How to use the Pidgin plugin

Compiling the plugin on Windows (32bit)

1. Download the pidgin source here.
2. Copy the folder libpurple to your library folder (e.g. C:/Libraries/libpurple).
3. Download glib-2.39.0 here and move it into your library folder as well (e.g. C:/Libraries/glib-2.39.0).
4. Add a cache entry in cmake named CMAKE_LIBRARY_PATH and set it to your library folder you used before (e.g. C:/Libraries).
5. Run cmake in the pidgin folder, if you only want to build pidgin. Otherwise run it on root level of the repository.

Compiling the plugin on Linux

1. Make sure you have everything you need to build the whisper library itself.
2. Download the glib and libpurple libraries. If you don´t find them in your repository, check the Windows section for links to the library pages.
3. Cmake will search the standard include directories (usr/include & usr/lib) for the libraries. If you install them to the default locations, everything should run smoothly.
4. Run cmake pointing to the root folder of the whisper library to build the whole project. If you want to build the plugin only, point to the pidgin subfolder.
5. Put the whisperLibraryPidgin.so in the purple plugin folder. The purple folder is hidden. The path is "/home/yourusername/.purple/plugins". You might need to create the plugin subfolder first.

Using the plugin

Create an account

1. Start pidgin with admin rights or as super user. (In Ubuntu 12.04 the plugin did not show, when starting with sudo. We did not find a solution yet. 13.10 worked fine.)
2. Click on Accounts->Manage Accounts to open a pop up named Accounts.
3. Click Add.. to add a new account and set Whisper Library as the Protocol.
4. The username is up to you and only used locally.
5. Click on the tab Advanced for more options. The Network Adapter ID is the unique name of your network adapter used for sending and receiving messages. The standard value should be fine. Below is the Covert Channel ID which specifies the covert channel used for communication. You can display a list of available network adapters and covert channels after creating an account.
6. Finish the account creation by clicking Add.

Adding a buddy

1. Click on Buddies->Add Buddy... to open the dialog.
2. Your buddies username is his local ip address (e.g. 192.168.1.144).
3. Finish by clicking Add
4. Your buddy will show up in the contact list. Please note that the online status is not supported, so contacts will always appear as online even if they are not.
5. To communicate both you and your buddy have to be online at the same time and use the same covert channel (see Configuration).

Configuration

• To show a list of available network adapters, click on Accounts ,move your mouse over your Whisper Library account and select Show available adapters. The part before the ":" is the device name. Copy and paste it to your account configuration. Note that a restart of the plugin is required to change the adapter.

• To switch the used covert channel click, on Accounts, move your mouse over your Whisper Library account and select Show available covert channels. The part in brackets "[..]" is the id that is used for the configuration. Please note that a restart of the plugin is required after changing the covert channel.