pidginCli

Command line interface to Pidgin + bash completion

Demo

Usage

# Reads message from stdin
echo "My message" | pidginMsg <buddy1> <buddy2> ...

# Just opens the chat window
pidginMsg <buddy1> <buddy2> ...

Requirements

1. python-dbus

   Distro	Command line
   Ubuntu	sudo apt-get install python-dbus
   Fedora	dnf install python3-dbus

2. Pidgin must be running.

Instalation

1. Clone this repo

   git clone https://github.com/tfga/pidginCli
   cd pidginCli
   

2. Install

   • Ubuntu

     • Without virtualenv:

       pip2 install .

     • With virtualenv:

       1. Edit the install script and change the value of INSTALL_DIR to point to the directory where the executables should be installed. This directory should be in your $PATH.

       2. Run:

          ./install

   • Fedora

     Fedora has dbus bindings for Python 3 only. So, you should do instead:

     ./install python3

3. Now you should have two new executables on your PATH:

• pidginMsg: the main executable
• _pidginCompleteBuddy: used by the bash completion

Shell completion

Add this to your .bashrc:

source <absolute path to pidginCli>/bash/bashCompletion

If you don't want to keep the repo around, move bash/bashCompletion somewhere else and adjust the path accordingly.

How the completion works

The completion takes into account both the username and full name. For instance, in the demo (above), the following completions take place:

• luciv_ => lucivaldo.costa -- username match
• bern_ => thiago.almeida -- full name match ("Thiago Bernardes de Almeida")

where _ is where the cursor was when I pressed TAB.

FAQ

1. Is this thing interactive?

   No. The use case is, e.g. when you want to send the output of some command to a co-worker without leaving the terminal.

---

PidginQuickLaunch

Actually... there's a second application hidden in this repo.

🤨

The attentive user will certainly have noticed that after the installation, a third executable is also present:

pidginQuickLaunch

Hum... what might that be? 🤔

It's a GUI version of pidginMsg.

🤯

Installation

If you want to use this, you must also install python-keybinder and python-gtk2:

sudo apt-get install python-keybinder python-gtk2

Fedora

Sorry, this part is python 2 only. And the migration to python 3 also implies a migration from PyGtk to GObject Introspection. So... it probably won't happen anytime soon.

That said, this is a small amount of code and, with pygtkcompat, it might be possible to make it work with both. If anyone out there is willing to do the work, PRs will be wellcome.

Shortcuts

Once the application is running, the GUI can be summoned with the (global) shortcut Ctrl + Alt + m. And dismissed with Esc.