The Chandler Project Blog

The Chandler plugin framework allows developers to extend the application’s functionality in new and fun ways. For example, I have been working on a Google Calendar sync plugin (more about that in another post) and a plugin to hook into Twitter. Twitter is sort of a global IM framework, and I thought it would be cool to have Chandler be able to subscribe to Twitter activity and display it in the UI. The first Twitter plugin I wrote used HTTP polling to download Twitter messages, but I have now replaced it with a more general XMPP plugin. XMPP (formerly known as “Jabber”) is an open IM protocol, and is much better suited to real-time data exchange. This plugin enhances the Chandler accounts dialog to allow you to set up an XMPP account. From then on, any XMPP message the account receives (not just Twitter, but Jaiku, etc.) will be added as a calendar event to an “XMPP” collection in the sidebar. These events can be stamped as tasks, dragged to other collections, etc. You can view them either in the Calendar or in the table view.

For example:

The plugin is still considered experimental, and you shouldn’t try it in a Chandler that contains data you care about, but if you’d like to play around with it, the tar file can be downloaded from the python ‘Cheeseshop’ (the central registry for Python packages). Once you have downloaded the file, use Chandler’s “Plugins > Install” menu to select it. Assuming you already have an XMPP/Jabber account somewhere (for instance, I use Google Talk), and you have already linked that account to get notified by Twitter, Jaiku, etc. via IM, you will be able to add a new “XMPP/Jabber” account into Chandler’s “File > Accounts” dialog. After you have closed the accounts dialog, restart Chandler, give it a minute and your Twitter messages should start appearing in the XMPP collection.

The XMPP account settings you’ll need to use Google Talk are:

   User name: username@gmail.com
   Server: talk.google.com
   Resource: (just leave blank)
   Port: 5223, Use SSL Checked

This new plugin will soon form the basis for other IM-based services like instant-sharing.

~morgen

This entry was posted on Friday, October 19th, 2007 at 10:58 am and is filed under Chandler Desktop Development. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.