#100 Extend libpurple D-Bus interface

[Stefan Becker]

The question if SIPE can be controlled via the libpurple D-Bus interface has been raised in the past, e.g. in [8bb88508]. After studying the libpurple source code I came to the conclusion that it is possible for third-party plugins to extend the libpurple D-Bus interface with own function calls.

A first example for SipeJoinConferenceUri has been pushed as git commit 3cd9e145. Example code how to use the the API from a script has been included.

[Stefan Becker]

Implemented in git commit 5a68e728

List of D-Bus interfaces and some example code can be found in the README file.

[Brian J. Murrell]

This is cool!

Just to contibute back a bit, I wrote this URL Open wrapper script which I put into a file named "open-url" in my $PATH somewhere:

#!/bin/bash

case "$1" in
    http*://meet.example.com/*)
        join_conference "$1"
    ;;
    *)
        exec /opt/google/chrome/google-chrome --new-window "$@"
    ;;
esac

Which I then tell my desktop (i.e. GNOME, Cinnamon, etc.) how to open with this in ~/.local/share/applications/open-url.desktop:

[Desktop Entry]
Version=1.0
Name=Open A URL
GenericName=Open A URL
Comment=Open A URL
Exec=/path/to/open-url %U
Terminal=false
X-MultipleArgs=false
Type=Application
Icon=chromium-browser
Categories=Network;WebBrowser;
StartupWMClass=Chromium-browser
StartupNotify=true
X-Ayatana-Desktop-Shortcuts=NewWindow;Incognito;TempProfile
MimeType=x-scheme-handler/unknown;x-scheme-handler/about;text/html;text/xml;application/xhtml_xml;x-scheme-handler/http;x-scheme-handler/https;

A path may or may not be needed in the Exec line. I have not tested without.

I then put into a file called join_conference that is also in my $PATH:

#!/usr/bin/python

import sys
import os
import dbus

myname = os.path.basename(sys.argv[0])

bus       = dbus.SessionBus()
object    = bus.get_object("im.pidgin.purple.PurpleService",
                           "/im/pidgin/purple/PurpleObject")
purple    = dbus.Interface(object, "im.pidgin.purple.PurpleInterface")
accountId = purple.PurpleAccountsFind("brian@example.com", 'prpl-sipe')

if myname == "call_number":
    number = sys.argv[1]
    if number[0] is not "+":
        print "Phone number must start with +"
        sys.exit(1)
    purple.SipeCallPhoneNumber(accountId, number);
elif myname == "join_conference":
    purple.SipeJoinConferenceWithUri(accountId, sys.argv[1]);

As you can see, you can link the above to "call_number" to be able to call phone numbers if your SIPE account is configured/allowed to do so.

Just set your desktop's "Preferred Applications" entry for a browser to "Open A URL" and you should now be able to click on Lync meeting/converence URIs and be joined to the conference.

You might also have/want to adjust the open-url script to point at your preferred browser and/or alter the command-line arguments. Personally, I prefer links I click on to open in new windows as you an see.