Re: [Gaim-devel] A "bot plugin" protocol

[Eugene T. <tal...@ci...>]

Thanks for the tip, but I was looking for something a bit more
user-friendly. If you want to distribute one of these 'bots to a
non-technical audience, I think registering a new SN for every bot you
wish to run is too much to ask.
Also, when you talk to another signed on SN, it pops up an extra window
that reverse mirrors the conversation. (and using switches like some of
the existing perl plugins on the same SN prevents the changing of aliases
to convey information).
I was looking for something as simple as
SmarterChild when it was still around.
Imagine simply going to the plugins pane, checking "FriendlyBot" and being
able to start a conversation.

The trouble I'm having when looking at the source is that this sort of
plugin doesn't really follow one of the concrete patterns, and that I
wouldn't know how to integrate its api with the rest of the gaim api (for
writing perl bots, for example)

-Eugene Talagrand

On Mon, 8 Dec 2003, Bryce C wrote:

> Date: Mon, 08 Dec 2003 19:53:27 -0700
> From: Bryce C <Plug@BryceCo.Net>
> To: Eugene Talagrand <tal...@ci...>
> Cc: gai...@li...
> Subject: Re: [Gaim-devel] A "bot plugin" protocol
>
> You could also do something similar by adding yourself to your list and
> using a plugin and special triggers on that SN. Personally, I've been
> content to write my own perl scripts, as AIM has no limits on the number
> of SNs you can have.
>
> On Mon, 2003-12-08 at 16:59, Eugene Talagrand wrote:
> > First of all I would like to congratulate the developpers of the gaim
> > project for the improvements in architecture that have been made in the
> > last six months. With the core/ui split, the decoupling of the perl
> > interface and documentation for the API, I feel confident I won't break
> > anything by playing around with the code (esp as I'm not a GTK+ guru).
> >
> > Something that I would like to see in Gaim is a "bot plugin" protocol.
> > Basically, this would be a facility to write local ActiveBuddy type
> > programs to communicate with a user from their buddy list.
> > Some examples for this I can think of are:
> >
> > -> A bot that changes its alias to the current value of a given stock
> > price. Whey you talk to it, you can ask for articles on the stock market,
> > or query other stock prices.
> > -> A bot that changes its alias to your CPU temperature for example. When
> > you start a conversation with it, you can query for different system
> > information.
> > -> A weather bot
> > -> An Eliza AI bot.
> > -> A quiz bot or a 'fortune' bot.
> > -> Etc.
> >
> > I was looking at how to implement this.
> > ->The simplest way I could think of is using the current plugin interface
> > to add buddies to your buddy list. These would not be real
> > buddies, of course, but controlled by a script. Unfortunately,
> > update_presence and the like do not seem to work. (Do they only work on
> > self? Documentation on Prerequisites for each of these functions would be
> > very helpful - I have been digging through *.xs files)
> >
> > ->A more sophisticated way would be to write a protocol plugin. This
> > plugin would read its own plugins to drive virtual buddies. However, there
> > are many downsides to this.
> > * There is no username or password, so it does not really fit the model of
> > the other plugins.
> > * Also, it would be nice not to have to manually log into this plugin, or
> > set it on autoconnect so that it bypasses the main Gaim connection window.
> > * The plugin architecture would be different than that of the rest of
> > Gaim, as I don't know how it would integrate??
> > * It would be nice if this plugin automatically loaded other plugins,
> > being both a protocol and a loader plugin. I don't know how this could be
> > done.
> >
> >
> > Has anyone else considered this feature. Has there been any work on it? I
> > would like to implement this myself, but being relatively new to the Gaim,
> > I'd like maybe a few comments on this?
> >
> >
> > -Eugene Talagrand
> >
> >
> > Any word on when libgaim will be ready for production use?
> >
> >
> >
> >
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> --
> Bryce C <Plug@BryceCo.Net>
> CoBryce Communications
>