The Coccinella : Jabber application with Whiteboard --------------------------------------------------- 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: The Coccinella can be configured into two main modes. The services supported by these two modes are very different. You switch between these two modes using the Preferences/Preferences... menu, and the "General/Network Setup" panel. The recommended way of running this application is the Jabber way. * 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. * Peer-to-peer: This is the "raw" configuration, where users connect directly to each other, and not via an external server. This mode does not deliver the kind of user administration that is supplied by the Jabber system, such as contact lists, online/offline, offline delivery etc. It is therefore NOT recommended to use. 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. Removable Drives: You can have the Coccinella application on a USB stick, or similar device, and keep the complete preferences etc. on this device without touching the normal drive (not implemented on linux). If you want this to be effective already when you start Coccinella, just make an empty file on this drive as indicated below: G:\CoccinellaPrefs\WBPREFS.TXT (Windows) "/CoccinellaPrefs/Whiteboard Prefs" (Mac OS X; no quotes) You may also do this switch from the Preferences settings, the General panel. Documentation: The source code is the only documentation. At least so far ;-) See also the Info/Help menu. 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 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 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 (1999-2005). 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://hem.fyristorg.com/matben", 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! Special Contributions: * Raymond Tang: resolving links, adding ImageMagick support, local incoming dir... Who: It has been developed by: Mats Bengtsson matben@users.sourceforge.net phone: +46 13 136114 MADE IN SWEDEN --------------------------------------------------------------------------------