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 messages should work reliably. You can view specific progress on the issue board.

Build

Very basic instructions at present. First, deltachat-core isn't packaged, so you'll need to build and install it according to these instructions.

Now, you'll need some other build dependencies:

sudo apt install build-essential libpurple-dev libglib2.0-dev

Finally, run make to create a libdelta.so file.

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.