Kopete's Plugins
Table of Contents
Kopete offers plugins that provide functions that aren't essential for messaging, but are useful for some people.
Alias lets you define your own commands, eg /hello, in Kopete that run scripts and output the result in the chat window. If you know how the alias Unix command works, this is just the same
Auto Replace allows you to correct frequently misspelled words or save typing certain words using abbreviations.
The Bookmarks plugin creates bookmarks in your KDE bookmarks list from URLs that are received in IM messages.
Connection Status is useful for modem users or others who don't have a permanent Internet connection. It watches for an active Internet connection and sets your accounts online when it detects you have dialed up.
Highlight works a little like email filters, in that it allows you to make things happen in response to particular messages. As well as highlighting the text, you can play sounds.
The History plugin, when activated, records conversations using any IM system and allows you to view old conversations later. A item appears in each Metacontact's context menu so you can view the message history for that metacontact.
The following item is added to the Contact List's menus:
(Enabled when a contact is selected) This displays the History browser for the selected contact.
The following items are added to the Chat window's menus:
This enables you to view the next oldest set of messages from the History in the Chat window.
This shows the next newest set of messages from the History in the Chat window.
This shows the most recent set of messages from the History in the Chat window.
The OTR plugin allows you to encrypt conversations using the Off-The-Record encryption method. This encryption method basically works like the PGP encryption but it is optimized for instant messaging and handles the key excange on its own. The only thing you have to do, is to make sure that you really are writing to the person you expect by using one of OTR's authentication mechanisms.
The following item is added to the Contact List's menus:
(Enabled when a contact is selected) You can set the encryption policy for each contact here. Setting this entry to "Default" causes Kopete to use the default setting in the configure dialog
The following items are added to the Chat window's menus:
This lets you initiate an OTR encrypted session.
This lets you end a previously established OTR session.
Use this menu entry if you wish to authenticate the contact.
In the setting dialog you have various options to set the modules behaviour during your chatsessions. The most important of them ist the default policy configuration. Set the policy to "Opportunistic" if you wish Kopete to check if you contacts support OTR and establish an encrypted session on its own or to "Manual" if you wish to control each encryption state on your own. The options "Always" and "Never" are recommended only for experienced users that wish to set the policy on a per-contact base. In the "Private Keys" Pane you have the possibility to create you personal keypair for each account. You don't need to do this manually. If an account does not have a keypair it will be generated automatically the first time it is required. In the "Known Fingerprints" tab you have the possibility to see, verify and delete known public fingerprints of your contacts.
You've probably received email from people pretending to be banks, credit agencies, even wealthy Nigerian expatriates. People lie about who they are all the time on the Internet. Authentication is a way to make sure that nobody can lie to you about who they are when they use OTR.
You should authenticate a buddy the very first time that you talk to them using OTR. If you don't, then you can't really be sure that someone else isn't impersonating them or trying to listen in on your conversation. However, once you've authenticated your buddy once, you don't have to do it again. OTR will automatically do the authentication for all of your future conversations with that buddy.
The only exceptions occur when your buddy switches between multiple computers or multiple IM accounts. In this case, you will need to authenticate once for each computer and account. Once you've done this, your buddy can freely use any of the computers you've authenticated them on, and OTR will recognize them automatically. If your buddy uses a new computer or account that OTR does not recognize, a message will pop up in your conversation window telling you about it.
Important:If you are using OTR version 3.0.0 or earlier, or you would like to continue using the old fingerprints method, please refer to the help on fingerprints. The remainder of this page assumes that you are using a recent copy of OTR, and the standard authentication method.
To authenticate someone, open a conversation with them and click on "Authenticate Contact" on the OTR button. OTR will ask both you and your friend to enter a secret known only to the two of you.
If you both enter the same thing, then you know that you are really talking to your friend. Any imposter should have a hard time guessing what you're typing in, so you'll be able to catch them in the act.
This method of authentication is only effective if it's hard for an imposter to guess what you're typing, but easy for your friend. The following is an example of what not to do:
Here you are telling the other person exactly what to do. An imposter can figure out what to type in just as easily as your friend can. A better way to pick a secret would be something like this:
Now an imposter has no idea what to type in. Your friend, on the other hand, knows exactly what you're talking about. When OTR tells you that the secrets matched, you can be sure that you are really talking to your friend.
When you have entered your secret and hit OK, the message "Authenticatig contact..." appears in the chatwindow. After a few seconds the result should show up in the chatwindow and display one of the following messages:
This means that authentication has been a complete success. Your buddy entered the same secret that you did, and so they are not an imposter. The OTR button will automatically change to "Private", showing that conversations with this buddy are safe.
This means that although there were no errors, your buddy did not enter the same text as you. You should try again, making sure that you are clear about what to type (for example, "the restaurant name in lower case"). If you repeatedly get this result, you should view your buddy with suspicion.
This means that something has gone wrong and the process could not complete normally. This will happen if your buddy hits "cancel" or fails to receive one of your messages. In this case, you should simply try again. If you try several times and keep getting an error, you should view your buddy with suspicion.
KopeteTeX allows scientists and mathematicians to hold conversations using the LaTeX markup language. Expressions entered within $$ are rendered as a graphic in the chatwindow, and can be cut and pasted as the original Latex. To use this plugin you must have LaTeX installed
In conjunction with a webcam and the Video4Linux package, this lets you detect when you're no longer at your computer and have Kopete automatically become Away.
With the Now Listening plugin, let people you're chatting with know what you're listening to, by typing /media in a chat, or with -> in the Chat window.
This plugin uses a database to gather information about your contacts' activity patterns. You can use this to see when a contact is usually online, for example.
Text Effect applies funny effects to your messages before sending them, like coloring them or changing the case of the words. Just don't forget you have activated it - we've had bug reports from forgetful Text Effect users!
The Translator plugin lets you define a preferred language for each Metacontact, and then translates messages to or from them using web based translation services such as Google™ and Babelfish™. Set your own preferred language in the Configure Plugins dialog. Each contact's preferred language can be set on its context menu.
The following item is added to the Chat window's menus:
If you did not turn on automatic translation, this translates the current chat.
Web Presence allows you to publicize your IM presence on the Web. Give it the path to a file on an FTP server (for example), and it will upload a short piece of HTML to that file, which you can include in your homepage. KDE's network transparency makes this simple. Useful for bloggers to make friends with, or you could use it to use IM in your business.
Example: sftp://username@somehost.org/path/to/homes/user/im.html uses the SFTP protocol to upload your presence directly onto the webserver.
See the KIO manuals for tips on specific network protocols.
Pipes allows you to pipe incoming or outgoing messages through an external script or executable. An incoming message will be piped through the executable before it reaches your chat window, while outgoing messages will be piped through the executable before they are sent over the internet. Pipes can recieve text in one of three forms:
The body of the message, in plain ASCII text
The body of the message, in HTML, as it would be if your chat peer had sent HTML to you, which will be rendered in the chat window
An XML document that describes all the characteristics of the message, including the HTML body.
For most purposes, you probably want to use the plain text body or HTML text body options. These can be used with programs such as translators or summarizers. The XML format is only appropriate for use with a program or script written specifically to work with this plugin. If you would like to write a program or script that does work with this plugin, see the more detailed documentation.
