new client plans and libpurple

[nemtom]

Hi, I'm not sure whether this is the right place to write to, but I 
haven't found any which were more suitable.

I'm planning to create an open-source messaging client for Windows using 
libpurple. I considered adding features to the Pidgin client, but my 
ideal feature set might not match others'. I could write plug-ins 
instead, but I want a client which is native to Windows. (I have a 
strong dislike towards multi platform toolkits.) I looked for other 
clients (not just Pidgin but general messaging ones) but haven't found 
one that looks good enough and has all the features I want.

The features I'd need are mainly those that I will miss after the MS 
live messenger client stops connecting. I guess I'm not the only one. I 
would like to ask anyone taking part in Pidgin development, whether it 
is possible to implement the following using libpurple: (Most are fairly 
obvious, but I included them just in case. If you see something 
impossible with the current library please point it out.)

Picture sending from clipboard, custom emoticons, animated emoticons, 
animated buddy icon, hiding oneself and/or communicating while hidden (I 
guess this is not possible), choosing font (I don't mean font style, 
instead size or face and I can't see this in Pidgin), related: mixing 
font styles in a line, sending more than a given number of smileys in 
one line (again there seems to be a limit in Pidgin), logging (obviously 
possible, the question is whether libpurple manages this or can I do it 
any way I want), general message text next to names in the buddy list 
(is this what is called status in Pidgin?), binary data sharing which is 
ignored by another client if not understood (similar to file sending but 
the program would recognize it as special), chatting with a webcam (I 
have absolutely no knowledge regarding this, and I don't need it that 
much either, but if libpurple does the hard work then why not)

I can't say enough that most of these are fairly obvious. For example 
for sending a picture copied to the clipboard I will have to create a 
temporary file first.

I see tons of dll files in the Pidgin folder. Are those all required 
beside libpurple.dll? I only want to support xmpp, though if it is not 
much extra work to support anything else I will consider adding those as 
well. I don't want to compile the libraries myself if it was done 
already and with the correct environment. I will try to look for an 
answer regarding the use of those libraries but if this information is 
not written anywhere, I will appreciate any help.