User:FunkyFish/wip/Documentation/Configuration
From CenterIM
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Configuration
The majority of CenterIM settings can be found in the "Configuration" dialog which can be invoked by selecting an appropriate items in the global menu (the one you see on pressing F4). There are only three things you should setup from outside the program with modifying the program's configuration files. They are event sounds, actions (see below) and color schemes.
With the "Configuration" dialog you can turn on and off various features, as well as change the ICQ server address and adjust network settings. All the items there are self-explanatory and their meaning is quite obvious. I suppose the program users are usually not dumb :) so I won't cover all of the items here in the documentation.
Migrating from other ICQ software
If you decided to migrate to CenterIM from another ICQ software or have a need to you something else in parallel, there is a way to convert the contact list. This means you can migrate without loosing your contacts and history.
How to do it? There is a Perl script named cicqconv. It's usually installed on "make install" under @prefix@/bin (/usr/local/bin in the majority of cases). Its usage is very simple. You should only pass one parameter to it, telling from what kind of ICQ software it's to convert your data. To see the list of supported software, run the script without parameters.
Event sounds
As it was said before, CenterIM can play sounds on various events. It's done the following way. Upon, say, receiving a message, CenterIM executes an external command. Actually it can be whatever you want, but original idea is to execute a command line WAV player.
There are three WAV sound files which CenterIM has by default. They are sounds taken from Mirabilis ICQ. When you set "Change sound device to" item to "sound card", the program generates a file named sounds in the .centerim/ directory in your home folder. The default file has commands to execute a "play" utility (from sox package) with a name of a file to play, one of the default ones. If you wanna change the player or a sound simply edit ~/.centerim/sounds.
If you use ESD (Enlightenment Sound Daemon) to have some extra sound facilities such as mixing streams, or playing on another computer, you might wish to change the "play" command to "esdplay".
Color schemes
It's possible to customize colors in the CenterIM's user interface. It's done with the ~/.centerim/colorscheme configuration file. Its contents are self-descriptive, and parameter names mean exactly that they're named after. Please note, that among the standard color names it's possible to specify "transparent" which is useful when the program is used in terminals with background images set.
Started for the first time, CenterIM creates the default colorscheme file filled in with settings of one of default schemes that the Configuration dialog proposes. Also its contents are re-written every time you change color scheme from the dialog.
To define your own color scheme, feel free to modify the default colors configuration file or choose one of contributed ones that can be found under the contrib/ directory of the source tarball.
More "visual" explanation can be found here at the CenterIM.de: http://centericq.de/misc/colorscheme_helper.png
Key bindings
Key bindings are also configurable in CenterIM. On the first start it creates a file called keybindings in your ~/.centerim/ directory. You can use its initial contents for reference. If you want to change something, well, it's all there.
URL open action (web browser support)
CenterIM can extract URLs from messages and user information records for you. And it also can launch your preferred web browser to view them. No need to have a big attention to notice "F2 to URLs" text in the status bar when you view either a message or user's details. The "open URL" action starts right after you make a selection in the menu invoked. The ~/.centerim/actions file is responsible for this. By default it has a command to execute netscape, but you can change to whatever you want. Please only note that you cannot put lynx or any other text mode based browser starting in the same console there. The commands from "actions" run in parallel with CenterIM, so please only pass your URLs to scripts or to X based browsers, but to nothing interactive.
Though, if you're using CenterIM under screen(1) there is a solution. Jochen Sprickerhof <jochen.sprickerhof@web.de> advised it having read the statement in the previous paragraph. He proposes to define open URL action the following way: "openurl screen lynx $url$", in order to open lynx in a new screen window as soon as an URL to browse it chosen.
Hostnames and port numbers (for crazy firewall admins)
I'm frequently asked what ports and hostnames CenterIM uses to connect to various IM services. To avoid further buzz, I just include them here.
ICQ
Hostname: login.icq.com Port: 5190
Here a small note is needed. To a great displeasure of network admins, the ICQ main server listens on all the TCP ports, from 1 to 65535. So if in your network the 5190 is blocked, don't be upset, set it to 80 or to 21 or whatever is not restricted by firewall and it will work :)
Yahoo!
Hostname: scs.msg.yahoo.com Port: 5050
AIM TOC
Hostname: toc.oscar.aol.com Port: 9898
IRC
For this network you gotta choose a server yourself, because the auditory of people you chat with and other things depend exactly on this choice. However, by default, CenterIM sets the following parameters:
Hostname: irc.freenode.net Port: 6667
Jabber
There are many Jabber servers in the world, also the solution is widely used for in-house communications inside various companies, so you can choose the server yourself. At the other hand, the default server open to the public is the following:
Hostname: jabber.com Port: 5222
LiveJournal
Since LiveJournal, despite of its being not an IM network, is also a completely open source and free (in the "free speech" sense) solution, you can find LiveJournal servers installed anywhere. You can even install one on your own. Just in case, here I'm giving you parameters of their main server:
Hostname: livejournal.com Port: 80
Gadu-gadu
Hostname: appmsg.gadu-gadu.pl Port: 80
MSN
Hostname: messenger.hotmail.com Port: 1863
Binding to various IP addresses
If the box you're running CenterIM on has several IPs and you would like to use a certain one of them for IM connections, there is a command line parameter made especially for you, --bind <IP address> or shortly, -B <IP address>.
