"Presence command" chat plugin for Tkabber.
$Id: README 1190 2007-08-17 17:04:00Z sergei $

I. The idea.

This plugin provides additional set of what are called
"IRC-style chat commands" in Tkabber -- specially formatted
messages which are recognized as commands to Tkabber. They are
parsed and executed, then  their text is thrown away (widely
known examples of standard chat commands are: /clear, /nick,
/ban, /leave, etc).

Provided commands are:
* /presence allows to change "master" (i.e. basic, main,
  global) presence of the user [1];
* /chatpresence (or its alias /thispresence) allows to change
  the presence in this chat session (which may be a MUC room)
  only, in other words it sends what is called "directed
  presence" to the chat peer or room [2]. (See also "Notes"
  section below.)

II. Usage.

Both commands have identical syntax and they behave identically
-- changes only the presence they operate on.

The formal syntax is:
/presence ?presence|clear[status]?
?status message?

Fields surrounded by "?" represent optional parts, so does text
in [...]. "|" specifies alteration (a set of mutually exclusive
options).

Note that while both presence and status message fields are
marked optional at least one of them MUST appear. Otherwise the
command has no sense and the usage info is shown in the chat
log window.

The presence field may have this (standard) values, literally:
* available -- user is available;
* avail -- shortcut for "available";
* away -- user is away;
* xa -- user is extended away;
* dnd -- user doesn't want to be disturbed;
* chat -- user is free for chat.

Note that there's currently no support for "unavailable"
presence.

The special value of the presence field is "clearstatus"
("clear" is a shortcut to it). When spceified, the status
message is set to the empty string; the presence itself isn't
changed. (See also section "Notes" below.)

The status message field may be used to provide status message
for the presence. Any text, on a new line after the command (and
the presence value, if specified) is treated as the status
message, so it can span multiple lines and have empty lines in
between. The only transformation that is applied to the status
message is removal of any leading and trailing whitespace.

Any of this fields both) may be omitted. In this case
the current value for the omitted field is kept intact.

III. Examples:

Set the "do not disturb" master presence:
/presence dnd

Set the "free to chat" presence with a fancy status message:
/presence chat
Hey girls!

Just change the status message while keeping the presence
intact:
/presence
To be, or not to be --
That is the question.

Send directed presence to the chat peer (or to the room you're
in):
/chatpresence xa
Gone shopping

Just change the status message seen by the chat peer (or in the
room):
/thispresence
Gone nuts emerging ebuilds

IV. Notes.

1. You should understand that directed presence is somewhat odd
in its behaviour to many (not to say most) users: any change in
master presence invalidates any directed presences which were
set before. In other words if you set, say, "dnd" presence in
some MUC room and then change your master presence to "chat",
this one will be broadcasted to that room also changing your
presence there to "chat".

2. Oddly enough, but currently there's no easy way in Tkabber to
sent *really* empty status message: if Tkabber is told to send
one it replaces it with the "canonical" spelling of the presence
being set in your locale. I.e. when you set the available
presence with the empty status message and have an English
locale, Tkabber will cook the "Available" status message for
you. This is done so that presence stanzas can be PGP-signed, if
PGP encryption is enabled.

V. References:

1. http://www.xmpp.org/rfcs/rfc3921.html#presence
2. http://www.xmpp.org/rfcs/rfc3921.html#presence-resp-directed

vim:et:ts=4:sw=4:tw=64
