Someone asked if there was a plugin for displaying the character count of the current message in a Pidgin chat window’s input widget, which would be useful when using Twitter via IM, to know if you’re going over the 140 character limit. I looked things over and came up with this simple plugin after about two hours of hacking … it places the current character count on the right-hand side of the GtkIMHtmlToolbar:
I’m inclding the new plugin’s source as a diff/patch to the Pidgin source, and a pre-built DLL binary for Win32:
- pidgin-convcharcount-plugin-patch.txt (Source)
- convcharcount-2.2.2.zip (Win32)
For those of you on Win32, just unzip the .zip file into your C:\Program Files\Pidgin\plugins directory. Then, go into your Buddy List window and select “Tools -> Plugins,” then click the checkbox next to “Conv. input chars count“. That’s it!
Let me know what you think of the plugin. Thanks!
UPDATE: I’ve finally gotten around to spinning a Debian 4.0 etch .deb for i386. If you’re on Debian, give it a try.
UPDATE: I’ve also spun a Fedora 8 RPM for i386.
Tags: Pidgin, Twitter, instant messaging, plugin
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Lisa says:
October 31st, 2007 at 4:14 pm
Wow - I’ve been looking for such a plugin for … well, since I’ve started using Pidgin!
And now it just pops up in my Technorati search - what are the odds!
Thanks a bunch, Dossy!
October 31st, 2007 at 4:37 pm
FND: It seems a lot of people have been looking for such a plugin, so I’m glad it wasn’t too hard to implement. I’m also glad you found it–that’s awesome!
Let me know if you have any trouble getting it working or if you find any bugs with it. I tested it pretty thoroughly but only on one machine, WinXP SP2.
October 31st, 2007 at 5:37 pm
No bugs so far - but I’m on WinXP SP2 as well…
Nevertheless, I’ll report back here should I find anything.
October 31st, 2007 at 6:17 pm
FND: Great, thanks! Any other plugins you’d like to see implemented? I’m always looking for good ideas …
November 1st, 2007 at 2:46 am
Typical - now I have someone to write plugins for me, and I can’t think of anything…
If/when I think of anything, I’ll let you know - thanks for the offer!
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:29 pm
Awesome… I want this for Adium, hopefully someone creates it. (Also, I still can’t log in with OpenID: “Login with OpenID failed. Reason: Couldn’t create OpenID URL.”)
November 3rd, 2007 at 1:37 pm
Pete: You know, if I had a Mac and could run Adium, I’d definitely implement the same functionality as an Adium Xtra/plugin.
re: OpenID, I’ll ping you directly about it.
November 12th, 2007 at 4:07 pm
Nobody against about that i added this plugin in plugin list on pidgin.im ?
November 15th, 2007 at 8:35 pm
Useful plugin - thanks. Definitely helps a lot when ‘twittering’ via IM
November 19th, 2007 at 10:40 am
am i missing something? I put the .dll file in the plug-ins folder and I clicked the check box in the Plug-Ins menu to turn it on. Nothing happened. I even restarted pidgin, but I still don’t see any character counter. I’m using 2.2.2.
November 19th, 2007 at 10:45 am
beslie: Look at the screenshot I posted–the character count is just a subtle change in the right-hand side of the bar above the text input box.
December 6th, 2007 at 12:07 pm
Can i use it on linux??
December 6th, 2007 at 2:13 pm
Kuba: You should be able to patch the Pidgin source and compile the plugin on Linux, yes. I can take a whack at compiling it for Debian 4.0 and openSUSE 10.3 which is what I have available to me. You’re on your own for other distributions, though. (The Debian and/or openSUSE binaries may work on other distributions, but I wouldn’t guarantee it.)
December 19th, 2007 at 11:37 am
You’re a life saver. Thanks for your hard work.
December 19th, 2007 at 11:43 am
Thanks for the kind feedback, Justin!
January 5th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
Wow! Thanks!
January 5th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
You’re welcome, Grace.
January 5th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Nice to see how a random idea turned into such a useful tool…
January 5th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
FND: Yeah. What’s even more amazing is how many people love Twitter Karma. Such a simple little app. with such a tremendous response.
January 30th, 2008 at 8:09 pm
I was hoping for a plugin like this as soon as I started using Twitter through Pidgin. Any progress on a Linux version? Thanks!
January 31st, 2008 at 9:00 am
Dan: what distribution of Linux are you using?
I only have Debian 4.0 and OpenSUSE 10.3 readily available to me, so those are the two distributions that I could easily compile binaries for. If anyone else has compiled this plugin for Linux and would like to share, please post a link to your build in the comments here, thanks!
February 29th, 2008 at 4:58 pm
Bingo! This is just what I wanted. Thanks for putting this out there!
February 29th, 2008 at 7:10 pm
Joe: Thanks for letting me know you found it useful!
March 1st, 2008 at 8:30 pm
Works great! Those on vista should make sure they allow the file to the plug-ins folder, I had to allow it before it would work! =]
March 10th, 2008 at 5:39 pm
Awesome! I almost exclusively twitter things through IM, and now I won’t be the laughing stock of the Twittersphere when I post things with too many characters.
Icing on the cake would be if I could specify buddies to turn it on/off for (i.e. only on for Twitter), but it’s small enough and tucked away in the window so it’s not really that big of an issue.
Great work! Thanks for making this!
March 10th, 2008 at 6:35 pm
Rudi: I’m glad you found it helpful!
I find that having the character count in my IM windows in general help me stay focused on how long my messages are getting. It takes conscious effort to be clear and concise and the character counter serves to remind me.
March 11th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Thank you, haven’t tried it yet but now I’m using pidgin to twitter this is a necessary addition!
April 2nd, 2008 at 6:46 pm
@beslie this may be a stupid question, but do you have the formatting toolbar displayed? the only reason i ask is that i tripped up on this myself…
April 4th, 2008 at 2:27 pm
Thanks for the plugin
April 7th, 2008 at 1:21 am
Have you considered trying to get your plugin added to the Pidgin PluginPack? At only 4kb compressed, and at least as useful as some of the already included plugins, I think it would make a useful addition.
Here’s their relevant wiki entry:
http://plugins.guifications.org/trac/wiki/PluginPack#WillyouacceptmypluginforthePurplePluginPack
April 7th, 2008 at 9:39 am
Haudy: I’ve thought about it, but I don’t see what the benefit would be. If folks want the plugin, they can download it and install it from me.
April 7th, 2008 at 6:21 pm
The major benefits I see are raising awareness of the plugin amongst Pidgin users, and making it easier to get installed. The nice thing about the PluginPack is it is a one-stop-shop for many useful plugins…that’s what I really like about it.
The only two plugins I use that aren’t included in the pack are Off-The-Record and Guifications, and now your character counting plugin. I initially found your plugin while searching for a Pidgin Twitter plugin, but the character count is an interesting statistic to have even on general, non-Twitter chats.
April 7th, 2008 at 8:14 pm
Haudy: Well, the plugin is GPL’ed, so if whoever maintains PluginPack wants to include it, they can.
Thanks for the suggestion!
April 21st, 2008 at 12:43 pm
Use this on all my PCs, and it’s part of my essential downloads when I get a new one. Great for twitter. Thanks!
April 21st, 2008 at 12:46 pm
Paul: Wow, thanks for the praise! This is why free software is so great, the feedback you get from all sorts of people you otherwise never would have met.
May 6th, 2008 at 4:13 pm
Just a quick comment to say thanks for putting this plugin together. I needed this for Twitter like everyone else. Much appreciated!
May 14th, 2008 at 10:31 pm
i da hawaiin pidgin massa no duddys can spoke um betta dan me
June 22nd, 2008 at 5:58 pm
Thanks for this, makes twitter so much more useable from Pidgin
August 21st, 2008 at 11:22 am
Thank you for writing this! Now I won’t go over the limits when posting to identi.ca.
August 24th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Indeed, very useful! I just installed the Debian package on Ubuntu 8.04 and it’s working fine. Thanks!
Tom
November 2nd, 2008 at 8:31 pm
Hi, can I have the source of your plugin ?? thanks!!
November 2nd, 2008 at 9:21 pm
leegurus: The source is included in the patch already linked to above.
November 3rd, 2008 at 1:52 am
Can you tell me how to apply the patch to the source. I am attempting to compile the latest Pidgin on Ubuntu. I’ve compiled pidgin before, however not applying a patch
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:10 am
Kevdog:
Basically, like this –
$ cd /path/to/your/pidgin/source
$ patch -p1 < /path/to/where/you/saved/pidgin-convcharcount-plugin-patch.txt
November 4th, 2008 at 10:46 am
Dossy: Thanks! I couldnt get that in first look. I am writing a pidgin plugin, i hope your handon would help me lot. thanks again for the source.
hey, could you consider posting clean make file and source code?? i would make more easy for developers to get started!!
November 4th, 2008 at 10:50 am
leegurus: Considering only 4 lines are changed in the Makefile.am, reposting the whole thing is wasteful. I also don’t want to encourage people to use an outdated file they download from this page–people should apply my patch to the latest Pidgin source, not reuse an old version they might download from here.
The code is open source, of course. Feel free to post it somewhere yourself, if you feel it would be valuable to do so. I think it will do more harm than good with people using an older file that may not work with newer Pidgin source, resulting in questions and problems that are wholly avoidable.
November 9th, 2008 at 1:50 pm
Dossy — I guess this has been asked, but what happens with future versions of Pidgin — will this patch still be valid since obviously line numbers and code have changed
November 9th, 2008 at 3:41 pm
Kevdog: The patch should continue to apply as long as the Makefile.am doesn’t change drastically, which it hasn’t in quite a while.
If in a future version of Pidgin, the patch doesn’t apply cleanly, just leave a comment here with the Pidgin version number and I’ll post an updated patch.
November 20th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Hello! I’m trying to download the Win32 file, but the server at panoptic.com keeps timing out… is there a download mirror somewhere else?
November 20th, 2008 at 4:57 pm
MKLopez: Ah, was a DNS issue that I just fixed - thanks for bringing it to my attention. It may take ~15 minutes to propagate. Try again.
November 21st, 2008 at 3:22 pm
[...] It’s kind of a no brainer to guess what it does. It counts the characters contained within the input area of Pidgin and shows the count on the right side of the bar where the emoticons, formatting and the like are located. Get it here [...]