Set my own alias/display_name in Jabber

[augmentedfourth]

I just built 1.2.4 from source. Apparently there's a way to set your own display name for an account with:

account set <id>/display_name "Display Name"

However, this doesn't seem to work for Jabber. Every other Jabber client I've ever used has an "Alias" box in the account preferences that sets exactly this value; why can't bitlbee do it?

Basically, I'd much rather show up on my company's Jabber server with my real name than my IRC nick, but there appears to be no way to change this. In my estimation, it's a big problem that seems like it would be fairly simple to fix (given the openness of the XMPP spec). Unfortunately, I'm not much of a coder, or I'd try to do it myself.

[Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@…>]

Basically, I'd much rather show up on my company's Jabber server with my
real name than my IRC nick, but there appears to be no way to change this.

Why not? If you set your nickname once using any other Jabber client,
won't that stick and show up when you're back in BitlBee?

[augmentedfourth]

Replying to Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@…>:

Basically, I'd much rather show up on my company's Jabber server with my
real name than my IRC nick, but there appears to be no way to change this.

Why not? If you set your nickname once using any other Jabber client,
won't that stick and show up when you're back in BitlBee?

Nope. My "Full Name" is set, but my local "Alias" (which is the default for what shows up in Jabber chatrooms) needs to be set by the currently-connected client.

[Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@…>]

Note that you can already specify your chatroom nickname in BitlBee using chat set, BTW.

[anonymous]

Note that you can already specify your chatroom nickname in BitlBee using chat set, BTW.

Is this supposed to be the syntax? chat set 0/nick "Display Name"

It appeared to register with 'root,' but nothing changed. do I need to leave and re-enter the chatroom? In any case, I'd also like to show up as my own name in 1:1 chats on the company Jabber server, which would still require a client-side personal Alias to be set.

[anonymous]

For what it's worth. I used

chat set 0/nick "Display name"

And it worked fine.

[Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@…>]

That's your nickname in chatrooms, not what people see in their contact lists.

[moggers87+itllbe@…]

This is still an issue for me on version 3.0.3 and setting my alias on another client doesn't seem to work.

How hard would this be for someone with no C or Jabber programming experience (i.e. me) to implement?

[wilmer]

There's a XEP for this: ​http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0172.html

You just need to write some code that sends a packet like this and put it in an evaluator for the display_name setting. Since you're saying a name set from another client doesn't work, I suppose you'll have to have the setting saved on the BitlBee side and also re-send the packet at reconnect time.

Knowing XMPP is not important, but familiarity with C would be most helpful.

[Vaevictus]

Also, chatrooms have your 'alias' as part of the presence.

​http://xmpp.org/extensions/xep-0045.html#changenick

fairly simple presence packet to send, basically just <presence to='chatroom/newnick' />

[anonymous]

Being able to show an alias (as, for example, pidgin let's you do) would be very useful.