shaim

The state of protocol plugins

nospam@example.com (Chris Sammis) — Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:43:55 -0400

I've been meaning to make this post for a while, I apologize for being a Sally Slowpants about it.

First, the bad news. MsnLib is extremely broken. The MSN Live! network finally deprecated the authentication scheme that MsnLib uses. It now uses a SOAP-based scheme for all its clients. Updating to the new authentication scheme would require a pretty major overhaul of MsnLib, and so the shaim dev team is evaluating whether it's worth our time to continue MsnLib support. At this time we're exploring MSN support via Galaxium. It may be a while in coming, but it'll be worth it (hopefully).

Second, the mediocre news. JabberLib hasn't seen any new development since its 0.1 release, largely because it's a developmental dead end. There are existing XMPP solutions for .NET applications that are much more mature and robust than JabberLib, and to that end we'll be leveraging jabber-net as the new XMPP driver for shaim. It will be integrated in the 0.5 release and JabberLib will be sunset at that time.

Is there any good news to be had? Well sure, I've only mentioned two out of three protocol plugins! OscarLib is truckin' along, getting more and more robust and feature-riffic, and shows no signs of slowing down. The shaim framework itself is barreling along to its 0.5 release with many a UI and core improvement to be had. Stay tuned!

JabberLib 0.1 Released

nospam@example.com (Chris Sammis) — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 11:01:35 -0400

I'm pleased to announce that JabberLib, a .NET library for connecting to XMPP (Jabber) servers, has just been released for the very first time on the Internet that you are reading! Right now!

Download the 0.1 release here

Who is this for?

JabberLib, similar to OscarLib and MsnLib, is a component for .NET developers to add Jabber messaging capability to their applications. It is written in C# and is .NET 2.0- (and Mono-) compatible.

Can I use this in my closed-source application that I sell for cash monies?

Sure, go right ahead! JabberLib is released under the MIT License and is freely available to all developers without restriction (or guarantee).

How can I add this to my project?

Quick and easy:

Download the 0.1 binary release and extract it to your project directory

Right-click on your project in Visual Studio and choose "Add reference..."; go to the "Browse" tab and select JabberLib.dll from wherever you extracted it.

See the example code to learn how to instantiate and manipulate a JabberLib Session.

I found a bug / I want to request a feature

Bug reports and feature requests can be logged on the JabberLib project site.

I want to contribute code, kind words, or death threats!

Stop on by #shaim on irc.freenode.net and chat with the developers. Most of us live in the East Coast / Central United States, but someone is always idling in the channel so feel free to leave a message.

I'm About To Break - all your shaim accounts

nospam@example.com (Chris Sammis) — Sun, 09 Mar 2008 14:39:13 -0400

shaim user CuriousDeveloper alerted the shaim-dev team to a flaw in the account / protocol password security system yesterday. If you try to use an account password, protocol passwords become inaccessible and trying to log in causes some pretty fantastic crashes.

Starting with revision 1233, we have created a fix to this problem. You must open the preference file and remove your existing shaim accounts, or shaim will not be able to start! The preference file typically lives in the %APPDATA% directory. Open an Explorer window, type "%APPDATA%\shaim" in the address bar and press Enter, open prefs.xml and remove the <Accounts> section. Be sure to save the status messages and user info if you want to put them back later.

Known issues with this fix: When a new account is created, the password must be entered BEFORE new protocols are added. If the entered password is changed after a protocol is created, it will become inaccessable when the account is saved and may have to be manually removed.

Sorry about this, but be happy that I also took this opportunity to use a stronger encryption scheme to save protocol passwords and cleaned up the storage of the account password in the XML file (it used to cause validation errors).

We've moved!

nospam@example.com (Chris Sammis) — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 17:24:25 -0500

Welcome to the new shaim website. Content from the original Bounty Source project page is being moved here gradually, please bear with us while everything gets done. If a task that you logged on the old project page doesn't appear on the new pages, please feel free to recreate it yourself.

Why the move?

The Bounty Source administrators are both very motivated and intelligent, and sadly the free market took notice and companies have hired them away. Since our counteroffer was "a beer if you're ever in Kansas, if you're buying," their choice was clear and well-made. Bounty Source may still, and hopefully will, survive as an Open Source entity, but our hosting needs are currently better met elsewhere.

You hadn't updated the BS page in seven months anyway!

Good point. I never think about doing that. Hopefully with the more goal-oriented issue tracker Trac powering the four projects, I'll be better about updating the sites with all the news that's fit to spill.

Four projects?

Joining shaim, OscarLib, and MsnLib is the new project JabberLib, a .NET library for accessing XMPP servers such as Google Talk. The best offering on the Open Source market for .NET Jabber components was AgsXMPP, which was abandoned in a poorly documented state several months ago. Following in the grandiose tradition, JabberLib will be available as a component separate from shaim so that any developer may use it freely. Like the other libraries, it will be released under the LGPL.