Pidgin plugin budicons
----------------------

This package provides a Pidgin pluging that synchronizes your Pidgin contacts
based on a remote export (JSON). The remote export is expected to provide the
names and icons to use for your buddies.


Compiling and installing
------------------------

Before the plugin can be compiled it could be useful to edit the file
"config.h" and to update the variable holding the location of the JSON file:

    #define CONF_URL_JSON "https://localhost/buddies.json"

This is not mandatory as this version of the plugin allows the JSON file to be
updated at runtime through the plugin's configuration dialog that's accessible
from Pidgin's "Plugins" dialog.

To compile under Ubuntu/Debian do:

    sudo apt-get install build-essential libtool libsoup2.4-dev libglib2.0-dev libjson-glib-dev pidgin-dev

To install the plugin in your home account (DO NOT do this as root):

    make install

To execute the plugin start Pidgin and open the plugins dialog:

    Main Window > Tools > Plugins or Ctrl+U

Then enable the plugin named "Buddy Icons Download". Enjoy!


JSON file
---------

This plugin requires that a JSON file is provided in order to update the Pidgin
buddies. The format of the file is very simple and consists of a list of
records (an array of small hashes). Where each record represents a buddy and
holds the information required for updating the corresponding Pidgin buddy.

Records consists of aa simple hash which has only three data members:
	- id: the Pidgin buddy name (the buddie's account identifier)
	- name: the real name of the buddy, what Pidgin will display
	- image: the image of the buddy

The JSON records are matched with Pidgin buddies based on the id provided by
the JSON structure and the buddy name provided by Pidgin. This is the only way
for which a match is done.

Example of a JSON export:

	[
		// First buddy
		{
			id: "emmanuel.rodriguez@gmail.com",
			name: "Emmanuel Rodriguez",
			image: "http://www.gravatar.com/avatar/bea04d5874da7c62c093c1d38b40c9fa.png",
		},

		// Second buddy
		{
			id: "agent-007@mi6.gov.uk",
			name: "James Bond",
			image: "http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/c/c5/Fleming007impression.jpg",
		},

		// I hope that you get the idea!
	]