This is a simple tool I wrote a few months ago to turn Pidgin, everyone’s favourite multi-client Instant Messenger (works with gtalk, msn, yahoo, aim etc), into a customized answering machine (and more) when you are away from your computer. Basically it allows you to divide up your contact list into groups based on email IDs and execute actions based on when someone from a particular group messages you while you are away. e.g. For general friends, you can keep a message like “Will talk to you later when I come back”, or if someone from office IMs you, it’ll send them your phone number “Call me at XXXXXX if urgent”. And if you boss is the one pinging you, you could direct the message towards your twitter account so that you get it as an SMS on your phone immediately.
Time is short, so here are the details:
Features:
- Group based rule execution, each group can contain any number of email IDs
- Custom replies for each group.
- Integrates with twitter and will forward the message to your twitter account (or send a direct message to some other account) if you so desire. (Temporarily disabled since Twitter has blocked their IM bot)
- Runs as a separate process over d-bus instead of running as a pidgin plugin, so much lesser chances of crashing.
Prerequisites:
- Pidgin > 2.4.1
- Linux
Download:
Usage:
- Unzip the attached package anywhere.
- Either install using the deb package or just copy the splert binary and config.txt to a folder of your choice
- Modify the “config.txt” file according to your needs.
- Run splert. (or run splert -h for checking out the available options though you wouldn’t need them most of the times)
Config File:
Config file fields and formats are explained fully in the sample config file included in the attached file. However, here is a very basic sample configuration:
[Office]
user = bar@bar.com; abc@abc.com
message = “Please Call me at 9876543210″
twitter = 0[Friends]
user = foo@foo.com
message = “Not Here. Will talk to you later”[VIP]
user = boss@boss.com
message = “Got your message. Will Contact you asap”
twitter = 1
twitterto = my2ndtwitteracct
ChangeLog:
0.03 – Oct04 2008 -
1. Added option to specify twitter bot id (e.g. twitterspy@jabber.org) using option “-t/-twitterbot”. However, you need to do any “extra” stuff manually. e.g. logging in using twlogin command with twitterspy.
2. Added option to specify the status when you want to send messages instead of just when being away. Use “-s/–status” option to do this.
0.02 – Aug25 2008 -
1. Fixed bug where response was not sent for 1st message received
2. Added 32 bit package
0.01 – Aug15 2008 – Initial Version
Please let me know if you like it or found some issues with it. Also, let me know if you would like me to add any features to it.
[...] Splert: Shantz Pidgin Away Alerts [...]
I wanted to try it but the downloaded file is problematic. File roller seems to think it’s not a tar archive. I hope you could upload it again
Wouldn’t work for me either. Couldn’t extract it.
@Clair, Pinkie: That’s an issue with my site, its not setting the MIME type properly. However download it to ur computer and run “tar -xzvf splert.tar.gz” manually, then it should extract it properly.
[...] por Christian Ferreira (christian·linuxΘgmail·com) – referência [...]
[...] por Christian Ferreira (christian·linuxΘgmail·com) – referência [...]
nope – can’t get the archive open
Sorry for the bad downloads, guys. There was/is some issue with mime types on my site. Have reuploaded as zip package and it’s working properly now. Please download it again.
[...] Splert: Shantz Pidgin Away Alerts [...]
[...] Splert: Shantz Pidgin Away Alerts [...]
I tried splert
but it’s not replying at that mail id
is there any settings in pidgin also?
And is pidgin required both sides?
m using pidgin 2.4.3 with google talk
plz reply soon
Ohh solved
my status was not Away.
So ur status at pidgin must be Away to make it work.
Thanks alot
@Anuj: Glad you got it solved. Yes, you need “away” status, thats why I called it “Away Alerts”
. Anyways, if you find it useful in other status’es as well, I could add an option for that…
Hi shantanu
can u tell me how to tweak the tweeter in splert
my twitter name is anuj01
and i have set for ” twitterto anuj01″ in config.txt
and i have added twitterspy@jabber..com in my gtalk account
thats really cool .
help me soon
twitter@twitter.com is not working
so plz suggest some another alternative
currently m using twitterspy@jabber.org
thanks
@Anuj: Hmm, didn’t know about twitterspy. Will provide an option in the next release so that you can choose the bot of your choice, so that twitterspy will start working with splert. Will try to get this done this weekend.
[...] Splert: Shantz Pidgin Away Alerts [...]
hi shantnu thanks for updates
and plz resolve one minute bug.
splert -h doesn’t work
only splert -? and spler –help works.
So plz nener say “use splert -h for more options”.
Thanks alot
[...] splert – shantz pidgin away alerts [...]
Thanks for reporting the bug Anuj. It seems quite strange. I’ll take a look at it.
it doesn’t work
@tracius01: Can you please tell me what is the exact problem that you face? the program refuses to start, starts but doesn’t send any messages? what were the steps that you took to test the app?
why not for windows?
@indigene: splert relies on an IPC mechanism called d-bus, which is installed by default on Gnome in linux. It is available for windows as well, but I don’t have the time to try it out. If someone can take up the mantle to install and test it, I can make a build for windows as well, or can atleast provide the source code for splert so that one can modify it accordingly.
Firstly Thanx for this ..it works and is cool!!!
If I want the same msg to be sent to all in my list what do I do ?
Do I have to set rules for every mail ID or is there any shortcut ??
@Aditya: I had added the code for a default catch-all functionality some time back but lost the code to an accidental delete and never got around to do it again. I will see if I get some time to add it back again. However, if you want to send the same msg to everyone only while you are away, then you can enable the same in pidgin (Preferences->Status/Idle). splert and pidgin will continue to work together. so, if smone pings u when u r away, he’ll get one msg (from pidgin) if he is not in splert’s config.txt and will get 2 msgs (from pidgin as well as splert) if he’s in splert’s config.txt.
Thnx for the info…
It’ll be gr8 if the feature is re-introduced into splert.
hi Shantanu Goel when i run the app in terminal i receive this
(splert:6133): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_ascii_strcasecmp: assertion `s1 != NULL’ failed
** ERROR **: No such file or directory
aborting…
Aborted
i use ubuntu 8.10
@tracius01: What is the command that you are using to run splert? And is config.txt present in the same directory where you have kept the splert executable?
./splert
@tracius: so is the config.txt present in that directory as well?
sorry i miss that, yes the config.txt is there
I got this error
./splert
(splert:20785): GLib-CRITICAL **: g_ascii_strcasecmp: assertion `s1 != NULL’ failed
and the config is in the same dir too
Hi Shantanu can you provide the source code.
may be this is a build issue.
Reply me at my email id.
@Mukesh: Sorry for the delayed reply. I think I fixed that issue some time back. Will take a look at it. Moreover, I thought I had provided the source code already in the zip file. If it isn’t there then my bad. Will upload the source code as well in a couple of days.
Sure , I will be waiting for the fix
[...] por Christian Ferreira (christian·linuxΘgmail·com) – referência [...]
Hi Shantanu
Splert is working fine for me from a long time.
I wanna suggest u one more feature in splert or a different application altogether having feature of running shell commands on any remote machine (running pidgin there) and getting the output as reply message. This is useful to know the state of remote machine e.g. running processes (ps command and top command). Currently the same limited facility is provided by pidgin pounces. But I want custom commands means user supplied commands not the pre defined command in pidgin pounce. I hope u got the idea.
This may be useful for others also.
Thanks
Anuj
@anuj Thanks for the suggestion. Actually I had infact started working on something like that last year (named it as splertsh
) but then didnt get any time to finish it 
maybe someday..
That will be real fun. I may help u if u think so and wanna do that complete.