ChangeLog: Pidgin and Finch - The Pimpin' Penguin IM Clients That're Good For The Soul!

version 2.6.4 (11/29/2009)

​View all closed tickets for this release.

• libpurple
  • Actually emit the hold signal for media calls.
  • Fix building the GnuTLS plugin with older versions of GnuTLS.
  • Fix DNS TXT query resolution.
  • Don't send Proxy-Authorization headers to HTTP proxy servers until we've received a "407 Proxy Authentication Required" response from the server. (thecrux)
  • Added "MXit" protocol plugin, supported and maintained by the MXit folks themselves (MXit Lifestyle (Pty) Ltd.)

• General:
  • New 'plugins' sub-command to 'debug' command (i.e. '/debug plugins') to announce the list of loaded plugins (in both Finch and Pidgin).
  • Always rejoin open chats after an account reconnects.

• AIM and ICQ
  • Better rate limit calculations and other improvements. (Aman Gupta)
  • More detailed error messages when messages fail to send. (Aman Gupta)
  • The simultaneous login account option is respected when using the clientLogin authentication method.
  • Fix offline message retrieval (broken in 2.6.3)
  • Fix handling of markup on some messages (broken in 2.6.2)
  • Fix SSL when clientLogin is enabled.
  • Fix sending and receiving Unicode characters in a Direct IM

• MSN
  • Don't forget display names for buddies.
  • Fix a random crash that might occur when idle.
  • Fix more FQY 240 connection errors.
  • Fix a crash that could occur when adding a buddy.
  • Fix an occasional crash when sending message to an offline user.
  • Fix a random crash that might occur when idle.
  • Fix a crash when logging in with some long non-ASCII passwords. (Shaun Lindsay)
  • Cache our own friendly name as the server no longer does that for us. Users of older versions may need to re-set their friendly name as it has probably been reset.

• XMPP
  • Users connecting to Google Talk now have an "Initiate Chat" context menu option for their buddies. (Eion Robb)
  • Fix a crash when attempting to validate an invalid JID.
  • Resolve an issue when connecting to iChat Server when no resource is specified.
  • Try to automatically find a STUN server by using an SRV lookup on the account's domain, and use that for voice and video if found and the user didn't set one manually in prefs.
  • Fix a crash when adding a buddy without an '@'.
  • Don't show the option to send a file to a buddy if we know for certain they don't support any file transfer method supported by libpurple.
  • Keep the avatar on the server if one is not set locally.

• Yahoo
  • Fix sending /buzz.
  • Fix blocking behavior for federated (MSN/OCS/Sametime) service users. (Jason Cohen)
  • Add support for adding OCS and Sametime buddies. OCS users are added as "ocs/user@…" and Sametime users are added as "ibm/sametime_id". (Jason Cohen)

• Finch
  • The TinyURL plugin now creates shorter URLs for long non-conversation URLs, e.g. URLs to open Inbox in Yahoo/MSN protocols, or the Yahoo Captcha when joining chat rooms.
  • Fix displaying umlauts etc. in non-utf8 locale (fix in libgnt).

• Pidgin
  • The userlist in a multiuser chat can be styled via gtkrc by using the widget name "pidgin_conv_userlist". (Heiko Schmitt)
  • Add a hold button to the media window.
  • Fix a bug where the conversation backlog stops scrolling in a very busy chat room.
  • In the Conversation "Send To" menu, offline buddies appear grayed out (but are still selectable). Previously, only offline buddies on accounts that do not support offline messaging appeared grayed out.

• Pidgin Preference and Preference Window Changes
  • Removed the "Use font from theme" and "Conversation Font" preferences for everyone except Windows users. The font can be controlled from the Pidgin GTK+ Theme Control plugin.
  • Tabs in the Preferences window are now on the left side.
  • The Browser tab is now visible for GNOME users.
  • Added a Proxy tab shown no matter what environment Pidgin runs in.
  • The Browser and Proxy tabs show appropriate GNOME-specific messages and allow launching the correct applications to change the relevant GNOME preferences if found. These were previously together on the Network tab.
  • Moved the port range spin buttons on the Network tab to be beside the checkbox that enables/disables them.
  • Reorganized preferences on the Status/Idle? tab to have one less "section."
  • Reorganized preferences on the Sounds tab to have one less "section."
  • Renamed Smiley Themes tab to Themes.
  • Moved Buddy List Theme and Status Icon Theme selectors from Interface tab to Themes tab.
  • Moved Sound Theme selector from Sounds tab to Themes tab.
  • Changed the Smiley Theme selector to be consistent with the other theme selectors.
  • Rearranged tabs such that Interface is first and all remaining tabs are alphabetized in English.

version 2.6.3 (10/16/2009)

​View all closed tickets for this release.

• General
  • Fix a crash when performing DNS queries on Unixes that use the blocking DNS lookups. (Brian Lu)

• AIM and ICQ
  • Fix a crash when some clients send contacts in a format we don't understand.
  • Fix blocking and other privacy lists. (Thanks to AOL)

version 2.6.2 (09/05/2009)

​View all closed tickets for this release.

• libpurple
  • Fix --disable-avahi to actually disable it in configure, as opposed to just making the warning non-fatal.
  • Fix using GNOME proxy settings properly. (Erik van Pienbroek)

• IRC
  • Fix parsing of invalid TOPIC messages. (CVE-2009-2703)

• MSN
  • Sending custom smileys in chats is now supported.
  • Ink messages are now saved when using the HTML logger.
  • Fix a crash when receiving some handwritten messages.
  • Fix a crash when receiving certain SLP invite messages.
  • Chats with multiple people should no longer spontaneously disconnect.

• XMPP
  • Prompt the user before cancelling a presence subscription.
  • Escape status messages that have HTML entities in the Get Info dialog.
  • Fix connecting to XMPP domains with no SRV records from Pidgin on Windows.
  • Fix typing notifications with Pidgin 2.5.9 or earlier.
  • Fix connecting using BOSH and legacy authentication (XEP-0078).
  • Adding buddies of the form "romeo@…/Resource" are handled properly. In addition, it is no longer possible to add buddies of the form "room@…/User", where room@… is a MUC.
  • Don't crash when receiving "smileyfied" XHTML-IM from clients that don't support bits of binary (ie. when getting an empty <data/> in return)
  • Fix bug where SSL/TLS was not required even though the "require SSL/TLS" preference checked when connecting to servers that use the older iq-based authentication. (CVE-2009-3026)

• Yahoo!/Yahoo! JAPAN
  • Accounts now have "Use account proxy for SSL connections" option. This option force-overrides the account specific proxy settings for SSL connections only and instead uses the global proxy configuration.

• Finch
  • Properly detect libpanel on OpenBSD. (Brad Smith)
  • Remove IO watches in gnt_quit. (Tomasz Mon)

• Pidgin
  • Fix the auto-personize functionality in the Buddy List.
  • Set the window icon for the media window to an icon corresponding to the type of call (headphone or webcam).
  • Customized sound files are no longer reset whenever opening the Preferences dialog.
  • The buddy list should now immediately refresh upon changing the icon theme.

version 2.6.1 (08/18/2009)

​View all closed tickets for this release.

• Fix a crash when some users send you a link in a Yahoo IM
• Fix compilation with GTK+ < 2.6.0
• Fix compilation on Windows

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version 2.6.0 (08/18/2009)

​View all closed tickets for this release.

• libpurple
  • Theme support in libpurple thanks to Justin Rodriguez's summer of code project, with some minor additions and cleanups from Paul Aurich.
  • Voice & Video framework in libpurple, thanks to Mike Ruprecht's summer of code project in 2008.
  • It should no longer be possible to end up with duplicates of buddies in a group on the buddy list.
  • Removed the unmaintained and unneeded toc protocol plugin.
  • Fixed NTLM authentication on big-endian systems.
  • Various memory cleanups when unloading libpurple. (Nick Hebner and Stefan Becker)
  • Report idle time 'From last message sent' should work properly.
  • Better handling of corrupt certificates in the TLS Peers cache.
  • More efficient buddy list and conversation search functions. (Jan Kaluza and Aman Gupta)
  • Install scalable versions of the main Pidgin icon, the protocol icons, the dialog icons, and the Buddy List emblems.
  • Build properly on Hurd. (Marc Dequènes)
  • Various memory leaks fixed as reported by Josh Mueller.
  • Properly handle an IRC buddy appearing in multiple groups.
  • Escape HTML entities in usernames when written with the HTML logger.
  • Do not display MySpace status changes as incoming IMs. (Mark Doliner and Justin Williams)

• DNS
  • DNS servers are re-read when DNS queries fail in case the system has moved to a new network and the old servers are not accessible.
  • DNS SRV records with equal priority are sorted with respect to their weight as specified in RFC 2782. (Vijay Raghunathan)
  • Don't do IPv6 address lookups if the computer does not have an IPv6 address configured.
  • Fix a leak when the UI provides its own DNS resolving UI op. (Aman Gupta)
  • Don't fork a DNS resolver process to resolve IP addresses. (Aman Gupta)
  • Internationalized Domain Names are supported when libpurple is compiled against the GNU IDN library.

• Environment Variables
  • GnuTLS logging (disabled by default) can be controlled through the PURPLE_GNUTLS_DEBUG environment variable, which is an integer between 0 and 9 (higher is more verbose). Higher values may reveal sensitive information.
  • PURPLE_VERBOSE_DEBUG environment variable. Currently, this is an "on" or "off" variable. Set it to any value to turn it on and unset it to turn it off. This will optionally be used to only show less useful debug information on an as-needed basis.
  • PURPLE_LEAKCHECK_HELP environment variable. Currently, this is an "on" or "off" variable. Set it to any value to turn it on and unset it to turn it off. This will be used to perform various actions that are useful when running libpurple inside of Valgrind or similar programs. Currently, it keeps plugins in memory, allowing Valgrind to perform symbol resolution of leak traces at shutdown.

• AIM and ICQ
  • Preliminary support for a new authentication scheme called "clientLogin."
  • Fixed a bug where your away message sometimes would not get set when you first sign on.
  • Make sure links in your away messages show up as links to other people.
  • For ICQ, Never change the privacy setting specified by the user.

• Gadu-Gadu
  • Accounts can specify a server to which to connect. (Krzysztof "kreez" Tobola)
  • Correctly show tooltip status for contacts with status messages. (Krzysztof "kkszysiu" Klinikowski)
  • Support for fetching buddy icons. (Krzysztof "kkszysiu" Klinikowski)
  • Support connection progress steps in Gadu-Gadu. (Krzysztof "kkszysiu" Klinikowski)

• MSN
  • Add support for receiving handwritten (ink) messages on MSN. (Chris Stafford, Gal Topper, and Elliott Sales de Andrade)
  • Add support for receiving audio clips on MSN. (Chris Stafford, Gal Topper, and Elliott Sales de Andrade)
  • Show the invite message for buddies that requested authorization from you on MSN.
  • Support sending an invite message to buddies when requesting authorization from them on MSN.
  • Timeout switchboard connections aggressively (60 seconds).

• XMPP
  • Voice & Video support with Jingle (XEP-0166, 0167, 0176, & 0177), voice support with GTalk and voice and video support with the GMail web client. (Mike "Maiku" Ruprecht)
  • Added a Service Discovery Browser plugin for Pidgin. (Andrei Mozzhuhin)
  • Support for in-band bytestreams for file transfers (XEP-0047). (Marcus Lundblad)
  • Support for sending and receiving attentions (equivalent to "buzz" and "nudge") using the command /buzz. (XEP-0224)
  • Support for connecting using BOSH. (Tobias Markmann)
  • A buddy's local time is displayed in the Get Info dialog if the remote client supports it.
  • The set_chat_topic function can unset the chat topic.
  • The Ad-Hoc commands associated with our server are now always shown at login.
  • Support showing and reporting idle times in the buddy list. (XEP-0256)
  • Support most recent version of User Avatar. (XEP-0084 v1.1)
  • Updated Entity Capabilities support. (Tobias Markmann)
  • Better support for receiving remote users' nicknames.
  • /affiliate and /role will now list the room members with the specified affiliation/role if possible. (Andrei Mozzhuhin)
  • Put section breaks between resources in "Get Info" to improve readability.
  • Silently remove invalid XML 1.0 entities (e.g. ASCII control characters) from sent messages.
  • XHTML markup is only included in outgoing messages when the message contains formatting.
  • Show when the user was last logged in when doing "Get Info" on an offline buddy, provided the server supports it.
  • Support custom smileys in MUCs (only when all participants support the "Bits of Binary" extension, and a maximum of 10 participants are in the chat to avoid getting too many fetch requests).
  • Fix an issue with Jabber (pre-XMPP) servers and the user's preference to require SSL not being respected.
  • Fix an issue where Cyrus SASL DIGEST MD5 authentication might fail if the username, password, or realm (the JID domain) contain non-ASCII characters.
  • Show emblem for mobile, handheld, and web clients and bots (if the other client supports it).
  • Google Talk mail notifications should now work for people for whom they inexplicably did not. (Thanks to yukam for determining the reason)
  • New XMPP and Google Talk accounts require SSL by default.
  • Display kicks (and the reasons given) in chat rooms when an occupant is kicked.
  • Fix issues with case-sensitivity of XMPP roster and case-insensitive Purple groups.
  • For contacts who advertise Entity Capabilities, only send rich text markup if they support it.
  • Removed support for obsoleted XEP-0022 (Message Events) and XEP-0091 (Legacy Entity Time).
  • When the GNU IDN library (libidn) is available, it is used for normalization of Jabber IDs. When unavailable, internal routines are used (as in previous versions).
  • Topics that contain '<' followed by a non-whitespace character can now be set properly.

• Yahoo!/Yahoo! JAPAN
  • P2P file transfers. (Sulabh Mahajan)
  • Sending text messages (address to +<countrycode><phone number>). (Sulabh Mahajan)
  • Addition of MSN buddies to Yahoo accounts by adding them as 'msn/buddy@somedomain.com' is now supported. (Sulabh Mahajan)
  • Further fixes for buddy pictures, aliases, etc.
  • Yahoo! and Yahoo! JAPAN are now two separate protocol plugins that share common protocol code. You can now have the same account on both networks. Accounts should be seamlessly migrated to the new arrangement.
  • Ability to set personal details for an account and for buddies in the buddylist.

• Pidgin
  • Added -f command line option to tell Pidgin to ignore NetworkManager and assume it has a valid network connection.
  • Allow plugins to specify custom link types to the GtkIMHtml widget.
  • The status message input box at the bottom of the buddy list expands correctly when starting a new line of text.
  • Pressing the Enter key in the message entry box of the New Status dialog and various other dialogs now causes the cursor to move to the next line.
  • Created a unified Buddy Pounce notification window for all pounces where "Pop up a notification" is selected, which avoids having a new dialog box every time a pounce is triggered. (Jorge Villaseñor)
  • The New Account dialog is now broken into three tabs. Proxy configuration has been moved from the Advanced tab to the new tab.
  • Dragging a buddy onto a chat pops up a chat-invitation dialog. (Carlos Bederian)
  • The nicks of the persons who leave the chatroom are italicized in the chat's conversation history. The nicks are un-italicized when they rejoin.
  • Always set unseen-count and unseen-state on conversations. (Joshua Stein)
  • Fix a bug in 'Conversation Colors' plugin for RTL messages.
  • Pressing the Left and Right arrow keys in the buddy list will expand and collapse buddy groups or contacts. (Peter Ruibal)
  • Support saving animated custom smileys as animated images or animated custom smileys. (Andrea Piccinelli)
  • Support for keyboard navigation on the status icon. (Li Yuan)
  • IMG tags without 'id' attributes are turned into links to the image URL. (Dmitry Petroff)
  • Draw the user's buddy icon at the bottom of the Buddy List with rounded corners for visual consistency with the actual icons in the Buddy List. (Kosta Arvanitis)
  • When file transfers are complete, the received file name written to the conversation window is now linked to the file.
  • Fix a crash when closing a conversation tab that has unread messages when the Message Notification plugin is loaded.
  • Fix a crash when closing the New Mail dialog if an account with new mail was previously disconnected while the dialog was open.
  • Fix incorrect unread message counts for the new mail notifications.
  • Do not lose unread messages with a hidden conversation window when new IM conversations are hidden and "Close IMs immediately when the tab is closed" is unset.

• Finch
  • The hardware cursor is updated correctly. This will be useful especially for users of braille terminals, screen readers etc.
  • Added a TinyURL plugin, which aids copying longer URLs.
  • Fixed UTF-8 compatibility problems which could cause exits or other unrequested behaviour.

• Pidgin GTK+ Theme Control Plugin
  • Removed mouse cursor color preferences.
  • Added "Typing Notification Color" preference.
  • Added "Disable Typing Notification Text" preference.
  • Preferences have been reorganized into three tabs for Colors, Fonts, and Miscellaneous categories.

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Older Changes

Changes between 2.0.0 and 2.6.0 may be found in the FullChangeLog

Changes predating 2.0.0 may be found in the ChangeLog and ChangeLog.win32 files in the source distribution.