User Commands pidgin(1)
NAME
pidgin - Instant Messaging client
SYNOPSIS
pidgin [--config=directory] [--debug] [--login=name] [--
nologin] [-gnome-std-options]
DESCRIPTION
pidgin is a graphical modular messaging client based on lib-
purple. It supports multiple protocols including AIM, MSN,
Yahoo!, XMP, ICQ, IRC, GroupWise and GTalk all at once. It
has many common features found in other clients, as well as
many unique features.
OPTIONS
The following options are supported:
-c, --config=directory Use directory as the direc-
tory for config files
instead of ~/.purple.
-d, --debug Print debug messages to
stdout. These are the same
debug messages that are
displayed in the Debug win-
dow.
-l, --login[=name,name,...] Log in with the comma-
separated list of accounts
provided, in addition to any
accounts that are configured
to be logged in automati-
cally. If no argument is
provided, your first account
will be signed in.
-n, --nologin Do not automatically login
when pidgin starts. Sets
the global status to Off-
line.
gnome-std-options Standard options available
for use with most GNOME
applications. See gnome-
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std-options(5).
EXTENDED DESCRIPTION
Buddy List
The Buddy List window is pidgin's main interface window.
Using this window you can see which of your buddies is
online, away, idle, etc. You can also add and remove bud-
dies from your buddy list.
The Buddy List window contains a list of your buddies who
are online and have allowed you to be notified of their
presence. The icon to the left of each buddy indicates the
buddy's current state and the protocol they are using. Dou-
ble clicking a buddy will open a new Conversation window.
Right clicking will pop up a menu:
Get Info
Retrieves and displays information about the buddy.
This information is also known as a Profile.
IM
Opens a new Conversation window to the selected buddy.
Send File
Sends a file to the selected buddy (only available on
protocols that support file transfer).
Add Buddy Pounce
A Buddy Pounce is a configurable automated action to be
performed when the buddy's state changes. This will
open the Buddy Pounce dialog to be discussed later.
View Log
pidgin is capable of automatically log its activities.
These logs are either plain text files (with a .txt
extension) or html files (with a .html extension)
located under the ~/.purple/logs directory. This menu
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command will display pidgin's log viewer with logs
loaded for that buddy or chat.
Alias
Create an alias for this buddy. This will open up a new
dialog in which one can give this buddy an alternate
name to appear on the buddy list and in conversations.
For example, if a buddy's name screen name was
jsmith1281xx and his real name was 'John Q. Smith,' one
could create an alias as to identify the buddy by his
common name.
The remainder of the menu will consist of protocol specific
commands. These commands vary depending on the protocol.
At the bottom of the Buddy List are several buttons (if
enabled in Preferences):
IM Opens a new Conversation window to to the selected
buddy, or brings up the New Message dialog box if
no buddy is selected.
Info Retrieves and displays information about the
selected buddy, or brings up the Get User Info dia-
log box if no buddy is selected.
Chat Brings up the Join Chat dialog box, prompting the
user to select which username to use and what chat
group to join.
Away Brings up a menu of all available Away Messages.
If an item is selected, all online accounts will
use this item as their away message.
ACOUNT EDITOR
The account editor consists of a list of accounts and infor-
mation about them. Clicking Delete will delete the
currently selected account. Clicking Add or Modify will
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invoke a Modify Account window. Here, you can add or alter
account information. When creating a new account, you will
submit your screen name and password. You will also choose
your protocol.
If Remember Password is chosen, the password will be saved
in pidgin's configuration file.
If Auto-Login is chosen, this account will automatically
login upon starting pidgin.
Each protocol has it's own specific options that can be
found in the modify screen.
PREFERENCES
All options take effect immediately.
Interface
Display remote nicknames if no alias is set: Toggles
whether server nickname data should be used if no local
alias exists.
Buddy List
Sorting: Toggles the order in which buddies are shown
in your Buddy List between none, alphabetical, by status
and by log size.
Show buttons as: Toggles between picture-only, text-
only, picture and text or no buttons view of the buttons
on the Buddy List.
Raise window on events: Tells pidgin to bring the Buddy
List window to the top when buddies sign in or out.
Show numbers in groups: The number of buddies from each
group currently logged in will be shown along with the
total number of buddies in the group.
Show buddy icons: Toggles the display of buddies' cus-
tom icons.
Show warning levels: Each buddy's warning level will be
displayed next to the screen name. As a buddy's warning
level increases, outgoing messages are more and more
severely rate-limited.
Show idle times: The amount of time each buddy has been
idle will be displayed next to the screen name (if the
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buddy has opted to have their client report this infor-
mation).
Dim idle buddies: If enabled, idle buddies will be
displayed in grey text instead of black text.
Automatically expand contacts: If enabled, contacts
will automatically expand to show the associated buddies
when the mouse is held over the contact for a short
period.
Conversations
Show buttons as...: The selected item will determine
whether picture-only, text-only, combined picture/text,
or no buttons will be used for Conversation windows.
Show formatting toolbar: Display the formatting toolbar
between the upper and lower text boxes in conversations.
Show aliases in tabs/titles: Displays buddy alias
instead of screen name in window tabs and titles.
Show buddy icons: For protocols that support it, buddy
icons allow buddies to send small pictures to be
displayed during the course of a conversation. Turning
this option off hides those pictures.
Enable buddy icon animation: If these pictures happen
to be animated, this option will enable the animation,
otherwise only the first frame will be displayed.
Notify buddies that you are typing to them: Some proto-
cols allow clients to tell their buddies when they are
typing. This option enables this feature for protocols
that supports it.
Raise IM windows on events: If enabled, IM Conversation
windows will be brought to the top when new messages are
received.
Raise Chat windows on events: If enabled, chat
Conversation windows will be brought to the top when
new messages are received.
Use multi-colored screen names in chats: Color code the
screen names of users in chat rooms.
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Tab Options
Show IMs and chat in tabbed windows: Tabbed chat-
ting allows one to have multiple conversations
without multiple windows.
Show close buttons on tabs: Adds a close button to
each tab.
Tab Placement...: Specifies where tabs are shown in
the conversation window.
New conversation placement...: Determines where new
conversations will be placed (Last created window /
New window / windows grouped by group or account /
separate windwos for IMs and Chats).
Message Text
Show timestamp on messages: Toggles the timestamp
behavior for conversations. Per-conversation
behavior can be changed by pressing F2 in the
Conversation window.
Highlight misspelled words: Toggles highlighting of
misspelled words as you type.
Ignore colors/font faces/font sizes: Tells pidgin
to disregard buddies' color/font/isze information in
displaying IMs or Chats.
Default Formatting: Allows specifying the default
formatting to apply to all outgoing messages (only
applicable to protocols that support formatting in
messages).
Shortcuts
Allows the user to determine which keyboard
shortcuts are available.
Smiley Themes
Allows the user to choose between different smiley
themes. The "none" theme will disable graphical
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emoticons - they will be displayed as text instead.
Sounds
Sounds while away: Determines whether sounds are played
when an away message is up.
Sound Method: lets the user choose between different
playback methods. The user can also manually enter a
command to be executed when a sound is to be played (%s
expands to the full path of the file name).
Sound Events
Lets the user choose when and what sounds are to be
played.
Network
IP Address
Autodetect IP Address: pidgin will attempt to
automatically determine your IP address for use in
file transfers and Direct IMs.
Public IP: What IP address to use for file transfer
and Direct IMs. This is mainly useful for users with
multiple network interfaces or behind NAT.
Ports
Manually specify range of ports to listen on:
Specify specific ports to listen on, overriding any
defaults.
Proxy Server
The configuration section to enable pidgin to
operate through a proxy server. pidgin currently
supports SOCKS 4/5 and HTP proxies.
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Browser
Allows the user to select pidgin's default web browser.
Firefox, Galeon, Konqueror, Mozilla, Netscape and Opera
are supported natively. The user can also manually
enter a command to be executed when a link is clicked
(%s expands to the URL). For example, xterm -e lynx
"%s" will open the link with lynx. Open new window by
default makes the browser use a new window instead of
using the current window (or spawning a new tab).
Logging
Message Logs lets the user choose whether Conversations
and/or Buddy Chats will be logged as well as whether
logs will be in HTML or plain text format. System Logs
describes the types of events to be logged.
Away / Idle
Queue new messages when away: Messages received since
going Away will not be shown until away status is
removed.
Send auto-response: If someone messages you while away,
your auto-response will be sent.
Only send auto-response when idle: If someone messages
you while away, your auto-response will only be sent if
pidgin decides that the connection is idle.
Idle time reporting: If None is selected, account idle
time will not be reported. pidgin usage infers your idle
time from your usage of pidgin. X usage infers your idle
time from X (this option may not be universally avail-
able).
Auto-away: Determines if and under what conditions
pidgin will automatically turn on the Away status.
Away Messages
Lets the user add/edit/remove available Away Mes-
sages.
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Plugins
Allows the user to enable add-on plugins for pidgin.
Several of these come with pidgin, while others must be
downloaded separately. The Description field gives the
plugin author's description of the plugin, while the
Details field gives the plugin's authorship, URL, and
file name/location information.
Some plugins can be configured. If you load such a plu-
gin, its configuration preferences will appear as a sub-
menu to Plugins, with the submenu title determined by
the plugin's name.
Protocols
Protocols provide protocol specific preferences here.
CONVERSATIONS
When starting a new conversation, the user is presented with
the Conversation window. The conversation appears in the
upper text box and the user types his/her message in the
lower text box. Between the two is a row of settings,
represented by icons. Some or all buttons may not be active
if the protocol does not support the specific formatting.
From left to right:
Bold Turns on/off bold.
Italics Turns on/off italics.
Underline Turns on/off underline.
Decrease font size Decreases the size of the
message text.
Increase font size Increases the size of the
message text.
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Select a foreground color Changes the foreground color
of the message text.
Select a background color Changes the background color
of the message text.
Add image Inserts an in-line image in
the message.
Add hyperlink Adds a clickable link to the
message.
Add smiley Adds an emoticon (smiley) to
your message.
Beneath the lower text box
is a row of buttons that
execute commands:
Warn This issues a warning to the
other person in the conver-
sation (not available in all
protocols).
Block This adds the other person
to your deny list (not
available in all protocols).
Send File Send a file to this user.
This option is only avail-
able on protocols where
pidgin supports file
transfer.
Add This adds this user to your
buddy list. This option is
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not available if the user is
already on your list.
Remove This removes this user from
your buddy list. This option
is not available if the user
is not on your list.
Info This gets information (a
profile) about the other
person in the conversation
(not available in all proto-
cols).
Send This sends what is currently
in the lower text box
BUDY CHATS
For protocols that allow it, Buddy Chats can be entered
through the File menu or the Chat button at the bottom of
the Buddy List's Online tab.
Additional commands available in chat, depending on the pro-
tocol are:
Whisper The text will appear in the chat
conversation, but it will only be
visible to the sender and the
receiver.
Invite Invite other people to join the chat
room.
Ignore Ignore anything said by the chosen
person.
Set Topic Set the topic of the chat room. This
is usually a brief sentence
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describing the nature of the chat;
an explanation of the chat room's
name.
AWAY MESAGES
Most protocols allow for away messages. When a user is
Away, he can leave an informative message for others to see.
The Away submenu of the Tools menu is used to add and remove
away messages.
New Away Message provides space for one to enter an away
message and a title for that message. If Save or Save & Use
are chosen, this message will be saved. It can later be
referred to by the title given to it.
Remove Away Message is a submenu containing the titles of
saved away messages. Clicking on one of these titles will
remove the away message associated with it.
The rest of the away menu provides the user with a way to
assign different away messages to different connections.
Choosing Set All Away will set away all the connections
capable of the away state.
BUDY POUNCE
A Buddy Pounce is an automated trigger that occurs when a
buddy returns to a normal state from an away state. The New
Buddy Pounce dialog box can be activated by selecting the
Buddy Pounce submenu from the Tools menu. A pounce can be
set to occur on any combination of the events listed, and
any combination of actions can result. If Save this pounce
after activation is checked, the trigger will remain until
it is removed from the Remove Buddy Pounce menu.
PLUGINS
pidgin allows for dynamic loading of plugins to add extra
functionality to pidgin. Plugins can be enabled and config-
ured from the Preferences window. See plugins/HOWTO for
more information on writing plugins.
PERL
pidgin allows for perl scripting. See Perl Scripting HOWTO
in the pidgin documentation for more information about perl
scripting.
TCL
pidgin allows for Tcl scripting. See plugins/tcl/TCL-HOWTO
for more information about Tcl scripting.
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EXAMPLES
Example 1: Launching pidgin
example% pidgin
EXIT STATUS
The following exit values are returned:
0 Application exited successfully
>0 Application exited with failure
FILES
The following files are used by this application:
/usr/bin/pidgin Executable for pidgin
/usr/lib/pidgin Location of pidgin plugins.
~/.purple/prefs.xml pidgin configuration file.
~/.purple/accounts.xml Information about your
accounts.
~/.purple/status.xml Stores your away messages.
~/.purple/pounces.xml Stores your buddy pounces.
~/.purple/logs/PROTOCOL/ACOUNT/SCRENAME/DATE.{html,txt}:
Conversation logs
~/.purple/blist.xml The buddy list.
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~/.purple/plugins/ User's local plugins.
ATRIBUTES
See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-
butes:
ATRIBUTE TYPE ATRIBUTE VALUE
Availability SUNWgnome-im-client
Interface stability Volatile
SEE ALSO
otrparse(1), attributes(5), gnome-std-options(5)
pidgin Manual, http:/pidgin.im/
NOTES
This man page was originally written by Dennis Ristuccia
(dennis@dennisr.net). Updated and largely rewritten by Sean
Egan (bj91704@binghamton.edu) and Ben Tegarden
(tegarden@uclink.berkeley.edu). Updated by Stephen Browne,
Rick Ju, and Brian Cameron, Sun Microsystems Inc, 2003,
2006, 2007.
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