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Gnome has Empathy for You

blog.ibeentoubuntu.com — Well, the Gnome 2.24 freeze is on, and something happened that I never imagined.

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  • travist120, on 08/10/2008, -2/+12Awesome, no more Skype to get around crappy voice and video on gnome.
  • TheSilentNumber, on 08/11/2008, -4/+13Hooray! Let's hope they include it in Ubuntu! http://brainstorm.ubuntu.com/idea/11705/
  • cday, on 08/11/2008, -1/+5The time tracking sounds interesting and useful too. (Trying to read the blog over that horrible bright pink background gave me a headache though. ick!)
  • jonwise80, on 08/11/2008, -28/+7I hate to be the one that yells "the emporer has no clothes" but most Linux apps (including this one) look like crap. I recently tried (as I do almost annually) to switch my Host OS to Linux, and still, after 8 years, its too immature, cludgey, eccentric, and busted to be worth it. I WANT to want Linux, but it still looks/feels/behaves too much like a patched together hack-job to be realistic as a user environment...
    • skinturtle, on 08/11/2008, -7/+2i hate to say it..but you are right becauseI have done the same for years as well. I don't know what it is but the apps and all the window decor still have that crappy hack, first genration OS look. They need better designers or something and there's plenty around so I don't know what the problem is.
      • directrix13, on 08/11/2008, -0/+5There are plenty of themes. You can even make it look exactly like Vista or Mac OS X, if thats really your biggest complaint.
    • jonwise80, on 08/11/2008, -7/+2gotta love how all the fan boys are digging this down. the cold hard reality is that from a user perspective, Vista is cleaner, more organized, more consistent, and more usable than even Ubunutu.
      I hate Windows with a passion, and would kill to have a *nix OS in front of me during my work day, but my employer only buys Dell, I can't afford to buy myself a Mac Pro for work, and Linux is too much of a mess. Cygwin has to get me through until Linux matures... here's hoping another 8 years will do it!
      • robdiggity, on 08/11/2008, -1/+4You, sir, need to put down your crack pipe.
    • mattlevesque, on 08/13/2008, -0/+1Hey!
      8 years really! It's time to wake up!

      Gnome supports themes right out of the box. So guess what there's a theme that looks just like Vista check it out:
      http://www.gnome-look.org/content/show.php/Vista+T ...
    • ArthurSucks, on 08/14/2008, -0/+1Just a little off topic, eh?
  • Shadowgamers, on 08/11/2008, -2/+16For a non-linux dude, this looks like a load of gibberish =[ Can someone briefly tell me what Empathy actually does? =[
    • Vadi0, on 08/11/2008, -0/+36It's like... THE IM messenger. It'll support every protocol and every function of every protocol. So instead of having your MSN messenger open, your AIM messenger open, your Google Talk thing open, it'll be all in one program.

      At least, that's what it's aiming to me. You can check out Pidgin meanwhile, which supports a lot of protocols but doesn't do voice/video meanwhile: http://www.pidgin.im/
      • Shadowgamers, on 08/11/2008, -0/+14Oh. Thanks! This'll be handy when I install Ubuntu later on today.
      • iXneonXi, on 08/11/2008, -0/+5Shadowgamers, FYI Pidgin comes with Ubuntu.
      • Shadowgamers, on 08/11/2008, -0/+4Oh :u
        The more you know.
    • burjzyntski, on 08/11/2008, -0/+4It's a communication program.
      I'm happy with gaim/pidgin but some people aren't.
      • HonestAbe, on 08/11/2008, -0/+2I'm happy with Pidgin for chat, but they seem very resistant to making file transfers, audio, or video work well. If something could build on Pidgin and add those things, it would be great.
    • daengbo, on 08/11/2008, -0/+14Empathy brings in another component called Telepathy, which is where the real change occurs. Suddenly, Gnome applications will have easy access to IM/Voice/Video in an easy to embed way. This means that starting a text session from your e-mail client or a video chat from your IRC session should be really simple.

      Sorry I didn't include a lot of detail when I wrote the blog, but I've written on the subject several times now and didn't expect to be Dugg and have new readers.
    • MeneerR, on 08/12/2008, -0/+3It's about moving the messaging, voice-chat, video-chat, games and file-transfers to the level of the operating system.

      Beyond just providing a nice messenger, it also unifies and makes it easier to:
      - play chess with glchess against somebody on your friend's list
      - share rhythmbox music with friends on your contact list
      - add somebody to your contact list from evolution
      - etc.

      Not all of that will be done immediately, but the developpers of programs can say 'give a video feed to user X from contact list Y'. They don't have to write all that code themselves and they don't need to configure your IM accounts and everything; since it's done on the level op the operating system.

      Sometimes having something as a default infrastructure makes all the difference.

  • CaptainChad, on 08/11/2008, -12/+6Dark red on black is not exactly a readable color scheme. Buried for poor readability.
  • thelamer, on 08/11/2008, -0/+20@Shadowgamers

    Adding empathy to Gnome would allow any gnome application to easily integrate VOIP and IM.

    Here is the featureset;

    Current features

    * Multi-protocol: Jabber, Gtalk, MSN, IRC, Salut, and all supported by pidgin
    * Account editor (specialized UI for most protocols)
    * Auto away and extended away using gnome-screensaver
    * Auto re-connect using Network Manager
    * Private and group chat (with smileys, spellcheck)
    * Powerful theme engine for chats
    * Log conversations, view/search in logs and prepend logs in new chats
    * Adding new contacts and viewing/editing contact information
    * Voice and Video call using SIP and Jingle
    * Python bindings for libempathy and libempathy-gtk
    * Collaborative work using Tubes
    * More to come soon...
    • Narishma, on 08/11/2008, -14/+2The reply button, motherf***er, do you see it?
      • maninalift, on 08/11/2008, -4/+1who clicks on a reply button. Press return fool.
  • sw3t, on 08/11/2008, -1/+1Now can they please fix the hide_delay option in gconf, so it works as it used to ? I'd like to have my shortcuts panel autohiding again
  • ZerawBanned, on 08/11/2008, -14/+1KDE > Gnome

    Kopete > Empathy > Pidgin
    • Jektal, on 08/11/2008, -6/+3This is why Linux will never catch on as a mainstream OS.
      • saftaplan, on 08/11/2008, -2/+5LiteStep > explorer.exe

        Miranda > Trillian > WLM

        This is why Windows will never catch on as a mainstream OS.
      • gzusfreak, on 08/11/2008, -1/+3saftaplan: You know...Windows is a mainstream OS. As much as you want to hate it. And really, anything beats Trillian.
      • MeneerR, on 08/12/2008, -0/+2>This is why Linux will never catch on as a mainstream OS.

        Because ZerawBanned is a smelly troll?
    • Irco, on 08/11/2008, -0/+3dude, no..I'm a kde guy, but Kopete sucks balls!
      Not to say pidgin is even close to perfect...with stupid 'features' that don't even let you resize the input textbox..but kopete is got something close to the worse GUI organization that I've seen in a piece of software.
      • ZerawBanned, on 08/11/2008, -3/+0Actually, I find Kopete simpler and easier to use than the others and I don't care about the "lack of features" (I use it to chat with my friends and I don't need my messaging program to make coffee)
      • MeneerR, on 08/12/2008, -0/+2@ZerawBanned

        Kopete is a piece of crap. It's a usability nightmare; it does too many things nobody needs, but it sucks at those things you do need to do.
  • tribaal, on 08/11/2008, -1/+2I'm more waiting for conduit (read TFA) - it will add some functionality which we don't already have.
    While nice to have, Empathy does offer basically the same functionality than pidgin.
    • Picklesworth, on 08/11/2008, -0/+4That isn't true. Empathy's unification of messaging protocols begins and ends with clicking and chatting with people. At its heart, it is still just a basic IM client.

      Empathy goes a step further by abstracting IM protocols not just for the user, but for every application in the desktop environment via libempathy. In short, this is more than just an instant messaging client; it is a potentially massive addition to the GNOME platform.

      Here's a nice blog post introducing Tubes, which are one of many neat things libempathy provides.

      And here's a good example (which does not yet happen, but will be possible). Using Jokosher, creating an audio track, choosing to record and then selecting an instant messaging contact. Empathy would try to initiate audio communication and the incoming audio would be recorded by Jokosher.

      If this doesn't happen because delusional people believe Pidgin to offer anywhere close to this functionality, I will be very sad.
      • HonestAbe, on 08/11/2008, -0/+1Pidgin's gotten a lot better lately. File transfers still suck, though, and audio/video are non-existent. If Empathy can do everything Pidgin can do EQUALLY WELL, I'll prefer Empathy.
      • Picklesworth, on 08/15/2008, -0/+1Oh gah, I wrote Empathy instead of Pidgin in that first sentence. The pain! :(

        I mean that /Pidgin's/ unification of messaging protocols begins and ends with clicking and chatting with people.

        ...and I somehow managed to forget that link about Tubes. Here it is:
        http://blogs.gnome.org/xclaesse/2008/04/21/announc ...
  • maninalift, on 08/11/2008, -0/+10Cool. I'm pleased to see KDE and GNOME will soon be using the same communication backends (telepathy).
    • daengbo, on 08/11/2008, -0/+6Telepathy is a Freedesktop.org spec (much like DBus or XDG), so any FD.o-compliant DE or WM should start being telepathy-aware Really Soon Now (TM).
  • abbathdoom, on 08/11/2008, -2/+3Is this Linux only or could it come to other systems like Pidgin is ported for Windows and Adium on Mac? I ask because Pidgin doesnt support webcams and that sucks sweaty balls.
    • netzdamon, on 08/11/2008, -4/+2Not supporting webcams is its best feature.
    • RandaII, on 08/11/2008, -2/+1Why so you can show your sweaty balls? No thank you thanks to no web can support we can keep you from scaring people on the internet from seeing your small sweaty balls.
  • daengbo, on 08/11/2008, -0/+5It turns out that the Ubuntu developers are trying to get enough testing done to replace Pidgin with Empathy as the default IM client for Intrepid.
    http://blog.ibeentoubuntu.com/2008/08/ubuntu-devs- ...
  • Vigacmoe, on 08/11/2008, -1/+1site down
  • pauleric, on 08/11/2008, -2/+3"...but that it wasn't going to happen because 1. The licensing was wrong (libempathy is GPLed..."

    That's right, you want to avoid the GPL in the FSF's official desktop. It's much more important to improve Mono to better support MS initiatives.
    • bkor, on 08/11/2008, -0/+4Bad troll, no cookie for you!

      1. GNOME is not focused on improving Mono, Novell for a part is.
      2. We do not focus on improving MS. The creation of a Desktop Environment should tell you that.
      3. Libraries should use LGPL, not GPL. This so all applications can integrate IM. This is a basic requirement to become part of the GNOME platform.
      • pauleric, on 08/11/2008, -2/+3I though it was obvious enough sarcasm not to be labeled a troll, but ok, if I could I'd add a sarcasm tag at this point I would to help you out ;)

        1. I suppose Gnome has been distancing itself from Mono and Miguel following the Novell debacle. I am not convinced.

        2. It tells me nothing of the sort. Regardless of what is intended, any improvement to Mono does further MS interests.

        3. I suppose you meant the IM libraries in Gnome have decided to use LGPL for tactical reasons. What you said contradicts FSF policy. Not that I'm a FSF fanatic like RMS, but it's always nice to be consistent. Unless Gnome doesn't consider itself a FSF project?

        http://www.gnu.org/licenses/why-not-lgpl.html
  • fas2, on 08/11/2008, -0/+4I apt-got empathy on ubuntu and it says I first have to install a backend for the protocol I want to use. So how do I install protocols (I want msn among others).
    • bkor, on 08/11/2008, -0/+3Install the various telepathy things (search for the various ones). Suggest e.g. telepathy-haze.
      • fas2, on 08/11/2008, -0/+3With telepathy-butterfly I could add an msn account. But it could not connect (network error).
        With haze it works though.
    • for1dev, on 09/26/2008, -0/+0apt-cache search telepathy | awk '{print $1}' | xargs sudo apt-get -y install

      the best of the worst way
  • bkor, on 08/11/2008, -0/+1PS: reply to paulericpauleric

    s/scarcasm/trolling/

    1. There is no need to distance ourselves. If someone wants to make Mono work better with GNOME, go ahead. It just is an extra development option.

    2. Again, GNOME does not develop Mono.

    3. I am not talking about IM. I am talking about libraries. Further. that URL specifies that glibc is LGPL.Further, it is not policy, the document is a recommendation.
  • jwoulf, on 08/12/2008, -1/+4Gnome has empathy, KDE has function.


    KDE forever!
  • helino, on 08/13/2008, -0/+0Empathy is definitely the future for IM in Gnome. I hope that Intrepid Ibex will replace Pidgin
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