and regexes)
  12 - **Forward your instant messages** to email, SMS gateway, text-to-speech (eg. espeak) or something...
  13 - **Remote control** your music player (or anything else on your computer) using instant messages
  14 - **Simple IRC/Jabber/ICQ bot** (currently accepts PM only, you can run finch in screen on server)
  15 - Providing some **service** (Searching web, Weather info, System status, RPG game...)
  16 - BackDoor (**even unintentional one - you've been warned**)
  17 - Loging and analyzing messages
  18 - Connect IM with **Arduino**
  19 - Annoy everyone with spam (and probably **get banned everywhere**)
  20 - **Anything else that you can imagine...** (i'm looking forward to hearing your stories)
  21
  22 ##Writing own (answer)scripts
  23
  24   * Check example scripts in **./purple/answerscripts.d/** to see how easy it is
  25   * Basically
  26     * Each time you receive message, the main **answerscripts.sh script (answerscripts.exe on M$ Windows) is executed** on background
  27     * Every line that is outputed by this script to it's **STDOUT is sent** as response to message that executed it
  28     * Following **environment values are passed** to the script (ANSW\_L = local user, ANSW\_R = remote user = your buddy who sent the message):
  29       * ANSW\_ACTION    (what happend: im, chat, show setting dialog, event, etc...)
  30       * ANSW\_MSG       (text of the message)
  31       * ANSW\_PROTOCOL  (protocol used to deliver the message. eg.: xmpp, irc,...)
  32       * ANSW\_R\_NAME   (ID of remote user - "buddy")
  33       * ANSW\_R\_GROUP  (group which contains that buddy OR empty string)
  34       * ANSW\_R\_ALIAS  (buddy's alias, server alias, contact alias, username OR empty string)
  35       * ANSW\_L\_NAME   (ID of local user)
  36       * ANSW\_L\_ALIAS  (Alias of local user OR empty string)
  37       * ANSW\_L\_STATUS (unique ID of local user's status. eg.: available, away,...)
  38       * ANSW\_L\_STATUS\_MSG    (status message set by local user)
  39       * ANSW\_L\_AGENT  (ID of IM client used with answerscripts)
  40       * ANSW\_L\_AGENT\_VERSION (Version of client)
  41     * **WARNING: You should mind security (don't let attackers to execute their messages/nicks!)**
  42     * 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**
  43       * It's quite smart and all you need to do is set the filenames and permissions of answerscripts in that directory properly...
  44       * See it's (**./purple/answerscripts.sh**) comments for rest of documentation...
  45
  46 ###Example
  47 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?
  48
  49     #!/bin/sh
  50     [ "$ANSW_L_STATUS" != 'available' ] && echo "<$ANSW_R_NAME> $ANSW_MSG" && echo "My status: $ANSW_L_STATUS_MSG";
  51
  52 ##Building & installation
  53
  54 ###From packages
  55 - ArchLinux: http://aur.archlinux.org/packages.php?ID=37942
  56 ###Manually
  57 - The libpurple header files are needed to compile the plugin.
  58 - To build and install :
  59   You can compile the plugin using
  60
  61         $ make
  62
  63   and install it with
  64
  65         $ make install
  66
  67   This will install it in ~/.purple/plugins so that only the user who install it can use it.
  68
  69         $ make user
  70
  71   Install main script and sample answerscripts to ~/.purple/answerscripts.d/
  72
  73 - To install it for everybody on your computer,
  74
  75         $ make
  76         $ su
  77         # make install PREFIX="/path/to/libpurple" (this command as root user)
  78
  79   generally /path/to/libpurple is /usr or /usr/local. If you don't know the path then you can find out using
  80
  81         $ whereis libpurple
  82
  83   and look for the part before "/lib/libpurple.so".