Contents
Welcome to the SLiteChat documentation page, where I endeavor to enlighten you on how to install and use SLiteChat. If you want to know more about what this application is (and what it is not), please see the About page for details.
Binary
- Proceed to the download page and get the latest binary for your platform. Microsoft Windows XP+, GNU/Linux and Macintosh OS/X are currently supported.
- Under MS Windows, download the installer and double click it in Windows Explorer. Follow the prompts. The SLiteChat icon will now appear in your "Start|Programs" under the "Dooglio.NET" menu.
- Under MacOSX, just download the installer and double click the icon. Follow the prompts, and enter your password when prompted to. Look for "slitechat" to appear in your Applications folder.
- Under GNU/Linux, you can download either the ".tar.gz" file or the ".deb" file for Ubuntu/Debian systems.
- For the tarball, unpack using tar (e.g. using tar xvzf), change into the "bin" folder and type "./slitechat".
- For the debian package, use "dpkg -i" to install (as root). Keep in mind I don't have any dependency checking turned on. The latest version of Ubuntu should work okay (mostly).
- Or, download the source tarball and get CMake 2.6 (see below).
Source
- Get the required tools:
- CMake 2.6
- The usual compiler tools (gcc, MS VC++ 8, Xcode).
- For Windows builds (MSVC and MinGW32, I have all the libraries you need in the 3rdParty zipfile).
- For Linux and Mac OS/X builds (I recommend MacPorts):
- Boost libraries
- Qt4
- Other libraries have been compiled for you in the appropriate 3rdParty tarball for Windows.
- Proceed to the download page, download and unpack:
- Download the source tarball (e.g. slitechat-1.5.2.tar.gz) For Windows users, I recommend using Cygwin's tar to unpack the file, but 7zip will work also.
- Unpack into your local source folder/directory.
- Make sure you get the appropriate third-party libraries installed (you need apr/apr-util, boost, c-ares, curl, expat, openssl, xmlrpc-epi, zlib, libsigc++ and Qt4).
- If you're building under Windows and are using the 3rdParty tarball, unpack in a sister directory (e.g. c:\Source\slitechat-1.1.1 and C:\Source\3rdParty-win32-1.1.1). You will still need to download and install Qt4 seperately.
- Build the source
- Change into the source directory (e.g. /home/doug/src/slitechat-1.5.2).
- Run the "cmake" tool with the parameter. I recommend using either ccmake or cmake-gui. For Windows users, you specify the ThirdParty tarball thusly: "-DTHIRDPARTY_DIR=<path to 3rdParty directory>". You also need to specify a generator. For example:
- cmake -G "Unix Makefiles"
- cmake -G "Visual Studio 8 2005"
- cmake -G "Xcode"
- Once the project files have been generated, build the application:
- GNU/Linux: type "make"
- Mac OS/X: use "Unix Makefiles" or "Xcode".
- Windows: Open the Visual C++ 8 (2005) solution.
- For each system, once the application is built, type "make package" to create the supported platform-specific installer. Or for Win32 build the "PACKAGE" project.
- Copy app_settings directory.
- On Linux, in the directory where you unpacked the archive, execute "cp -aux doc/app_settings ."
- Under Windows, copy or move the "doc\app_settings" folder into your Debug, Release, or RelWithDebInfo folder.
- Under Mac OS/X, if using the "Xcode" generator, find the slitechat.app folder under your Debug, Release or RelWithDebInfo folder. Create a Contents folder and copy the doc/app_settings folder there. If using the "Unix Makefiles" generator, the slitechat.app folder will appear in your project root.
- Launch the application!
Running the application is dead simple. Just invoke from the command line/explorer shell and you are ready to go. However, you first need to log into the Second Life system.
Execute the File|Login menu selection (or hit Ctrl+L). You will see a login dialog appear:
Enter your Second Life first and last name, then your password. Click the OK button (or just press "ENTER"). Click the "Save Password" check box so SLiteChat can remember it for you.
You will see the main UI appear, looking something like this:
The left side bar is the list of your friends that you have added while you were using the main SL viewer. Bold indicates the online status of a particular friend, where non-bold indicates offline status. The dead give away is the word "Online" or "Offline" in the left-most column :-). The right-most window is the chat/IM area. When you first log in, you see a "Local Chat" tab. You may communicate with any avatars that are within chatting distance. To initiate an "IM" session with someone, double click a friend in the friends pane and you will see a new tab created. When the tab is not focused, an "*" appears next to the name to indicate unread messages. Click the "Add/Search Friend" to allow you to search for friends in the SL directory. Once found, you can click on either "Add" or "Send IM". Click the "Remove Friend" button to remove the highlighted friend. You will be prompted first. With the recent update to Qt4, you can drag the Friends and Groups panes around and dock them in different places in the app. You can even drop on on the other to create a tabbed list! Also, as of version 1.1.1, SLiteChat will automatically check online for updates.
- I built the application, but when I run it it just returns to the prompt silently!
- You most likely forgot to copy the "PROJECT_ROOT/doc/app_settings" folder to the same folder as your executable/binary (Contents folder under Mac).
- Under Mac/OSX I try to compile the application, but when I get to the linker phase, I get several messages like ".../universal-darwin/libapr-1.a is out of date, rerun ranlib..."
- This is an annoying bug under Mac OS/X. The problem is when you copy a library file, the linker thinks the contents is out of date. I think you can make this happen just by "touching" the file. The solution is to open a terminal window, change to the "PROJECT_ROOT/3rdParty/lib/universal_darwin" folder and execute "ranlib *.a".
- I try to compile but it cannot find <some header file>
- If you are trying to build in non STANDALONE mode (i.e. STANDALONE unchecked in cmake), then you have to download the 3rdParty distribution. Please see the download page. If you want to build SLiteChat in STANDALONE mode you must make sure each required library is installed. Please see the discussion above for more information.
This is a list of bugs and other problems:
- On Mac OS/X attempting to set the application font will either crash SLiteChat or cause strange behavior to happen in the font chooser.
- Your AV is a ghost when using this client.
- In the new Qt4 interface (since version 1), the Friends list does not sort right. If you want a sort by online status then alpha sort by name, click the "Name" column twice, then click the "Online" column twice.
- The group buttons do nothing (I know, I know, I'm working on it).
- Research a way to keep the viewer logged in without timing out and getting kicked by the server.
A list of things still to do:
- Allow initiation of a group chat session, leaving and searching for groups to join.
- Establish a more pleasant in-world AV (no ghost please--what I was wearing was fine :-).
- Allow selection of authentication site.
- Show list of AVs in the local chat.
- Initiate an IM session with someone appearing in your local chat without having to search for them first.
- After logging in, show a message as to where you logged in. Perhaps even allow teleporting after login.
- Handling of /<channel><message> in local chat so you can issue a command to a script.
- Notify user that an item has been sent to you, perhaps allowing refusal of the item.
- Some sort of profile view of avatars on SL.
- Add sound support for new IMs, preferably configurable.
- Grab profile pic and use it as an icon in the friends window.
And remember...chicks dig Linux!
Smiley icon created by IconTexto (Bruno Maia)
http://www.icontexto.com/
