Graphical notifications for centerim

Source

Using centerim's external configuration file makes it pretty easy to get notified about incoming messages. However, if you would add something like the following to your ~/.centerim/external, you'd be informed about *every* single incoming message, which doesn't make much sense, at least not in my eyes....

%action  notification
event msg
proto all
status all
options nowait

%exec
#!/bin/bash
#msg=`cat`
nick=$(head -n 1 $CONTACT_INFODIR/info)
echo "new message from $nick"  | dzen2 -bg red -fg white -p

To deal with this problem, I wrote two small perl scripts: centerim_notify.pl & offline.pl. The first one caters for the notifications and stores the screen name of your IM-buddy in a hidden file (~/.centerim/.seen) so you won't get notified again. The latter removes a chat partner from the list, when he logs off. So, here's how to use it:

  • Save both scripts to ~/.centerim/scripts/ and make them executable (chmod +x ...)
  • Put the following into your ~/.centerim/external:
%action  notification
event msg
proto all
status all
options nowait

%exec
#!/bin/bash
nick=$(head -n 1 $CONTACT_INFODIR/info)
~/.centericq/scripts/centerim_notify.pl "$nick"

%action offline
event offline
proto all
status all
options nowait

%exec
#!/bin/bash
nick=$(head -n 1 $CONTACT_INFODIR/info)
~/.centericq/scripts/offline.pl "$nick"
  • Create a bash alias that deletes the "seen-file" everytime you launch centerim:
echo "alias centerim='rm -f ~/.centericq/.seen && centerim -o'" >> ~/.bashrc
  • Run centerim!

Requirements: dzen2, perl and centerim ;-)