Pidgin setup

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Contents 1 Start 2 View Settings 3 Preferences 4 Plugins 5 Off The Record

Start

Pidgin makes you set up at least one account to start with, so go ahead and do that.

View Settings

• Click on Buddies > Show and uncheck "buddy details"
• Click on Buddies > Show and check "Protocol Icons"

Preferences

I don't like the default out of the box pidgin. I also didn't use it when it was first released simply because it didn't support many of the things I feel I must have. It does now and is my favorite messenger client.

Here we go, click on Tools > Preferences

• Interface
  • Tabs
    • I change this to bottom. I like to shrink the window I'm working in just a little at the bottom then put the tray there. When someone IM's me I can look to the bottom of the screen and figure out who it is without stopping what I'm doing and changing windows.
• Conversations
  • Conversations
    • Uncheck "Show formatting on incoming messages" (some peoples formatting is very annoying)
    • Uncheck "Show Detailed information" (I don't care what your icon is, and if I do I can mouse over to figure it out)
    • Uncheck "Notify buddies that you are typing to them" (Don't want to bother people with my typing)
  • Font
    • Uncheck "Use font from theme" (I just want to read, not much for the pretty)
• Smiley themes
  • Change it to small
• Sounds
  • Sound Options
    • Mute Sounds
• Logging
  • Logging
    • Check "Log all instant messages"
    • Check "Log all chats"
• Status/Idle
  • Idle
    • "Report idle time" change to "Never"
  • Away
    • "Auto-Away" change to "Never"
  • Auto-Away
    • Uncheck "Change status when idle"

Plugins

Some of the plugins are pretty cool Click on Tools then Plugins

I turn on the following plugins:

• History
• Message timestamp format
  • Show dates in > Conversations > Always
  • Show dates in > Message Logs > Always
• Release Notification

Off The Record

OTR is a Plugin which used to be included with pidgin, I'm not quite sure why they took it out but it desperately needs to go back in. If you talk to me online you may find I require you to have it depending on the conversation. Here are the instructions on how to install it:

1. Download OTR from there website here: http://www.cypherpunks.ca/otr
2. It installs easily just take the defaults.
3. Click on Tools > Plugins then scroll down to "Off the Record Messaging"
4. Click on "Configure Plugin"
5. Click "Generate" This will take a little while to run. It's generating the keys you will be encrypting your text with.

Your done, it will figure out if the person on the other end has a key or not. If you have multiple devices you are going to need to copy the key to every computer you use otherwise you will come up with some weird errors, especially if you are logged into more than one place at the same time.