[Adium-devl] MSNp15 (libpurple im.pidgin.pidgin) in Adium 1.3.x

[Eric Richie]

On Thu, Sep 11, 2008 at 10:29 AM, John Bailey <rekkanoryo at rekkanoryo.org> wrote:
> Evan Schoenberg wrote:
>> Adium is not Pidgin for Mac OS X.
>
> Of course it isn't.  I realize Adium also isn't strictly a libpurple UI, but it
> *is* a libpurple UI nonetheless.  As a libpurple contributor at the time, I
> expected that libpurple plugins (which by definition may not use any specific
> UI) would work, and was surprised a couple years ago when I found that they don't.
>
>> Here's the problem: we could probably say, "a libpurple plugin which
>> requires no UI presentation except Account or Buddy actions and
>> requires no configuration can be loaded directly" if someone could wok
>> out how to perform such linkage dynamically (which I don't know how to
>> do but wouldn't be averse to). However, as far as I know, this
>> excludes the vast majority of plugins.
>
> It would exclude the majority of useful plugins, yes.  For example, the
> ListHandler plugin I mentioned requires the Request API to be implemented in the UI.
>
> A protocol plugin, on the other hand, should be using very little if any of the
> things Adium doesn't currently implement.  Protocol plugins have a specific type
> flag set which can be used when probing to ignore other plugins if desired.
> Granted, since libpurple provides the ability to have account options specified
> by the prpl, this complicates matters.  I believe the HTTP method checkbox
> that's been discussed recently is provided in such a manner.
>
>> If you or someone else can write code to build whatever preferences
>> and presentation UI hooks and generators a libpurple plugin expects
>> without tying us to Pidgin's interface, that'd be awesome. We also
>> need some way to version such plugins against libpurple
>> (which .AdiumLibpurplePlugin bundles also need, for that matter). As
>> it stands, though, we simply couldn't provide an acceptable user
>> experience. Patches, as they say, welcome.
>
> The Request and Notify APIs can be implemented in the UI however anyone chooses,
> whether they be a thin wrapper that just assembles a simple dialog or something
> much more complex.  There's no tying to Pidgin's or Finch's UI, although the API
> does somewhat resemble our toolkits' capabilities.  These two APIs represent the
> bulk of the existing libpurple plugins that Adium users might find useful.
>
> I get the impression that you're saying it's impossible for an application to
> generate a UI programmatically with OS X's toolkit.  Am I reading too much into
> this?
>
> All this said, if someone cared to write the necessary Adium glue for any of my
> plugins, I certainly wouldn't be stupid enough to turn them down.  It's just not
> an endeavor I wish to undertake myself.
>
> I also get that no one is currently interested in making libpurple plugins work
> properly in Adium (this was made *quite* clear in #adium-devl when the previous
> discussion took place).

Do you happen to have a log of this conversation?  If so I'd be
interested to read it. (You can send it to me off-list.)

-Eric