$Id: README 93 2008-01-09 00:00:43Z kostix $
"Recent Status" -- plugin for Tkabber.


I. The Idea

This plugin replaces the standard Tkabber's widget for managing
the user's availability status message (this is an entry box to
the right of the presence menu button) with a combobox widget
that keeps track of entered messages.

The history of availability status messages is preserved across
Tkabber restarts (via the Customize mechanism -- see "Technical
details" below).


II. Usage

Usage is not very different from the standard widget: you type
your new availability message and press the Return (Enter) key
to "apply" (send) it, or, alternatively, select another
availability status from the status menu.

When you set the new status message it's saved and made
available via the drop-down list of this combobox widget.

So instead of manually entering the message you can just post
the drop-down list (using the special button on the right-hand
side of the combobox widget or pressing the Cursor Down key)
and select one of the saved messages.

NOTE that when you select a message using the drop-down list you
still need to "apply" it (see above).

NOTE that if the message you entered is already present in the
history, it's not recorded, instead, it's moved to the most
recent position in the history. Thus the history prevents
duplicates.

Empty status messages are not recorded in the history.

You can clear the history of status messages by using the "Clear
history" command from the context menu of the combobox entry
(invoked by the right mouse button). This operation is
irreversible, so think before you do this -- no confirmation
will be asked.


III. Configuration

This plugin can be configured via the Customize interface of
Tkabber -- open its window via the Tkabber -> Customize main
menu entry, then navigate to the Plugins -> Recent Status group
of settings.

Currently there's only one option to tweak:

* options(maxhistorysize) -- specifies the maximum number of
  status messages kept in the history. When the number of
  history messages reaches this limit, the oldest message is
  deleted automatically.


IV. Limitations

* There's no way to edit the history messages from within
  Tkabber (but see "Technical Details" below).


V. Technical Details

The history of messages is stored via the Customize mechanism of
Tkabber, which stores the settings to the file named
"custom.tcl" located under the Tkabber configuration directory.

So observe some things:

* If you run several Tkabber processes in parallel and they all
  share the same configuration directory, the history of
  availability status messages is overwritten each time you
  set it from one copy or another; the history which is
  loaded the next time Tkabber is run will be the history of
  the last Tkabber process to save its settings file.

* You may edit the history messages by manually editing
  "custom.tcl" -- look for the variable named
  "::plugins::recentstatus::history". Note that its value must
  be a well-formed Tcl list and the file is in UTF-8.


VI. See Also

If you find yourself using certain availability status messages
over and over again, you may consider looking at the
"customstatus" Tkabber plugin which provides for maintaining
custom presets of availability status/message pairs.

This plugin is available at:
http://svn.xmpp.ru/repos/tkabber-3rd-party/trunk/plugins/customstatus/


# vim:tw=64:noet
