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pixmaps/pidgin/protocols | ||
.gitattributes | ||
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LICENSE | ||
Makefile | ||
README.md | ||
delta-connection.c | ||
delta-connection.h | ||
libdelta.c | ||
libdelta.h |
README.md
Delta Chat plugin for libpurple
Overview
Delta Chat is an instant messaging application based on email - which is to say, SMTP+IMAP.
Delta has:
- A mature core library
- A mature Android application
- An experimental iOS application
- An electron desktop application
This project is a libpurple
plugin that wraps deltachat-core
, allowing a number of existing desktop and
mobile clients to send and receive IMs over SMTP+IMAP. It may be useful for
Linux-based mobile devices, for
GUI desktop usage without an Electron dependency, or console desktop usage.
Current status is probably best described as "skunkworks", although connecting to an account and sending / receiving text and image messages should work reliably in pidgin. Chatty supports text messages, and can be coaxed into using this plugin, but there's a long way to go with that yet.
A big refactoring to use "proper" purple IM structures is necessary to make further progress, I think.
I also need to implement support for the buddy list.
We currrently build against deltachat v1.50.0. You'll need to build and install
deltachat-ffi separately and ensure that it's available via pkg-config
for
deltachat to install.
Build
There are some licensing issues at present, so you shouldn't build this plugin.
deltachat-core-rust
uses a vendored openssl 1, unconditionally links it, and
is MPL-licensed.
purple-plugin-delta
is GPLv3 without the OpenSSL exemption
libpurple
itself is GPLv2 without the OpenSSL exemption.
There's no point to purple-plugin-delta
adding the OpenSSL exemption because
libpurple
lacks it, and in any event, it will be unnecessary with the next
major version of OpenSSL. So, time should resolve this for us one way or another.
Use
The easiest way to use this is to copy the libdelta.so
file into
~/.purple/plugins
. When running pidgin, you'll now have the option to add
a "Delta Chat" account.
If it doesn't show up, chances are pidgin can't find the various shared
libraries the .so depends on. You can run ldd ~/.purple/plugins/libdelta.so
to confirm. I'll document fixing this after the build and install system is
settled.
At present, the "Username" and "Password" account fields correspond to email address and password, respectively. Many important settings also show up on the "Advanced" tab - if left blank, the plugin will attempt to automatically detect the correct values, but you may need to fill some of them in manually to get the connection to work.
Run pidgin with --debug
to see interesting output.