source: protocols/skype/README @ fa41a75

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1= Skype plugin for BitlBee
2Miklos Vajna <vmiklos-at-vmiklos-dot-hu>
3
4== Status
5
6[quote, Wilmer van der Gaast (author of BitlBee)]
7____
8Okay, this exists now, with lots of thanks to vmiklos for his *excellent*
9work!!
10
11It's not in the main BitlBee and it'll never be for various reasons, but
12because it's a plugin that shouldn't be a problem.
13____
14
15One day I browsed the BitlBee bugtracker and found
16http://bugs.bitlbee.org/bitlbee/ticket/82[this] ticket. Then after a while I
17returned and saw that it was still open. So I wrote it.
18
19It's pretty stable (one day I wanted to restart it because of an upgrade
20and just noticed it was running for 2+ months without crashing), I use
21it for my daily work. Being a plug-in, no patching is required, you can
22just install it after installing BitlBee itself.
23
24NOTE: You will see that this implementation of the Skype plug-in still requires
25a Skype instance to be running. This is because I'm not motivated to reverse
26engineer Skype's
27http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skype_Protocol#Obfuscation_Layer[obfuscation
28layer]. (Not mentioning that you should ask your lawyer about if it is legal or
29not..)
30
31== Requirements
32
33* Skype >= 1.4.0.99. The latest version I've tested is 4.1.0.20.
34* BitlBee >= 3.0. The latest version I've tested is @BITLBEE_VERSION@. Use
35  old versions (see the NEWS file about which one) if you have older BitlBee
36  installed.
37* Skype4Py >= 0.9.28.7. Previous versions won't work due to API changes.
38  The latest version I've tested is 1.0.32.0.
39
40* Python >= 2.5. Skype4Py does not work with 2.4.
41
42* OS: `bitlbee-skype` has been tested under Linux and Mac OS X. The plugin part
43  has been tested under Free/Open/NetBSD as well. The daemon part has been
44  tested on Windows, too.
45
46== How to set it up
47
48Before you start. The setup is the following: BitlBee can't connect directly to
49Skype servers (the company's ones). It needs a running Skype client to do so.
50In fact BitlBee will connect to `skyped` (a tcp server, provided in this
51package) and `skyped` will connect to to your Skype client.
52
53The benefit of this architecture is that you can run Skype and `skyped`
54on a machine different to the one where you run BitlBee (it can be even
55a public server) and/or your IRC client.
56
57NOTE: The order is important. First `skyped` starts Skype. Then `skyped`
58connects to Skype, finally BitlBee can connect to `skyped`.
59
60=== Installing
61
62Either use your package manager to install the Skype plugin, using something
63like:
64
65----
66# apt-get install skyped bitlbee-plugin-skype
67----
68
69Or install http://sourceforge.net/projects/skype4py/[Skype4Py], and build
70BitlBee with `--skype=1`.
71
72=== Configuring
73
74See the manpage of `skyped`.
75
76== Setting up Skype in a VNC server (optional)
77
78Optionally, if you want to run Skype on a server, you might want to setup up
79a `VNC` server as well. I used `tightvnc` but probably other `VNC` servers will
80work, too.
81
82First run
83
84----
85$ vncpasswd ~/.vnc/passwd
86----
87
88and create a password. You will need it at least once.
89
90Now create `~/.vnc/xstartup` with the following contents:
91
92----
93#!/bin/sh
94
95blackbox
96----
97
98Adjust the permissions:
99
100----
101$ chmod +x ~/.vnc/xstartup
102----
103
104Then start the server:
105
106----
107$ vncserver
108----
109
110Then connect to it, start an `xterm`, set up Skype (username, password,
111enable X11 API and allow the `Skype4Py` client), quit from Skype, and
112start `skyped`. If you want to watch its traffic, enable debug messages
113and foreground mode:
114
115----
116$ skyped -n -d
117----
118
119== Features
120
121- Download nicks and away statuses from Skype
122
123- Noticing joins / parts while we're connected
124
125- Sending messages
126
127- Receiving messages
128
129- Receiving away status changes
130
131- `skyped` (the tcp daemon that is a gateway between Skype and tcp)
132
133- Error handling when `skyped` is not running and when it exits
134
135- Marking received messages as seen so that Skype won't say there are unread messages
136
137- Adding / removing contacts
138
139- Set away state when you do a `/away`.
140
141- When you `account off`, Skype will set status to `Offline`
142
143- When you `account on`, Skype will set status to `Online`
144
145- Detect when somebody wants to add you and ask for confirmation
146
147- Detect when somebody wants to transfer a file
148
149- Group chat support:
150
151  * Detect if we're invited
152
153  * Send / receive group chat messages
154
155  * Invite others (using `/invite <nick>`)
156
157  * Part from group chats
158
159  * Starting a group chat (using `/j #nick`)
160
161- Topic changes in group chats:
162
163  * Show the current topic (if any) on join
164
165  * Notice when someone changes the topic
166
167  * Support changing the topic using `/topic`
168
169- Viewing the profile using the `info` command.
170
171- Handling skype actions (when the `CHATMESSAGE` has `EMOTED` type)
172
173- Setting your display name using the `nick` command.
174
175- Running Skype on a machine different to BitlBee is possible, the
176  communication is encrypted.
177
178- Managing outgoing calls (with call duration at the end):
179
180  * `/ctcp nick call`
181  * `/ctcp nick hangup`
182
183- Managing outgoing SkypeOut or conference calls:
184
185  * `account skype set call +18005551234`
186  * `account skype set call nick1 nick2`
187  * `account skype set -del call`
188
189- Managing incoming calls via questions, just like when you add / remove
190  contacts.
191
192- Querying the current SkypeOut balance:
193
194  * `account skype set balance query`
195
196- For debug purposes, it's possible to send any command to `skyped`. To
197  achieve this, you need to:
198
199  * `account skype set skypeconsole true`
200
201  * then writing `skypeconsole: <command>` will work in the control
202    channel.
203
204  * `account skype set skypeconsole_receive true` will make the
205    `skypeconsole` account dump all the received raw traffic for you
206
207- If you want to automatically join bookmarked groupchats right after
208  you logged in, do:
209
210  * `account skype set auto_join true`
211
212- Edited messages are shown with the `EDIT:` prefix. If you don't like
213  this, you can set your own prefix using:
214
215  * `account skype set edit_prefix "updated message:"`
216
217- The `echo123` test account is hidden by default. If you want to see it:
218
219  * `account skype set test_join true`
220
221- Mood texts are not shown by default.
222
223  * If you want to see them: `account skype set show_moods true`
224  * If you want to change your mood text: `account skype set mood_text 'foo bar'`
225
226- Group support:
227
228  * To enable: `account skype set read_groups true`
229  * Skype groups are told to BitlBee
230  * The usual `/invite` in a group channel adds the buddy to the group in skype
231    as well (and if necessary, it creates a new group in Skype)
232
233== What needs to be done (aka. TODO)
234
235- Notice if foo invites bar. Currently you can see only that bar joined.
236
237- Public chats. See
238  link:https://developer.skype.com/jira/browse/SCL-381[this feature
239  request], this is because it is still not possible (under Linux) to
240  `join_chat` to a public chat..
241
242- Add yasrd (Yet Another Skype-Related Daemon) to allow using a public
243  server for users who are behind NAT.
244
245== I would like to have support for ...
246
247If something does not work and it's not in the TODO section, then please
248contact me! Please also try the bzr version before reporting a bug, your
249problem may be already fixed there.
250
251In fact, of course, I wrote this documentation after figured out how to do this
252setup, so maybe I left out some steps. If you needed 'any' additional tricks,
253then it would be nice to include them here.
254
255== Known bugs
256
257- File transfers are view-only from BitlBee. Quoting the
258  https://developer.skype.com/Docs/ApiDoc/FILETRANSFER_object[relevant
259  documentation]: 'File transfers cannot be initiated nor accepted via
260  API commands.' So it's not something I can add support for, sadly.
261
262== Screenshots
263
264You can reach some screenshots link:shot[here].
265
266== Additional resources
267
268The Skype API documentation is
269http://developer.skype.com/resources/public_api_ref.zip[here] if you're
270interested.
271
272== Testimonials
273
274----
27500:56 < scathe> I like your skype plugin :)
276----
277
278----
279It's really working great so far.
280
281Good Job and thank you!
282Sebastian
283----
284
285----
286Big respect for your work, i really appreciate it.
287
288Martin
289----
290
291----
292Thanks for bitlbee-skype. As a blind Linux user, I cannot use the
293skype GUI client because qt apps ar not accessible yet with the
294available screen readers. bitlbee-skype allows me to make use of skype
295without having to interact much with the GUI client, which helps me a
296lot.
297
298Lukas
299----
300
301----
30202:12 < newton> i must say, i love this little bee ;)
30302:15 < newton> tried it out today with the skype plugin, good work!
304----
305
306----
30718:10 < miCSu> it works fine
308----
309
310----
31113:56 < seo> i just want to thank you :)
31213:56 < seo> for bitlbee-skype
31313:57 < seo> it's working very well, so, again, thank you for your work, and for sharing it
314----
315
316----
31722:16 < ecraven> vmiklos: thanks a lot for the skype plugin for bitlbee!
318----
319
320----
321I'm blind and so I have to use a screen reader, in my case Gnome-Orca.
322But since Skype is written in QT, while Orca uses gtk+, I have no direct
323access to the Skype interface. That's why I desided to use Skyped and
324Erc.
325The text console is fully accessible.
326Thank you very much.
327
328Hermann
329----
330
331----
332i love that bitlbeeplugin. big thx for that.
333
334michael
335----
336
337----
33823:47 < krisfremen> thanks for creating this fabulous piece of software vmiklos :)
339----
340
341== Thanks
342
343to the following people:
344
345* people in link:AUTHORS[AUTHORS] for their contributions
346
347* Arkadiusz Wahlig, author of skype4py, for making suggestions to skyped
348
349* Gabor Adam Toth (tg), for noticing extra code is needed to handle multiline
350  messages
351
352* Cristobal Palmer (tarheelcoxn), for helping to testing the plugin in a
353  timezone different to mine
354
355* people on `#bitlbee` for feedback
356
357Back to my link:/projects[projects page].
358
359// vim: ft=asciidoc
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