NewsForge's Robin Miller tested if Kopete satisfies his instant-messaging and IRC needs and can replace the separate applications GAIM and XChat he used so far. He asserts that Kopete is a fine choice especially if you run it under KDE and enjoy the good KDE integration.
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Umh... a lot of complaints about stability of kopete here. I've to take up the cudgels for kopete, me thinks. Kopete does _not_ crash every minute over here. In fact it starts when I login at morning (and kwallet asks for confirmation) and just works reliably until I log off in the eve.
Well... I dunno if kopete can _replace_ gaim (and I really don't care)...
I don't like the assumption, that you've to use gaim and then "replace" it with kopete. Actually, I started using this IM thingy _because of kopete_. I tried it once when it was still at 0.6something and immediatly liked it. Back then kopete was buggy as hell, so I've been using gaim which was more stable. But now at 0.8 and kwallet integration kopete is definitively my choice.
And over here it crashes everytime i try to connect to AIM...
Been reading the comments and I wonder if the reason for Kopete's instability is due to the flavour it's built on. At home I have kopete running in Gentoo and it works unbelievably well. However, my work system being Fedora (yes, I am lucky enough to use Linux at work) I can't get the rpm to install at all. Can't rebuild from the source rpm because the kde/rpm website doesn't seem to have it anymore (or at least last time I checked using pbone and apt).
As for rebuilding from source, I couldn't actually get it to generate one binary even though the build returned successfull. Turns out libjpeg wasn't installed and I had no error to say it was required. Still doesn't work even with libjpeg, although the binaries do compile. I haven't had time to tackle it so I'm stuck using gaim at work which I find rather limiting compared to Kopete. Mind you the only limitation may be that Kopete simply looks much nicer ;-)
In any case, Gentoo's emerge built it up without a problem even with my custom Athlon kernel whereas Fedora is still choking. So the problems may just be the platform. BTW, Kopete had no problems when I was running Redhat 9 at work :-(
Cheers!
I have debian and used to find kopete too unstable. Then I moved to an office where the net connection didn't go down three times a day and now everything is fine.
kopete is just really bad at dealing with network instability and you either experience that or you don't. (right now i don't - yay!)
Just a follow up to my thread. I've upgraded to KDE 3.2.1 and Kopete works great. Quick and stable. Excellent work!
With so many complaints about Kopete here, I surely hope you guys write feature requests in the bugzilla as well! (So the developers at least have a chance of perfecting their work.) As I see it, it's progressing very nicely, the best feature being kaddressbook of course.
wwwoooooowww!!! kadressbook integration???? finally!!! as soon as my inet connection is alive again... KDE 3.2.2 with the latest kopete - here I come ;-)
Personally, I think that IM clients are horrible for IRC. I wouldn't use either Kopete or Gaim to connect to an IRC server.
That said, Kopete is on the way to becoming a great IM client. It's not there yet, but it's improving. I still prefer Gaim, but that may very well change by the time Kopete 1.0 is released. And it already has Gaim beat in one area--transparency :)
As for IRC, I'd bet on KVirc as ultimately replacing XChat. As with Kopete, it's not there yet, but it's on its way.
> As for IRC, I'd bet on KVirc as ultimately replacing XChat. As with Kopete, it's not there yet, but it's on its way.
You can also try vertigo.. which is the (beginnings) of a native KDE gui for xchat (which has a plugin-based GUI that is not dependent on gtk)..
See
http://cvs.berlios.de/cgi-bin/viewcvs.cgi/vertigo/
http://developer.berlios.de/cvs/?group_id=1012
Now THAT sounds interesting :)
I'm using Kopete myself (and even have coded on it in the past) but for hardcore IRC-users an IM app just won't do it. I doubt Kopete, gaim or Trillian will ever support all the stuff I do in IRC, mainly:
- nickserv register
- system info scripts
- mediaplayer scripts
- blowfish encryption
- trigger for about any sentence you can think of
Of course this could all be made possible in apps like Kopete but OTOH I think that would be total overkill.
- Add the nickserv command to your "On Connect" commands in the account config
- Media player stuff is already in the Now Listening plugin, and I would wager it has support for more media players and paramaters than any script you are currently using
- All the rest would be doable via the JavaScript plugin using KJSEmbed, which will be in KDE 3.3 (and maybe Kopete 0.9 if I can get it done in time). The scripting in Kopete is going to be very powerful, much more powerful than anything XChat or Mirc has.. you'll be able to access nearly every susbsystem in the Kopete API, not just set simple triggers.
I think kopete a great product at home. However, if I'm going to use it at work for AIM messaging, it needs to support proxies.
SOCKS is supported, HTTPS is not due to the missing support in kdelibs (will most probably change for KDE 3.3, of course using that API is already planned and at least I am just waiting to code something working based on the new libqt-addon sockets :) ).
Also, with such a little amount of developers there is no time for writing a HTTP-proxying class, especially if none of the developers ever needed this (remember, this stuff is mostly written for fun so you usually code what you want/need most, not only what others want).
I am seeing many comments in this forum along these lines:
"Personally, I think that IM clients are horrible for IRC. I wouldn't use either Kopete or Gaim to connect to an IRC server."
As the IRC lead dev. for Kopete, I would be extremely interested to know what you, as users, feel Kopete is lacking for IRC support, as compared to say, XChat, Konversation or KSirc. It has never been my goal for Kopete to be a half-cooked IRC client. To me, Kopete already has nearly everything these clients can offer, and much more (especially the XChat argument... switch Kopete to Tabbed mode and use the XChat theme, and tell me the functionality difference? ). However, your feedback can help make it better.
Namely,
- What features do you feel are missing that X client has?
- What features do not work the way you need them to for IRC?
Note that it is well known that we do need a way to set a different chatting theme for group chats ( like IRC ) vs. single user chats ( like most MSN, ICQ etc. ), and we're working on possibilities.
Thanks, feedback is greatly appreciated.
SSL support is the #1 thing keeping me from using kopete for my irc needs.
SSL support is already in CVS HEAD ( has been for months ), so the next release will have it.
I just don't like having to use the same program for IM and IRC... just doesn't make sense.
I will continue to use Xchat
Autoconnection upon startup.
Or is this lack my fault?
Limited to running Kopete 0.9 as CVS requires KDE 3.3 but would like to see a timeout option for IRC re/connection (unsure if this is in CVS). Currently can't connect to Austnet.org as connection taking along time. Can connect with other IRC clients even gaim, I assume its time out issue as in log on window will say "You are now offline" during log on process, managed to get online once assume that things were going quicker than normal.
Thanks
Sam
Hello Sam. I am no longer IRC maintainer, but the timeout settings for Kopete IRC can be controlled under KControl -> Internet & Network -> Preferences. Kopete uses these settings (the standard KDE ones). for timeouts.
It lacks nothing for me! I love the IRC support in Kopete. In fact, it's pretty much the only thing I use Kopete for. The Windows guys in my office wish they could run Kopete to connect to our office IRC channel. I need a chat client that gets focus whenever it receives a message, and Kopete does that just fine.
Strangely, the KDE 4 version of Kopete doesn't seem to have IRC support. We'll proabably upgrade to KDE 3 sometime soon, and we're concerned about this problem. Are there any plans to implement IRC?
I noticed this too. Are there any plans to add irc back in?
I'm missing the IRC support too.
See this bug report for more information.
I've been using Kopete for a while but I had to switch to gaim when I found out that every once in a while Kopete just didn't deliver some message. The main problem is that neither the sending host (kopete) nor the receiving host (also kopete) displays any error message. The message seems to be sent correctly (and shows up in the chat window of the sending kopete), but it is never received (i.e. it doesn't show up in the chat window of the receiving kopete), and _neither_ client shows any error message although _both_ should. I do like the program but I simply can't use something that fails silently like that.
A similar thing happens when the other end has a client with more features than kopete, such as file transfer for a particular protokol. The other client tries to send a file but kopete is completely silent. It should at least tell me that the other client is trying to do something that isn't supported by kopete yet. (This happens in gaim, too, though. E.g., my sister tried to send me a picture from her MSN Messenger but gaim was just dead silent. No error message, nothing.)
If I send a message (or a file or whatever) I really want to know whether the other party received it successfully or not.
The review does not mention the meta-contact feature of kopete, which is a killer-feature for me. I have some contacts, that are reachable via different IMs, but are not always online with all their accounts.
Gaim actually has support for grouping contacts into meta-contacts as well. It isn't very well documented, but it works just fine.
I liked the way Everybuddy did it best, but it seems that development on that app isn't nearly as fast as gaim or kopete. I switched to gaim a couple years back, and have been pretty happy. Plus I can have it and xchat on my Windows box at work, which is handy.
I'm certainly keeping an eye on Kopete though.
I use Kopete with my ICQ and MSN IM accounts, and it works flawlessly.
The version in KDE 3.2 is quite stable and polished compared to previous releases.
Integration with KWallet is very nice to have. Being able to attach files in ICQ is the only thing I could wish for.
i finally broke down & thought i'd give kopete a complete try this morning. i added all of my accounts & began to fiddle w/ the options to what i'm confortable with. the author definitely talks of file transfer, but i could not find such an option for any of my protocols. i realize this doesn't work in gaim either, but it's probably the only thing i'm really missing from my im experience. also, kopete wouldn't remember my password, despite the checkboxed option & it being in my kde wallet. i couldn't find a way to turn the fonts off for chats (i had a couple friends who "didn't like them"). i suspect an html-type mode by default w/out an option to change it. i could change the fonts to something more appealing for them, & i eventually found the "master" font, - just made the experience slightly less fun. oh, & what i miss most, was that i couldn't find an option to send the message w/ a carriage return only, w/out it trying to continue my message onto the next line. i found that i could do it w/ ctrl-return, but i like the behavior switched, continuing to the next line *while* pressing a meta-key. lastly, i missed the fact that i could press escape in an open chat to close the chat. as a programmer, i spend most of the time at the keyboard but had to drag the mouse to close the box after a simple "ok" reply. i think i'm done & sorry for the nit-picks. just my real life experience. it's a great program otherwise. i will come back to check on it in time.
At work we are using nice KDE desktops (SuSE 9.0) w/ Kopete 0.8 installed. But, unfortunately Kopete is not as stable as we require. All we need is to talk over Yahoo! and there are no other protocols required, however, Kopete does not send messages to the recipient. It displays as we are logged in but in fact we are not.
now we are searching for other alternatives :(. Yahoo! does not have an rpm for SuSE and I think we will give Gaim a try which I don't really wish to use b/c it is GTK based.
Meanwhile, we would like to switch back to Kopete when it is going to be MUCH MORE reliable.