ANNOUNCE: Empathy 0.9

With this version comes important things !

libempathy and libempathy-gtk are now installed libraries with public C API. You can see documentation (gtkdoc) with devhelp. That means other applications can now link on libempathy(-gtk) to integrate IM support. At guadec I seen IM stuff in abiword and inkscape, they both implement everything themself with a different UI. Using empathy those projects can support collaborative edition very easilly using stream/dbus tubes (not merged into gabble yet). Python bindings is underdevelopment bug #457660. You can begin to write other language bindings, but keep in mind that the API can change at any time !

Thanks to Vincent Untz reviewing the whole empathy UI, there is now 62 open bugs for Empathy ! Most should be really easy to fix, so if you have free time and want to hack on the future GNOME IM client please help me to fix bugs !

The 0.9 release announce:

Empathy 0.9 is now available for download from:
http://download.gnome.org/sources/empathy/0.9/

58ae0939f44d91f9887f235ee1bc3e52 empathy-0.9.tar.gz
74c7255a56ffa8e37147a1a0cfe40565 empathy-0.9.tar.bz2

What is it?
===========
Empathy consists of a rich set of reusable instant messaging widgets, and a GNOME client using those widgets. It uses Telepathy and Nokia’s Mission Control, and reuses Gossip’s UI. The main goal is to permit desktop integration by providing libempathy and libempathy-gtk libraries. libempathy-gtk is a set of powerful widgets that can be embeded into any GNOME application.

Where can I find out more?
==========================
You can visit the project web site:
http://live.gnome.org/Empathy

What’s New?
===========
– Initial room list support. It doesn’t work yet but most of the code is ready.
– Tell the user when a message can’t be sent.
– Set all contacts from salut protocol to the “Local Network” group.
– Fix NetworkManager support.
– Iconify main window to the status icon like in rhythmbox.
– Show avatars in chatrooms.
– Fix avatar not being requested when empathy starts.
– Remove unused nickname entry and use a GtkTable for room information.
– Set a window title and fix alignment of widgets for contact related dialogs
(add, edit/view info).
– Adding initial API documentation using gtk-doc.
– Auto-accept to publish presence to contacts that are in our subscribe list.
When accepting a pending contact add it to publish and subscribe list.
– Filter incoming text channels and make status icon flash when there we
receive a new message. Dispatch the channel only when we get a message and
the user click on the icon.
– Install libempathy and libempathy-gtk and make their API public. The API is
NOT STABLE AT ALL !!!

Bugs Fixed:
===========
– Fixed #451564, crash in Empathy Instant Messenger: Nothing — having open c… (Xavier Claessens)
– Fixed #454277, crash in Empathy Instant Messenger: Started empathy and was … (Xavier Claessens)
– Fixed #443162, MSN account settings need a better UI (Cosimo Cecchi)
– Fixed #444490, Gossip–>Empathy conversion (Mario Danic, Xavier Claessens)
– Fixed #452536, Provide a nice API to launch EmpathyLogManager (Xavier Claessens)
– Fixed #455240, add EMPATHY_LOGFILE env variable (Guillaume Desmottes)
– Fixed #457992, Rounded avatars (Raphael Slinckx)
– Fixed #458106, Iconify nicely to the status icon (Jaap A. Haitsma)

Translations:
=============
– Updated sv: Daniel Nylander
– Updated pl: Tomasz Dominikowski
– Updated es: Jorge Gonzalez
– Updated ja: Takeshi AIHANA

Manual Translations:
====================
None

25 July 2007
Empathy team

Empathy fun

Senko hacked a little epiphany plugin using python binding for libempathy. It shows how empathy can be used for IM intergration into GNOME desktop.

Here is his blog post with screenshots !

I’ll merge python binding patch into empathy HEAD as soon as possible, at the moment it’s available in bugzilla.

For any question you can talk to me at Guadec until sunday morning 🙂