Tkabber is a

GPL The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was the first copyleft for general u ...

instant messaging Instant messaging (IM) technology is a type of online chat allowing real-time text transmission over the Internet or another computer network. Messages are typically transmitted between two or more parties, when each user inputs text and trigge ...

client Client(s) or The Client may refer to: * Client (business) * Client (computing), hardware or software that accesses a remote service on another computer * Customer or client, a recipient of goods or services in return for monetary or other valuable ...

for the

XMPP Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP, originally named Jabber) is an open communication protocol designed for instant messaging (IM), presence information, and contact list maintenance. Based on XML (Extensible Markup Language), it ...

protocol which uses the Tk toolkit for the

GUI The GUI ( "UI" by itself is still usually pronounced . or ), graphical user interface, is a form of user interface that allows users to interact with electronic devices through graphical icons and audio indicator such as primary notation, inste ...

. It runs on anything to which

Tcl/Tk Tk is a free and open-source, cross-platform widget toolkit that provides a library of basic elements of GUI widgets for building a graphical user interface (GUI) in many programming languages. Tk provides a number of widgets commonly needed to ...

is ported: almost any X-based system (namely, any

Linux Linux ( or ) is a family of open-source Unix-like operating systems based on the Linux kernel, an operating system kernel first released on September 17, 1991, by Linus Torvalds. Linux is typically packaged as a Linux distribution, which ...

and *BSD,

Solaris Solaris may refer to: Arts and entertainment Literature, television and film * ''Solaris'' (novel), a 1961 science fiction novel by Stanisław Lem ** ''Solaris'' (1968 film), directed by Boris Nirenburg ** ''Solaris'' (1972 film), directed by ...

, etc.),

Microsoft Windows Windows is a group of several proprietary graphical operating system families developed and marketed by Microsoft. Each family caters to a certain sector of the computing industry. For example, Windows NT for consumers, Windows Server for serv ...

, and

Mac OS X macOS (; previously OS X and originally Mac OS X) is a Unix operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc. since 2001. It is the primary operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. Within the market of ...

History

Tkabber was started by Alexey Shchepin (also the author of

ejabberd ejabberd is an Extensible Messaging and Presence Protocol (XMPP) application server and an MQ Telemetry Transport (MQTT) broker, written mainly in the Erlang programming language. It can run under several Unix-like operating systems such as ma ...

XMPP server) in 2002. Several people contributed into it, notably Marshal T. Rose, Michail Litvak and Sergei Golovan, who is the current maintainer of the project. In October 2004, Alexey Shchepin won an Honorable Mention for Tkabber in the

ActiveState ActiveState Software Inc is a Canadian software company headquartered in Vancouver, British Columbia. It develops, sells, and supports cross-platform development tools for dynamic languages such as Perl, PHP, Python, Ruby, and Tcl, as well as ...

Programmer Network's Coolest Tk Screenshot Contest. Coincidentally, another Jabber/XMPP client was a Grand Prize Winner: Mats Bengtsson for

Coccinella ''Coccinella'' is the most familiar genus of ladybird (or, in North America, ladybug). The elytra of most species are of a red or orange colour, punctuated with black spots or bands. The genus occurs throughout the Northern Hemisphere, but has on ...

.Happy 5 birthday, Tkabber!
/ref> The word "Tkabber" is built of two words: "Tk" and "Jabber" which alludes to the GUI toolkit used and the family of network protocols implemented. No one really knows how it is pronounced. Russian speakers (including the Tkabber's author, who invented this name) pronounce it as 'kabber

Availability

Tkabber is primarily distributed in the form of two

tar Tar is a dark brown or black viscous liquid of hydrocarbons and free carbon, obtained from a wide variety of organic materials through destructive distillation. Tar can be produced from coal, wood, petroleum, or peat. "a dark brown or black bit ...

balls containing the code of its "core" and standard external plugins. Since Tkabber is written in an interpreted language, it does not require any "building" for a target platform. Nevertheless, Tkabber is packaged by most of known

distros and

FreeBSD FreeBSD is a free and open-source Unix-like operating system descended from the Berkeley Software Distribution (BSD), which was based on Research Unix. The first version of FreeBSD was released in 1993. In 2005, FreeBSD was the most popular ...

. Also special "all-in-one" packages for

are provided (they don't require separate installation of the

runtime) in the forms of

installer Installation (or setup) of a computer program (including device drivers and plugins), is the act of making the program ready for execution. Installation refers to the particular configuration of a software or hardware with a view to making it us ...

and starpack. Starpack for Linux x86 is also provided.

Mission statement

The goal of the Tkabber project is to create a

cross-platform In computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several computing platforms. Some cross-platform software r ...

client which is

feature-rich In software, the term feature has several definitions. The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers defines the term ''feature'' in IEEE 829 as " distinguishing characteristic of a software item (e.g., performance, portability, or functio ...

and ''is easy to hack.'' Tkabber is written in

Tcl TCL or Tcl or TCLs may refer to: Business * TCL Technology, a Chinese consumer electronics and appliance company **TCL Electronics, a subsidiary of TCL Technology * Texas Collegiate League, a collegiate baseball league * Trade Centre Limited ...

allowing it can be customized without knowledge of a low-level language such as

C++ C++ (pronounced "C plus plus") is a high-level general-purpose programming language created by Danish computer scientist Bjarne Stroustrup as an extension of the C programming language, or "C with Classes". The language has expanded significan ...

and its build system.

References

XMPP Software: Clients

Tkabber on JabberFR

Tkabber on debian packages

Happy 7th birthday, ejabberd!

Tkabber on Tcler's Wiki

External links

Official Tkabber website

Official Tkabber Wiki

Tkabber Fossil repository

TclXMPP Fossil repository

Tkabber plugins Fossil repository

Fossil repository containing third-party plugins
{{Instant messaging Free instant messaging clients Free XMPP clients Instant messaging clients for Linux MacOS instant messaging clients Windows instant messaging clients Portable software Free software programmed in Tcl Software that uses Tk (software)

History

Availability

Mission statement

See also

References

External links