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Version 15 (modified by chemistrydioxide2, 15 years ago) (diff)

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FAQ Contents

  1. Installing Pidgin
  2. Using Pidgin
  3. Using Libpurple
  4. Using Finch
  5. Protocol Specific Questions
  6. Scripting and Plugins
  7. PidginCommunity
  8. UsingThisSite

Help home > FAQ home

Using Libpurple

  1. Why do libpurple clients store settings and logs in ~/.purple?
  2. Why are passwords not encrypted?
  3. Is file transfer supported?
  4. How do I compile libpurple with SSL support?

Why do libpurple clients store settings and logs in ~/.purple?

When creating libpurple under a separate name from Pidgin, the first client to use it, we were faced with a choice. We could have Pidgin store in ~/.pidgin, Finch in ~/.finch, and any other future clients in ~/.clientname. This would create significant duplication for those who sometimes use different clients, or who migrate from one client to another but do not remove the old directory. It would also make things like logs more complex, as there would be no built-in single place to store logs. Someone using both Pidgin and Finch, or migrating from Pidgin to Finch (or back), no doubt expects all of their logs to be read by both. The other alternative was to have all libpurple based clients use ~/.purple by default. Though the client author can naturally chose some other directory, having this as a default seems to make the most sense. Much of the content of ~/.purple would be usable by any libpurple based client, and those things that are not useful to all clients can be detected and ignored using the existing API. While we have not yet handled the case of running multiple libpurple based clients at the same time (as the same user, and not using a -c flag or equivalent), we plan to in the future.

Why are passwords not encrypted?

See PlainTextPasswords.

Is file transfer supported?

Somewhat. Sending and receiving files is currently supported on:

  • AIM (hard limit of 4 GB)
  • ICQ (hard limit of 4 GB)
  • IRC
  • MSN (send through server only)
  • SILC
  • Yahoo when not using an HTTP proxy (requires libpurple 2.4.0 or newer and is relayed via a file transfer server).
  • XMPP (Jabber) when neither side is behind a NAT device.

Most protocols support file transfer, but libpurple doesn't support it yet. If you would like the file transfer support to work better or be more complete, grab the source and submit a patch!

There is currently no working plugin to encrypt file transfers, so even if you are using a encryption plugin, your file transfers are not encrypted.

How do I compile libpurple with SSL support?

See FAQssl

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