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The Coccinella : Jabber application with Whiteboard
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by Mats Bengtsson
What is this?
This is a Jabber client which has a complete system for instant
messages, chat, groupchat etc. But more importantly, it extends the
Jabber instant messages system to a kind of whiteboard system. Just
like ordinary text messages, you may send complete whiteboards to
other users, share a whiteboard in a one-to-one chat, or groupchat.
Perhaps it is better to describe it using the desktop metaphor.
Just like your computer has a desktop with files, symbols and windows,
this whiteboard is similar, but instead of using files and folders,
it actually shows the contents of these files. That is, for an image
file we show the actual image, an mp3 is shown as a minimal player etc.
This should work in a modular way using a plugin architecture; a plugin
is responsible for a set of MIME types, how they should be displayed in
the whiteboard, user interactions, any playback or whatever is relevant.
And most importantly, these items are shared with other users in a form
that depends on the type, such as single message (like an email),
one-to-one chat, or groupchat.
The Jabber system:
* Jabber Server: The Jabber Instant Messaging system is an XML based
system that works similar to ICQ, AIM etc. It delivers messages
seamlessly between many instant messaging system and Jabber clients.
This application is a Jabber client, but it is not a normal Jabber
client since it delivers much more than just text messages. Visit
"www.jabber.org" or "www.jabberstudio.org" for more information,
and to obtain your own server.
* To get started with a Jabber server, register an account (if you
haven't already) using the Jabber/New Account... menu, and fill in
the fields. When you later log on, you do it from the Jabber/Login...
menu, and pick the server you have an account at. Or just use the
Setup Assistant menu command.
Installation:
* No installation whatsoever is needed. Just unzip and double click.
* If you want to run from sources the simplest is to get a tclkit from
http://www.equi4.com/pub/tk/downloads.html, 8.4.6 or later. A complete
Tcl/Tk installation can be obtained from http://tcl.activestate.com.
Be sure to have at least 8.4.6 for Coccinella 0.95.9 or later.
Testing:
It is to be considered as a developer release, so beware. *It is far
from being bug free*. The current releases get tested on Mac OS X 10.2,
Linux RH 9, Windows 2000, and Windows XP.
I would judge this as a beta quality application, which is
reflected in the version number ( < 1.0). No instabilities are known,
however.
Additional Notes:
* This client delivers more data than an ordinary Jabber client, and
data may "get stuck" in the server if karma is too low. This only
happend if you does a lot of drawings in a short period of time.
Documentation:
See the home site for current info: http://coccinella.im
There are a few additional README files, README-sounds, README-resources,
which may be helpful if you want to do customization.
Translations:
Many thanks to contributors. See coccinella/msgs/README_encodings if you
feel like contributing.
Swedish: myself
German: Hermann J. Beckers
Dutch: Sander Devrieze
French: Guillaume Ayoub
Italian: Mirko Graziani
Spanish: Nestor Diaz & Antonio Cano damas
Polish: Zbigniew Baniewski
Danish: Mogens Pedersen
Russian: Gescheit
Korean: Dylan Park
Bug Reports:
Either send them to me directly: matben@users.sourceforge.net , or report them
at Source Forge: http://sourceforge.net/tracker/?group_id=68334&atid=520863
This address can be reached via the Info/Report Bug menu.
Known Bugs:
* Althogh the server is using a safe interpreter for the critical parts
of canvas drawings which uses the dangerous eval, it probably does not
cover all possible attacks from an evil client.
* If large items are transported between clients, such as images, or
movies, operations on these items before they have been completely
received by remote clients are lost.
* There are synchronization issues if two users happen to edit an item
exactly simultanously. This applies only to some operations, and is
not very likely to happen, but must anyway be considered.
Similar synchronization problems exist in some other areas, applets
for instance.
* It may sometimes happen that the internal settings become confused
which results in a corrupt preference file. If you suspect this then
delete this file:
Unix/Linux ~/.coccinella/whiteboard
Windows .../Coccinella/WBPREFS.TXT (search for it)
Mac OS X ~/Library/Preferences/Coccinella/Whiteboard Prefs
* Printer support is still in its infacy. You may export the canvas to
XML/SVG format which can be imported into a web browser using the free
plugin from www.adobe.com, and print from inside your browser.
* There are numerous "details" that need to be fixed. After all, it is an
alpha quality software!
* If you run from sources: some versions of the ActiveState distro (8.4.10->)
have problems with the Img package which can cause a startup crash.
The solutions is to trash /usr/local/ActiveState/lib/Img. These versions
may also create problems with the emoticon sets. If this happens try to
run the single file executable tclkit for your platform instead, see:
http://coccinella.sf.net for a link.
As always, the code needs cleaning and restructuring. If you want to see
what is happening "inside" you may set the debug level to a nonzero value.
You set this either in the source file Coccinella.tcl, or specified
at the command line as:
set argv "-debugLevel 4"
and launch it. You need to have the source distribution and a Tcl/Tk
installation to do this.
As an alternative on mac and windows, pick the Jabber/Debug menu, and do:
set debugLevel 4
Developers:
The main SourceForge page: http://coccinella.sourceforge.net/
For building the coccinella from sources see:
http://coccinella.sourceforge.net/build/
o It is possible to run and build the Coccinella without whiteboard support.
You just drag out the coccinella/whiteboard/ folder.
XML/SVG:
You may try using SVG for drawing. Start Coccinella with arguments:
"-jprefs_useSVGT 1 -jprefs_getIPraw 0 -prefs_trptMethod http"
Still in its infancy, though.
Distribution:
It is distributed under the standard GPL license.
(c) Copyright by Mats Bengtsson (1999-2007).
Whiteboard tool buttons are stolen from Gimp and slightly changed (Thank You!).
Other graphics elements, see README-Crystal-icons.
Home:
The present home of the Coccinella is at
"http://coccinella.im", where links to the extensions also
can be found.
Look at "http://coccinella.sourceforge.net" which is the official
developer home.
The Beetle:
Don't be afraid for the 'Coccinella' (ladybug), it's tame!
Who:
It has been developed by:
Mats Bengtsson
matben@users.sourceforge.net
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