Ubuntu – How to remove Empathy, and integrate Pidgin

11.10empathymessaging-menupidgin

I don't like the Empathy chat client, and I want to use Pidgin instead, but I want to maintain the functionality Empathy has in the messaging menu.

How can I do this in the cleanest way possible?

Best Answer

The IM system in Ubuntu is called Telepathy. Empathy is a GUI for some aspects of it. But Telepathy is really different from Pidgin. It is designed to be accessed by different applications at the same time, for instance. IE, a contact application would simply make a request for a phone call, and then you'd get a GUI to end the phone call, etc. The contact application would not have to worry about the kind of protocol used, etc. That's Telepathys job.

So you could use Pidgin instead of Empathy, but Pidgin cannot replace it because it's a completely different thing. You'd want to get a plugin to integrate it with the message indicator. I don't know if such a plugin exists, but you could always program it yourself. Both Pidgin and Indicators have good APIs and documentation.

Pidgin could potentially be used as a GUI for Telepathy though.

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