Standards-based instant messaging

[SteveRiley]

Over the weekend, Feathers and I each set up Prosody on our respective Internet-facing servers. Prosody is a reasonably simple XMPP/Jabber server that, like XMPP should, can federate with other XMPP servers. And we're seeing that now: I've logged into my server with my XMPP address, Feathers is logged into his server with his address, and we're able to add each other to our contact lists and have a chat.

Initially I was thinking it might be kind of cool to set up one on the KFN server, for those who'd like an XMPP address but don't want to manage a server on their own. Then I discovered that the fine folks at KDE have already established a public XMPP server: https://kdetalk.net/. You can register for an account there and then communicate with anyone on XMPP regardless of where their account is registered.

Perhaps those of us on KFN who'd be interesting in IM-ing each other could register accounts there and share? Unfortunately, vBulletin seems to be blissfully unaware of XMPP/Jabber in user profiles:



Perhaps there's a plugin that adds more fields here. In the meantime, my XMPP ID is "steve AT rileyz DOT net". Make the appropriate substitutions for "AT" and "DOT".

[Snowhog]

I'll look at the user profile fields this evening.

[vinnywright]

vinnywright@kdetalk.net & charles.v.wright@gmail.com ............using Telepathy

VINNY

[Feathers McGraw]

We've been having fun with file transfers (Steve can send me files, but I can't send them back...)

It's a mystery... not that we'll be giving up, of course!

Impressed with Prosody so far, it's very easy to configure the basics and has a much more native feel than ejabberd.

[claydoh]

Text chat? How quaint


For me, what little real time messaging I use (outside of sms/phone calls) is video based. Which simply stinks no matter what platform or program is used.And since I talk with people who are not going to mess with things too much in order to get things to work, the obvious linuxy things available simply won't do. We are trying out Viber at the moment, and it is far more stable than Skype on the desktop. Just found out about Firefox Hello, though. Seems even easier to use, but absolutely lacking any sort of frills or options or even settings.

[claydoh]

I'll look at the user profile fields this evening.

Should not be too hard, just have to go into the language settings and find the phrase manager, set 'icq_number' to be "XMPP Address" or something, however that would still point to an ICQ url if the link in the user's profile is clicked. There probably is a mod or edit to do this, I'll bet.

[SecretCode]

Text chat? How quaint


For me, what little real time messaging I use (outside of sms/phone calls) is video based. Which simply stinks no matter what platform or program is used.And since I talk with people who are not going to mess with things too much in order to get things to work, the obvious linuxy things available simply won't do. We are trying out Viber at the moment, and it is far more stable than Skype on the desktop. Just found out about Firefox Hello, though. Seems even easier to use, but absolutely lacking any sort of frills or options or even settings.

I find Skype on Linux and on Android very stable. As for Firefox Hello, which I have so far ignored because of the annoying smiley icon that appeared without any introduction (a subtle technical complaint, I realise), is it true that it doesn't have any text messaging at all? This is an issue because even in my video chats I often want to send text - mostly urls, sometimes other things.

kdetalk ... hmm ... *thinks*

[SteveRiley]

Hm. My Prosody log shows what appear to be some connection attempts from KDE's XMPP server:

Mar 12 16:34:03 rileyz.net:saslauth     info    Accepting SASL EXTERNAL identity from kdetalk.net
Mar 12 16:34:03 s2sinb826a0     info    incoming s2s connection kdetalk.net->rileyz.net complete
Mar 12 16:34:03 s2sinb826a0     info    incoming s2s stream kdetalk.net->rileyz.net closed: New stream 'from' attribute does not match original

But no new contacts in Telepathy. Have some of you tried adding me? If so, what are you seeing in your messaging client?

[claydoh]

I find Skype on Linux and on Android very stable. As for Firefox Hello, which I have so far ignored because of the annoying smiley icon that appeared without any introduction (a subtle technical complaint, I realise), is it true that it doesn't have any text messaging at all? This is an issue because even in my video chats I often want to send text - mostly urls, sometimes other things.

kdetalk ... hmm ... *thinks*

Ya, Hello is pretty bare right now.
My gal in Oz uses pay-as-you-go mobile broadband due to cost/location reasons, and Skype would disconnect us regularly, likely as the cell tower was more heavily used. it gets so bad that mere minutes between dropouts would be normal. Add in some super lag and extremely poor video quality, and you have a useless mess

Viber, which oddly might be using some RTC stuff for video, has had zero problems, though my lady is looking at getting real internet, if she can afford it. Being able to send messages and files is handy to have, for sure. Hello didn't look to have that just yet. However, having an open standard for video chat, and working, useful options might give us some better tools down the road.

[SecretCode]

True - lots of dropouts with Skype in under-served areas of South Africa. Didn't know Viber could give different performance, might try that

[Feathers McGraw]

Text chat? How quaint

For me, what little real time messaging I use (outside of sms/phone calls) is video based.

That's funny, I'm the exact opposite. I like text based messages becasue you can send them when you're kind of busy and the other person can reply to them when they're kind of busy too. It's nice to have a video chat or audio with someone but it's not always possible to find an empty room, and when the chat is done you don't have a record of it you can look through for reference.

[Snowhog]

Should not be too hard, just have to go into the language settings and find the phrase manager, set 'icq_number' to be "XMPP Address" or something, however that would still point to an ICQ url if the link in the user's profile is clicked. There probably is a mod or edit to do this, I'll bet.

This isn't as easy as it would seem. I'll look for any such MODs, or if not found, ask how to do it.

[vinnywright]

Hm. My Prosody log shows what appear to be some connection attempts from KDE's XMPP server:

Mar 12 16:34:03 rileyz.net:saslauth     info    Accepting SASL EXTERNAL identity from kdetalk.net
Mar 12 16:34:03 s2sinb826a0     info    incoming s2s connection kdetalk.net->rileyz.net complete
Mar 12 16:34:03 s2sinb826a0     info    incoming s2s stream kdetalk.net->rileyz.net closed: New stream 'from' attribute does not match original

But no new contacts in Telepathy. Have some of you tried adding me? If so, what are you seeing in your messaging client?

ya that was prob me

I tryed to add you as a contact but I think it is waiting for an except from you .

Telepathy is showing me (in contacts list) what I gave it ,,,,,,you,,,,,,except their are 2 extra options when right clicking your entry



the Authorization one's

VINNY

[SteveRiley]

Found this: https://groups.google.com/forum/#!to...rs/7NIVlGpraB8
And installed the module shown here: https://code.google.com/p/prosody-mo...uth_compat.lua

Vinny, would you please click "Re-request contact authorization" and "Resend contact authorization" please. I'm actually not completely sure what the difference is there; I don't know who is authorizing whom when PersonA adds PersonB.

[vinnywright]

just did both...................

VINNY