Plugin Interaction

[Etan Reisner]

On Tue, Jun 02, 2009 at 09:22:46AM +0100, António Pinho wrote:
> Hi! I am developing a plugin for pidgin and I would like to have a way to
> know if detect if the buddys of the user have my plugin or not.
> Does pidgin or libpurple provide that ?
>
> Thank you

No, pidgin can't provide that as no protocols that I know of provide
generic ways to report such information.

Your plugin would need to advertise itself in some way that your plugin
could detect remotely. For XMPP, this is what the capabilities XEP (0115)
is all about, a number of other protocols have a similar mechanism but
they are usually more constrained to a set of 'official' values (whereas
the values for XMPP are open).

I don't know if we currently let plugins add XMPP caps or not, if we do it
will almost certainly get easier when pidgin 2.6.0 comes out (as there are
XMPP prpl changes that will make the plugins job easier in this respect).

The OTR and pidgin-encryption plugins send 'hidden' message bits in the
initial message set to a buddy for exactly this reason, it allows other
clients to detect that the sender is capable of additional features and
react to that.

    -Etan