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<chapter id="messaging">

<chapterinfo>
<authorgroup>
<author>
<firstname>Peter</firstname>
<surname>Nuttall</surname>
</author>

<author>
<firstname>Tom</firstname>
<surname>Albers</surname>
</author>

</authorgroup>

</chapterinfo>


<title>Introduction to messaging</title>


<para>The default way to send instant messages in &kde; is to use the <acronym>IM</acronym>
client, &kopete;. This is a multi-protocol <acronym>IM</acronym> client, meaning that it
handles several different protocols including <acronym>MSN</acronym>,
Jabber, <acronym>AOL</acronym> and <acronym>IRC</acronym>. It also has
useful features including support for &kaddressbook;, meta-contacts,
encryption support and lots more.</para>

<screenshot> 
<screeninfo>&kopete;, the &kde; IM client.</screeninfo> 
<mediaobject> 
<imageobject> 
<imagedata fileref="kopete.png" format="PNG"/> </imageobject> 
<textobject> 
<phrase>&kopete;, the &kde; IM client.</phrase> 
</textobject> 
<caption> 
<para>&kopete;, the &kde; IM client.</para> 
</caption> 
</mediaobject> 
</screenshot> 

<sect1 id="messaging-getting-started">
<title>How to get started</title>

<para>Start up &kopete; from the menu (it can normally be found in the
Internet folder) When it starts up you should see a window with &kopete;
at the top, menus and a tool bar below, and then your contacts below.
You should add some accounts by clicking on the
<guimenu>Settings</guimenu> menu and selecting the <guimenuitem>Configure
Kopete</guimenuitem> option. By selecting the <guilabel>Accounts</guilabel>
option you should see a list of your accounts (initially empty) and
options to add new accounts and to edit or remove existing accounts.
By clicking on the <guibutton>add new account</guibutton> button, you can
add a new account using the wizard. When you have added an account, you can
connect to this account by clicking on the relevant icon at the bottom of
your main &kopete; window. This should make your contacts appear in the 
contacts window.</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="meta-contacts">
<title>Meta-contacts</title>

<para>Meta contacts are one of the features of &kopete; that make sense
once you figure out what they are. Until you do, they annoy you. They are
basically a way of taking a contact on one network (such as
<acronym>MSN</acronym>) and linking it to another contact on a different
network. This is useful for when people have accounts on different networks
as you can chat to them without needing to know which account they are
signed on to. This also lets you assign names to your meta-contacts that
don't change when people change their names on their account, this is useful
if you have contacts who insist upon setting their
<acronym>MSN</acronym> nick to something like
<quote>=EF=81=8A</quote>.</para>

<para>You can do other useful things with meta-contacts like link them to
entries in your address book. See <xref
linkend="integrated-messaging"/></para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="irc">
<title><acronym>IRC</acronym></title>

<para>Internet Relay Chat (<acronym>IRC</acronym>) has been around far longer than most <acronym>IM</acronym>
systems, and is still widely used. It is mainly designed for group (many-to-many) communication in discussion forums called channels, but also allows one-to-one communication.</para>

<para>The #kde channel is under Freenode, the <acronym>IRC</acronym> server, which provides an interactive environment for coordination and support of peer-directed projects, including -- and placing particular stress upon -- those relating to free software and open source projects, such as &kde;.</para>


<para>While &kopete; has a <acronym>IRC</acronym> plugin, and handles both channels and nicks well,
long time <acronym>IRC</acronym> users might prefer a client designed just
for that role, which is what <application>Konversation</application> is. It supports features such
as granting and taking op status, banning, easy nick changing, special
channel support for passwords and invites, and other things that the power
<acronym>IRC</acronym> users expect. It also is far better at handling
large channels such as #debian. If you have used another
power-<acronym>IRC</acronym> client before, you should have no trouble using
<application>Konversation</application>.</para>


</sect1>

<sect1 id="integrated-messaging">
<title>Linking email and messaging</title>

<para>Did it happen to you? You received an email and the first thing
you would like to do is to give a reaction on it, but not by
email. So you switch to your instant messaging client and/or IRC
client and look if that person is online via MSN, Jabber or IRC. Well
&kde; 3.3 has made that a lot easier. A step-by-step manual:</para>

<para>The requirements are &kmail;, &kaddressbook; and &kopete;
(<application>Konversation</application> should do as well). Make sure &kmail; is configured and
fully functional for email, and Kopete is well configured for IRC,
Jabber and/or MSN and/or any other protocol. </para>

<para>If an email comes in from a contact you know, the first thing
you have to do is to add it to your address book. This can be achieved
by right clicking the address and choosing the entry <guibutton>Add to Address
Book</guibutton>.</para>

<para>If you know the nickname which the user uses on, for example, IRC,
go to &kopete;.  Go to
<menuchoice><guimenu>File</guimenu><guimenuitem>Add
contact</guimenuitem> </menuchoice>. In the wizard, select the
checkbox at the bottom called <guilabel>Use the KDE address book for
this contact</guilabel> and choose <guibutton>Next</guibutton>. Select
the right Address Book entry for that contact and press
<guibutton>Next</guibutton>. Now you can set the display name and the
group it belongs to for &kopete;. In the next screen select which
protocol should be used if you have set up more then one protocol. You
can select more than one protocol. After that, depending on the
protocol, there will be some other questions, which you can answer as
you like.</para>

<para>Although we did specify to choose from the address book,
&kopete; has not automatically linked your contact to the address
book. So select the contact and choose
<menuchoice><guimenu>Edit</guimenu><guimenuitem>Properties</guimenuitem>
</menuchoice>. On the <guilabel>General</guilabel> tab check the box
labeled <guilabel>Has address book entry</guilabel>. Press
<guilabel>...</guilabel> and select the contact. Close these two
windows.</para>

<para>Now go to your addressbook, if you select the contact you will
see that it shows an extra field <guilabel>Presence</guilabel>, followed by the current
status. This status will automatically update as soon as the contact
goes away, offline, online, and so on.  Now go to &kmail;, select another email and return to the original email (in other words: reload
the current email). You can now see behind the email address the
current state of your contact. </para>

<para>If you want to chat with this person, just right click the
address in &kmail; and choose <guilabel>Chat With...</guilabel>. Your
Instant Messenger will start a conversation with the contact.</para>

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</sect1>

</chapter>

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