[WIP] VoIP and XMPP script

Sorry I haven't updated this post in a bit, been busy.

Just to let anyone who is interested know the route for this project has changed. We feel that the best way to add IM and VoIP functionality to XBMC is to add support for telepathy. I don't think that this can be achieved by a script but requires a patch to the XBMC source.

While in the long run this new route will lead to IM and VoIP support this leaves you guys with nothing to use in the short term. As an alternative during my experimenting a wrote a small google chat script, I can develop this a bit more and make it available if there is any interest in such a script?

I will probably start a new post for this project it no longer belongs in the script forum.

I have set up a blog for the project.

As always any opinions/ideas welcome.

eo

Building on Telepathy sounds like a smart move; see also one of my first posts in this thread. Not sure why your blog mentioned getting it running on Windows -- you do know XBMC Live is built on Ubuntu (which, incidentally, has all the telepathy packages ready to go?) -- it might be a better starting point...?

Also check out these, if you haven't already. I don't know much about developing add-ons for XBMC, but I would imagine you don't need to tinker with the XBMC core code...:

Source: http://xbmc.org/theuni/2010/08/30/finall...rma-beta1/

Quote:We have refactored everything that doesn’t belong inside the core of XBMC to be an addon. So in the future, your scrapers, visualizations, skins, etc. will update automatically (unless disabled). Since opening the xbmc.org repository a few weeks ago, submissions have been pouring in. We expect to have a very nice collection by the time we reach our final release.

See also
http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=Add-ons

Keep up the good work and keep us updated with your progress! Sofa-to-sofa video conferencing is coming to XBMC thanks to you!! :-)

Thanks for picking up this project eoin. I hope it can be an instructive one.

Make sure you understand the differences between add-ons and scripts for XBMC (see extrospectioni's second link). What you want to do cannot be done in an add-on, but I believe a script should be sufficient for your purposes.

You might look into telepathy-python for this:
http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/wiki/Te...y%20Python

And here is some light documentation for telepathy-python:
http://telepathy.freedesktop.org/doc/boo...ython.html
There are links to more documentation for Telepathy in general on the right-hand side of the page, but it seems to be very unfinished.

You may also want to look at the following presentation for some further direction:
http://raphael.slinckx.net/files/telepat...c-2007.pdf
Page 80 has some good sample code for a VoIP implementation using telepathy-python.

And as extrospection also mentioned, you may want to start with linux first as it would likely save you from some huge headaches just dealing with telepathy itself. Maybe a lot of improvements have been made since I last dealt with the Windows build to make it easier to work with, but from your questions, it sounds like it may not yet be the case

In any case, good luck.

how is this coming along? any development?

This idea is something that I have been thinking about for over a year or so now. Unfortunately, I extent of programming knowledge is in VB - not so much help here. Great to see some enthusiasm here..

I know for the longest time everyone was saying that video calling doesn't belong in XBMC. Thing is many other platforms are starting to move that way - now with GoogleTV and Microsoft having their own platforms - this makes perfect sense (Now if they could all play together - imaging not being able to call your friend because his cell phone is CDMA and yours is GSM - that baffles us, but not being able to talk to a skype user from ichat or other is perfectly acceptable to most).

Anyways - check out this webcam - designed to work with Logitech implementation of GoogleTV (Webcam on your tv mixed with a mediacenter platform?? But so many said neh.. ) but has been used successfully as a regular webcam.

http://www.logitech.com/en-us/smartTV/ac...ces/tv-cam

Anyways - if there is any way I can help - testing etc - I'll do what I can..

Shawn

eoin Wrote:Sorry I haven't updated this post in a bit, been busy.

Hey eoin - we're all keen to hear how you are getting on?

As you can see, we're all excited at the promise of XBMC video calling :-)

Heads up that Android phones might get Google Talk video conferencing in the near future too, and since it's already open and "hackable", we'll get to call mobiles from our living rooms! - cool!
http://gizmodo.com/5667128/gingerbread-a...alling-too
http://gizmodo.com/5676a008/hands-on-the...e=true&s=i

This sounds really cool. Subscribed!

Ok guys, this is the nice way!
Telepathy is the good framework to begin. In my mind I have a vision of the future: I can video-chat from sofa.

.... ok .. this way... I propose to integrate a mini buddy list on the home screen, as well as for weather; select it and go to the full buddy list. On IM screen, the full buddy list, start a new audio-call or video-call in full screen and in a small box my image ( like iChat OSX style ). For incoming call/chat a mini popup can be show up, like update of a add-on. Text-chat is difficoult with a remote control ( if it isn't a keyboard ); personally I don't spend many time for the text-chat ... a basic integration may be sufficient.

Unfortunately I doesn't are a python developer.

what is your think about this ?

Alright guys here is a quick update.

The approach I have taken is to first get a small python program to work on ubuntu that will use a combination of telepathy-python, mission-control and telepathy-gabble to connect to gchat and send messages, update presences etc. This will allow me to become familiar with telepathy and potentially it could become the basis of a XBMC script.

The program which I initially thought would be quite easy to write has been a bit of a time sink. The reason for this is a combination of minimal documentation for telepathy-python, some silly mistakes on my part and time spend learning how dbus and telepathy work.

In summary i've got nothing to show yet but just wanted to let you guys know that I am working on the project and making progress however small.

eoin Wrote:just wanted to let you guys know that I am working on the project and making progress however small.

Thanks! Appreciate the effort you're putting in. Call on everyone here for help if there's anything we can do.