Gabber: The GNOME Jabber Client
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CVS users, CVS notes are now in README.cvs.
FreeBSD users, please also see README.FreeBSD.

Some notes
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Gabber is a Jabber client for GNOME. No, it's not a GTK+ client, it's a 
GNOME client. Originally there was a GTK+ client called cabbar, but it 
has not been worked on for quite some time. GAIM can be GTK+-only, and 
it has a Jabber module.

Gabber is young, but progressing very rapidly. We're aiming for 
1.0 to contain everything we originally intended upon supporting, and 
then just going from there. :)

Gabber is a C++ project. If C++ gives you seizures, please do not 
proceed any further. Dave and I (Julian) are of the opinion that C++ 
can be great if done properly, but absolutely horrible if not. Gtkmm is 
an excellent binding of GTK+ to C++, and both of us like it much more 
than GTK+. It's beautiful.

Gabber's user interface is done in glade, and dynamically loaded with 
libglade. If libglade gives you seizures, well, you probably shouldn't 
be using GNOME. Julian has become quite the User Interface freak, and 
is trying his hardest to give Gabber the best UI he can, while still 
providing most of Jabber's features.

Gabber could not exist if it were not for the Jabber people, the GNOME 
people, and the gtkmm people, but it really couldn't exist without Dave. 
Jabberoo is cool, and he's an amazing coder, I (Julian) am glad to have 
this opportunity to learn much about coding from him.

Now, back to your regularly scheduled program.


Dependencies
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At absolute minimum, to compile Gabber you need:

GNOME      >= 1.2
libsigc++  >= 1.0.0  (http://libsigc.sourceforge.net/)
gtkmm      >= 1.2.0  (aka gtk--, http://gtkmm.sourceforge.net/)
gnomemm    >= 1.1.10 (aka gnome--, http://gtkmm.sourceforge.net/)
libglade   >= 0.11   (Your favorite GNOME mirror, or ftp.ximian.com)
libgal     >= 0.5(?) (ftp.ximian.com)
openssl    >= 0.9.5a (If you want SSL support; it's not required)

If you do not already have Ximian's packaged version of GNOME (aka 
Ximian GNOME), I highly recommend it. Yes, it can be quite a large 
download, but it's worth it if you use GNOME. If you have Ximian GNOME, 
all of the dependencies can be found in it. No, Ximian GNOME is not 
required.


Compiling Gabber
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Given ${prefix} is your prefix, such as /usr, /usr/local, or /opt/gnome 
and that /etc is the place you have sound/events :
./configure --prefix=${prefix} --sysconfdir=/etc --localstatedir=/var/lib
make
su
make install

That should be all you need to do.

KNOWN ISSUES
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Problem: Typing certain extended characters causes crashes.
  Gabber has spell checking enabled by default. Gabber uses gtkspell 
  (and thus aspell or ispell) for spell-checking, and it appears that 
  aspell (or possibly gtkspell) crashes on some character sets. If you 
  get weird crashes when typing specific characters, it's probably this 
  bug. Disable spell checking in the Preferences for now.

Problem: Symbol undefined, symbol errors, crashes before/during startup.
  Please be sure that binaries for libsigc++, gtkmm, and gnomemm were
  built for your specific distribution. SuSE is not the same as Red Hat, 
  which is not the same as Mandrake. If you built them, be sure they 
  were built for and installed into the same location as the rest of 
  GNOME and GTK+. I cannot stress enough how important it is that the 
  C++ libraries be built for your distribution and for your GNOME 
  installation.

Problem: Issues with normal messages.
  The code for normal messages is being completely rewritten.

Problem: I don't run GNOME, how can I get GNOME sounds?
  It is possible to start the GNOME sound server by running the command
  `sound-properties --init-session-settings`

Problem: Dialogs sometimes appear partially offscreen or flicker.
  The GNOME default settings for dialog handling are somewhat odd.
  "Place dialogs over application window when possible" should be 
  disabled in the Look and Feel -> Dialogs section of Gnome Control 
  Center (gnomecc). It defaults to enabled. Dialog position should 
  also be set to "Let window manager decide" and Dialog hints should 
  be "Dialogs are treated specially by window manager." This assumes 
  you are using a modern window manager which mostly conforms to 
  the window manager specifications.
    For those who lack gnomecc (thanks Michael Leuchtenburg):
  In ~/.gnome/Gnome:
  in the [UI_Dialogs] section:
  DialogType=Dialog
  DialogPosition=None
  Dialog_is_Centered=false


Authors
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See AUTHORS
The presence icons are available under the GPL, but please give credit 
to Youngjin "artwiz" Hahn  for creating them.