Google Talk Macro

Note This macro has been superceeded by the IM Presence Plugin.

Description

A macro for displaying the user's status on the Google Talk network.

The macro will display the user's gtalk address, as a jabber: link and a display a small icon noting the users' status: available, away, do not disitrub, etc. The macro also provides a tooltip displaying the users' status message, if there is one.

Jabber servers do not provide a presence service like the other IM services. So in order to get presence information the macro must log into the Jabber server as a user. I recommend creating a gtalk account specifically for this purpose.

There's only one tricky bit about this. Jabber specifies that you're not allowed to see anyone else's status unless you have been added to their contact roster. So the first time you attempt to display someone's presence the GTalk server will ask them if the macro-user should be added to their contact roster. Until the other user adds us to their contact roster, they will appear as invisible in confluence, even if they are actually logged in. So it's a good idea to warn your users to be watching for the request.

This macro uses Jive Software's Smack Library to do the communication with GTalk. (http://jivesoftware.org/smack/)

Installation

1. Download the Smack distribution from Jive Software.
2. Install smack.jar and smackx.jar in confluence/WEB-INF/lib.
3. Install gtalk-macro.jar as outlined in the admin guide.

Usage

{gtalk:user@gmail.com}

Examples

TODO

Given the capabilities of Smack, it would be fairly easy to generalize this into a generic Jabber Presence Macro. I just built the GTalk one because that's all I actually needed. (And Wildfire servers, like the one we use at Atlassian, provide a presence service.

Release History

Issue Tracking

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