Pidgin: Birthday Reminder
Finally I finished a plugin which implements a feature that I was missing really much in Pidgin for ages now: the Birthday Reminder. Since I used Miranda before I switched to Pidgin you will be able to find some ideas my plugin has in common with WhenWasIt. 
So, what does the plugin do?
- Scanning Birthdays: Every 2 minutes the plugin chooses a buddy to query its user info which is similar to “right click -> Get Info”. This is supposed to work on ICQ, AIM, XMPP and MSN protocols in case the buddy has entered its birthday. The birthday can be set manually for all protocols.
- Checking Birthdays: Stored birthdays will be checked at midnight or whenever an account goes online. Of course this can be triggered manually too.
- Notification: The plugin reminds you using either a mini dialog in your buddy list or a notification window or a birthday melody or, last but not least, an icon next to your buddies entry in your buddy list. Enjoy the screenshot!
- Tooltip: Shows your buddies (stored) birthday on its buddy list tooltip.
- Overview: There is an overview provided which enables you to see all (stored) birthdays.
- Localization: There is just a german translation for now. I would be glad if you like to translate it into other languages.
Download: launchpad.net
I wish you a happy St. Valentine’s Day. 
“The plugin queries every 2 minutes the user info of a buddy which is similar to “right click -> Get Info”.”
Why every 2 minutes?! Do you expect users to change their birthday so often? Wouldn’t it be enough to just do it every time you login or once a day for people who stay online all the time? Maybe even less often.
Ah okay. I read in the forum (forum.pidgin-im.de) why this is needed. I thought that every two minutes the buddy info for every buddy is queried.
Well, I wrote it a bit more clearly.
I expect the buddy to never change its birthday…so all scanned buddies are marked and will never be touched again (even if they had not entered a birthday).
The 2 minute gap is necessary because the (ICQ) server will not response anymore after a few user info polls without that gap.
How long will it last until there are some birthdays visible?
perhabs I’m too hasty 
I installed the script on my linux mashine and I am using ICQ MSN GMAIL and Jabber and the plugin didn’t grab any birthday yet.
I installed it about 3 minutes ago
2 minutes per birthday.
You can watch this in the debug window.
I may help translating it into spanish.
If glad send me the file.
thank you very much.
Rafael, Buenos Aires, Argentina.
wihtout doubt! every 2 min is good!!
Hi,
ich hab Ubuntu 8.04.1 x64 und nachdem ich Pidgin 2.5.2 über Backports installiert habe auch das Plugin installieren können, nur findet es Pidgin nicht ?
Habe es per source mit ./configure && make und dann sudo make install installiert.
thanks
kili
Was sagt ‘
pidgin -d | grep birthday‘, ‘pkg-config --variable=prefix pidgin‘ und ‘which pidgin‘?Wo hast du das Plugin hin installiert? (Existiert
/usr/local/lib/pidgin/birthday_reminder.sooder/usr/lib/pidgin/birthday_reminder.so?)Eine *wirklich* unschöne Lösung ist
./configure --prefix=/usr && make && sudo make installaber eine bessere kenne ich im Moment nicht. Normalerweise soll alles, was vom Paketmanager kommt nach/usrund alles selbst kompilierte nach/usr/local.Ich vermute, dass Pidgin nach
/usrinstalliert wurde und deswegen nur in/usr/lib/pidgin/nach Plugins sucht.Edit: Unter Umständen reicht ein Link von
/usr/lib/pidgin/nach/usr/local/lib/pidgin/birthday_reminder.soaber da ich Pidgin selbst aus den Quellen installiert habe kann ich es gerade nicht testen.Hi,
‘pidgin -d | grep birthday‘ => pidgin startet mehr passiert nicht
‘pkg-config –variable=prefix pidgin‘ => /usr
‘which pidgin’ => /usr/bin/pidgin
Und es existiert /usr/local/lib/pidgin/birthday_reminder.so das mit dem linken funktioniert nicht
‘./configure –prefix=/usr && make && sudo make install’ bringt auch nichts, finde das plugin immer noch nicht in pidgin -.-
Vielen Dank für deinen schnellen Support
Mfg
kili