cli im clients and notification

mattca · 02-03-2010, 10:14 AM

hi all.. i generally prefer to use command line programs as much as possible, and i've been using centerim for my instant messenging needs. it works really well, except for one thing: it doesn't send notifications to my task bar (i'm using awesome wm, if it's relevent), so i end up missing most of my messages.

does anyone know of any cli im clients which do send notifications to the task bar? alternately, i could hack centerim to do this.. does anyone know of any reason why that might not be an option?

thanks!

evo2 · 02-03-2010, 10:32 AM

Have you looked at finch? It uses lib purple like pidgin does, so notification stuff may be built in.

Cheers,

Evo2.

mattca · 02-03-2010, 10:49 AM

thanks, giving it a go now. the interface is MUCH less intuitive than centerim. i can't even figure out how to move up and down through my buddy list. up and down don't do anything, neither do j and k.

just in case, does anyone know of any other options?

i92guboj · 02-03-2010, 10:59 AM

I know of mcabber, no idea if it can send notifications at all.

You could also try something more extensible (as in "scriptable") like irssi or weechat. They can be used to do IM via bitlbee, and you might have some luck with the notification thing via some scripting. Weechat supports at least lua, python, ruby and perl I think, don't remember about irssi.

mattca · 02-03-2010, 11:55 AM

thanks for the suggestions, i'll look into them.

i forgot to mention, i need msn support. i have to use msn for work, which is why i need the client to start out with. i mention that because it looks like mcabber doesn't support msn.

really all i need is a command to query my unread message status.. then i can just throw it into a text box widget in my wm. doesn't look like centerim does that.. or finch. hopefully one of these you mention will work.