1 .\" Copyright (c) 2006, Sadrul Habib Chowdhury <sadrul@users.sf.net>
3 .\" This is free documentation; you can redistribute it and/or
4 .\" modify it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as
5 .\" published by the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of
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13 .\" This manual is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
14 .\" but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
15 .\" MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
16 .\" GNU General Public License for more details.
18 .\" You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public
19 .\" License along with this manual; if not, write to the Free
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24 Finch \- A Pimpin' Penguin console frontend to libpurple. Instant
28 \fBfinch \fI[options]\fR
32 \fBfinch\fR is a console-based modular messaging client based on libpurple
33 which is capable of connecting to AIM, MSN, Yahoo!, XMPP, ICQ, IRC, SILC,
34 Novell GroupWise, Lotus Sametime, Zephyr, Gadu-Gadu, and QQ all at once. It has
35 many common features found in other clients, as well as many unique features.
36 Finch is not endorsed by or affiliated with America Online, ICQ, Microsoft, or
40 The following options are provided by \fBfinch\fR using the standard GNU
43 .B \-c, \-\-config=\fIDIR\fB
44 Use \fIDIR\fR as the directory for config files instead of \fI~/.purple\fR.
47 Print debugging messages to stderr and start with the \fBDebug\fR window. The
48 messages shown in the \fBDebug\fR window are the same as the ones printed in
52 Print this help and exit.
55 Don't automatically login when \fBfinch\fR starts. Sets all accounts to
59 Display the version information window.
62 You can use the following shortcuts (see the "Widget Actions" section for a more complete list):
65 Bring up a list of available actions. You can use this list to access the
66 accounts window, plugins window, preference window etc.
69 Go to the next window.
72 Go to the previous window.
75 Show the list of windows. You can select and jump to any window from the list.
78 Close the current window.
84 Start moving a window. Press the cursor keys to move the window. When you are
85 done, press \fBEnter\fR or \fBEscape\fR.
88 Start resizing a window. Press the cursor keys to resize the window. When you
89 are done, press \fBEnter\fR or \fBEscape\fR.
92 Dump the contents of the screen in HTML format.
95 Move the position of the current window in the window list one place to the
99 Move the position of the current window in the window list one place to the
103 Refresh the windows. This is useful after resizing the terminal window.
106 Jump to the 1st, 2nd ... 10th window.
109 Jump to the next URGENT (highlighted) window.
111 .B Alt \+ Shift \+ Tab
112 Jump to the previous URGENT (highlighted) window.
114 .B Ctrl \+ o \fR or \fB F10
115 Bring up the menu (if there is one) for a window.
117 .B F11 \fR or \fB Ctrl \+ x
118 Popup the context menu (if there is one) for the selected widget.
121 Show a list of available key-bindings for the current widget in focus.
124 Switch to the next workspace
127 Switch to the previous workspace
130 Tag (or untag) the current window
133 Attached all the tagged windows to the current workspace
136 Show the workspace list
139 Create a new workspace and switch to it
142 \fI~/.gntrc\fR: configuration file for gnt applications.
145 A sample file looks like:
149 color-available = green; black
151 color-away = blue; black
153 color-idle = gray; black
155 color-offline = red; black
157 color-message-sent = cyan; default
159 color-message-received = red; default
161 color-message-highlight = black; green
163 color-message-action = yellow; default
165 color-timestamp = blue; default
167 #See below for details on color
174 # There is experimental mouse support
178 # To use some custom window-manager
180 wm = /usr/local/lib/gnt/s.so
182 # There's also a custom window manager called irssi.so
184 # Remember window-positions based on the titles (on by default)
186 remember_position = 1
188 # Use borderless one-line high buttons
193 # Workspaces are created simply by adding Workspace-X groups as follows:
199 # window-names specifies that windows with these semi-colon separated names are placed
202 window-names = buddylist;debug-window
210 window-names = conversation-window
212 # window-titles specifies that windows with these semi-colon separated titles are placed
213 into this workspace. These are matched as substrings. Window titles take precedence over
216 window-titles = Preferences;Pounce
222 # The RGB values range in [0, 1000]
232 white = 1000; 1000; 1000
236 darkgray = 256; 256; 256
242 normal = white; black
244 highlight = white; blue
246 highlightd = black; gray
248 shadow = black; darkgray
256 disabled = gray; black
258 urgent = green; black
262 # Remap some keys for GntEntry
266 # Remap the up-arrow to the left-arrow
270 # Remap the down-arrow to the right-arrow
278 # Completely ignore the key 'q'
282 # But the following will NOT work
287 # Hitting 'space' will activate a button
295 You can specifiy key-bindings for specific widgets. The following entries in
296 \fI~/.gntrc\fR correspond to the default keybindings for the actions:
308 [GntComboBox::binding]
325 backspace = delete-prev
349 page-down = suggest-next-page
351 page-up = suggest-prev-page
353 c-w = delete-prev-word
355 a-b = cursor-prev-word
357 a-f = cursor-next-word
359 a-d = delete-next-word
361 c-v = clipboard-paste
371 c-down = history-next
388 backspace = move-parent
394 # Following is the default binding for the context-menu
398 # The following will let you open the context-menu in the buddylist with c-b
415 The \fBc-\fR corresponds to the \fBControl\fR key. You can also use \fBctrl-\fR
416 or \fBctr-\fR or \fBctl-\fR to indicate a combination. For alt-keys, you can use
417 one of \fBa-\fR, \fBalt-\fR, \fBm-\fR or \fBmeta-\fR. You can also use
418 \fBhome\fR, \fBend\fR, \fBleft\fR, \fBright\fR etc. keys.
420 To unbind a key which has a default binding, you simply bind it to the empty string. For example, to unbind \fBAlt + q\fR from the Quit function, you would use:
427 You can also specify key-bindings to trigger specific menuitems in windows. For example, the following entry in \fI~/.gntrc\fR will bind \fBCtrl + t\fR to the 'Send IM...' item in the buddylist:
433 The following is the list of IDs of the current menuitems in the buddylist:
456 There is experimental mouse support. You can focus windows, activate buttons,
457 select rows in a list, scroll using the wheel-scroll etc. Selecting text in a
458 text-view copies it to the gnt clipboard. Mouse support is disabled by default,
459 so you need to enable it in \fI~/.gntrc\fR (see the sample above).
461 .SH Window Management
462 The default window management is very limited. But it is possible to write
463 custom window managers to suit your needs. There is a sample window-manager
464 included (named \fIs.so\fR) which adds a little 'close-button' for the windows,
465 removes the borders from the buddylist and pops up new windows in the middle of
466 the screen, instead of at the upper-left corder. It is provided as a sample
467 simple manager, but it should be possible to write more complex managers, and
468 it's very possible that the window-manager API will need to be enhanced. Look at
469 the sample \fI~/.gntrc\fR file above to see how to select a window-manager.
471 It is also possible to rebind the window-manager actions in \fI~/.gntrc\fR, eg:
506 a-C = toggle-clipboard
508 a-/ = help-for-widget
510 a-c-j = window-scroll-down
512 a-c-k = window-scroll-up
514 # The following action is still incomplete, and doesn't have a default binding
518 # Other actions: window-next-urgent, window-prev-urgent
520 # For the sample custom window manager
524 a-b = toggle-buddylist
526 # For the irssi window manager
538 .SH Conversation Commands
539 There are a few helpful commands in addition to the regular commands. You can
540 use these from any conversation to access other windows.
544 for the accounts window.
552 for the debug window.
556 for the plugins window.
560 for the preferences window.
564 for the status window.
567 FAQ for \fBfinch\fR is located at
569 \fIhttp://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/Using%20Finch\fR
572 Known bugs are listed at
574 \fIhttp://developer.pidgin.im/query?status=new&status=assigned&status=reopened&component=finch+%28gnt%2Fncurses%29&order=priority\fR
576 Before sending a bug report, please verify that you have the latest
577 version of \fBfinch\fR and libpurple. Many bugs (major and minor) are
578 fixed at each release, and if yours is out of date, the problem may already have
582 If you fix a bug in \fBfinch\fR (or otherwise enhance it), please submit a
583 patch (using \fBmtn diff > my.diff\fR against the latest version from the
584 Monotone repository) at \fIhttp://developer.pidgin.im/simpleticket\fR
586 You are also encouraged to drop by at \fB#pidgin\fR on \fIirc.freenode.net\fR
587 to discuss development.
590 \fIhttp://pidgin.im/\fR
592 \fIhttp://developer.pidgin.im/\fR
594 \fBpurple-remote\fR(1)
599 This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
600 it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
601 the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
602 (at your option) any later version.
604 This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but
605 \fBWITHOUT ANY WARRANTY\fR; without even the implied warranty of
606 MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the GNU
607 General Public License for more details.
609 You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
610 along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
611 Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02111-1301 USA
614 Sadrul Habib Chowdhury <\fIsadrul@users.sourceforge.net\fR>
617 This manpage was written by Sadrul Habib Chowdhury
618 <\fIsadrul@users.sourceforge.net\fR> and Dennis Ristuccia
619 <\fIdennis@dennisr.net\fR>.