::Join the world of Jabber with three steps!
Here we will give you a three-step manual how to enter the Jabber world.
Step 1: Choose, download and install your favorite Jabber client
Step 2: Register your Jabber account and get your uniqe Jabber ID
Step 3: Log in and configure your client
Step 1: Get and install your Jabber client
Get your client
- Visit http://www.jabber.org/software/clients.php to search your personal favorite Jabber client for your OS. The Jabber software foundation maintains a complete list of all available Jabber clients on these pages.
- The several clients differ in the amount of XMPP/Jabber features they support and the licence policy of their creatures (freeware, GPL, payware).
- A client we can recommend because of its rich XMPP support and the availability for nearly every platform combined with the GPL license is “PSI”. We will give you a detailed manual how to install PSI in the following. Of course the steps are mostly very similar if you chose another client.
- It’s also useful to have several programs installed parallel to find your personal favorite. Thanks to the possibility to be online with one JabberID with several clients at the same time you may test all the different features of the clients.
- Depending on the Jabber server you registered at you have the possibility to use a web interface. This might be useful if you’re in an internet cafe where no Jabber clients are installed or if you’re behind a firewall that only allows http (port 80). We offer you at jabber.netzgehirn.de a simple, HTML based, java-script free web interface. Just visit web.jabber.netzgehirn.de to enable the interface for your Jabber account (Once again: You need to register your Jabber ID on our server jabber.netzgehirn.de)
- We have tested several clients so far, here a brief list of the experiences we made:
- PSI: Very useful, great support of the XMPP/Jabber features (also GPG encrypted IM), many customizing functions, available for many platforms under the GPL
- Rhymbox aka Pandion: Very small, fast and easy to install/use, nice but only elementary functions, based on the IE-engine so only available for Windows
- neos: Large variety of features including whiteboard, audio and video transfer, groupchat, only available for Windows
Install your client
Here we’ll give you a detailed manual for the installation process of the Jabber client “PSI”. Of course the steps are nearly the same if you use any other client. An also very helpful manual how to install PSI is available here
1. Download PSI from http://psi.affinix.com/
- Using Windows: Just take the link “Windows Installer”
- Using Linux: Chose the package for your distribution. Alternatively you may install PSI directly via your package management tool from the command line (e.g. for debian: “apt-get install psi”)
2. Start the setup process
- Using Windows: Run the .exe-file you just downloaded by double clicking on it and follow the instructions the installer gives you
- Using Linux: Extract the tar-file you just downloaded by typing “tar -zxvf filename”, todo, todo
3. Run PSI for the first time
- Using Windows: Double click the PSi icon either in your quickstart-bar, on the desktop or start it from the start menu (depending on the options you chose during the install process)
- Using Linux: Just type “psi” at the command line or click the icon on your desktop
4. Create a profile
- PSI allows you to create several profiles, e.g. for different users who use the same installation of PSI. To get started just click the “Profiles” button, as shown below.
- A new window will appear, which is where you’ll see your profile(s) after it’s (they’re) created. Click the “New” button to create your first profile.
- The “Create Profile” dialog will appear, as shown below.
- Choose a simple name for your profile, such as your own name. Use only letters and numbers, no punctuation or special characters.
- Jabber has two methods of sending messages to your contacts. Messages like ICQ, where they receive the single message, then click reply. Chat is like AOL, where the whole conversation continues in a single window that remains open. Select which one you prefer as your default. You are able to change this later if you change your mind.
- If you’d prefer to see a smiley face whenever someone sends you a :-), then check the box next to Enable Emoticons.
- Click “Create”, and you will be returned to the “Open Profile” dialog. You will see that your newly created profile appears in the drop-down list. If this is the only profile you will use, tick the checkbox labeled “Automatically open on startup”.
- Click “Open” to select your profile for use.
Now you’re ready to create your Jabber account and get your Jabber ID! Continue with step 2.
Step 2: Get your personal Jabber ID!
Register your personal Jabber ID
- You have several possibilities to register your personal Jabber account. You may install a client an register or you visit a web interface of a Jabber server. If you want to register at our server you may visit web.jabber.netzgehirn.de and click “New Account”. Much more easier and faster is the way over a client, that’s why we’ll show you the steps again with the example of “PSI”.
- If you followed our install steps and have installed PSI correctly, created a profile (See “step 1: get and install your Jabber client”) and opened it you can log in with an existing account or easily register a new one.
- After the “Add Account” dialog has appeared, you can type a name for your account (See below). Choose a simple name, such as the Jabber server you plan on connecting to. Alternatively, you can call it a pet’s name, or your favourite fruit. It’s just a way to identify this account, and has no real importance.
- To register a new Jabber account (If this is your first time using Jabber), click the checkbox labeled “Register new account”. If you already have a Jabber account somewhere, leave the box unchecked.
- If you’ve never used Jabber before, keep reading our articles in the “Jabber” section in the main menu on the top of this page to learn how a Jabber ID (also called a JID) is created. If you’ve used Jabber before, you will understand how to enter your Jabber server details in the appropriate dialogs.
- When registering a new Jabber account, you will be presented with the Register Account dialog.
- There are two parts to a Jabber ID, or JID. The first part is your username, and the second part is the server address. The JID is written like an email address: username@server.com. You can choose any username that you want, but keep in mind that it might already be taken if you try to register it on a very popular server.
- If you’d like to register at our server you have to type “your_user_id@jabber.netzgehirn.de”
- There are a number of public servers available, but not all of them support all of Jabber’s features. You might like to consider which Jabber services you’d like to use – such as groupchat or connection to legacy instant messaging like ICQ and MSN. All servers are interconnected, so you will be able to talk to your friends on other servers.
- When you chose a username and selected a server, they combine to form your JID. Type your JID into the Jabber ID field. * Enter a password and confirm it, it will be saved as a MD5 hash on the server.
- Be aware to check the “Use SSL encryption” checkbox to get rid of guys sniffing around
- Click “Register” to attempt to register your username at your desired server. If you really must have that certain special username, you may have to try a few different servers until you find it available. After you successfully register, remember to tell your friends your JID so that they can find you.
That’s it – now you’ve got your own unique Jabber ID!
Step 3: Log in and configure your Jabber client
After you’ve created your Jabber ID you’re able to log in from any client you like. We’re not able to give you a configuration manual for every client (of course this would avoid the joy of experiencing the clients on your own *g) so we just show you a brief summary of possibilities you have with our example from the last two chapters: PSI
Log in with your profile
- After starting PSI you’ll see the menu to choose your profile. Just choose the profile from the drop down box you want to use.
- To avoid this screen during future log in’s just activate the box before “Automatically open on startup”
- Click the button “Open” to use the selected profile. PSI will now connect with the account saved behind the profile and load the roaster.
Manage your roaster
- During your first connect with your new Jabber ID you are asked to fill in some details about yourself into a profile. Of course it’s allowed to keep every field empty. Just press “Publish” to transfer the data to the server. You won’t see this window anymore during future logins. Of coure you’re able to change your profile data later (see below).
- If you just registered a new account your roaster will be empty, of course. There are different ways to get it filled: Add other users, getting added by other users or activate transports to legacy networks like ICQ, AIM or MSN.
- To add another user, click on the butten on the bottom left within the PSI program window. The main menu will pop up. Choose “Add contact” from the top of the menu. Just type the full Jabber ID of the person you’d like to add into the according formfield.
- Depending on the transports you have subscribed to you may choose the right one from the drop down menu on the top of the window. Default is Jabber, but you may also add e.g. ICQ-users to your roaster.
- The field Nickname just means the alias you’s like to see in your roaster for this contact. If you leave it empty the Jabber ID will be shown.
- You may also decide which of your groups the new contact should be put into.
- Press “Add” to add this contact to your roaster.
Change your state information
- To change your state just click the butten on the bottom-right of the PSI program window. In case of an away state you will be asked to fill in a reason.
Manage groups in your roaster
- Of course you have the possibility to organise your growing amount of contacts with groups. Groups belong to the roaster and are saved on the server so you’ll see them in every client. To add a new group just rightclick on an existing contact, choose the “Group” submenu and click on “Create new”.
Subscribe to transports
- Subscribing to transports e.g. to get a connection to a legacy chat system like ICQ or AIM is as easy as adding a new contact: Click on the button at the bottom-left of the PSI program window to open the main menu. Choose “Service Discovery” and a window like the one below will be shown. You see all the active transports of the server. Choose e.g. the ICQ transport, right-click on it and click “Register”. In the next form you are asked for your ICQ-UIN and the passport. Enter the data and click “Register” – that’s all. Your roaster will be instanty expanded by all your ICQ contacts. If some contacts are missing be sure you exported your ICQ contact list before to the ICQ server (some ICQ clients store the contact list local).
Join/Create a group chat
- If you still know IRC then the group chat functionality is the pendant within Jabber. Choose “Join group chat” from the PSI main menu. In the following form you have to fill in the Host on which the group you like to join is hosted. “Room” means the name of the concrete chatroom. “Nickname” stands for the name others will see you in the list of participating users.
Subscribe to RSS news feeds
- First of all you have to add a new contact to your roster: A bot that is able to handle with rss-feeds and that parses the websites you have subscribed to. A good-working bot of that sort we also use is e.g. jabrss@cmeerw.net. So just add this Jabber ID to your contact list. After that open a chat window of the jabrss contact and type “subscribe ” followed by the link you find behind all these “XML-feed” logos on many websites (see sample logos below). As a first example you may subscribe e.g. to the heise newsletter by typing “subscribe http://www.heise.de/newsticker/heise.rdf”. Some seconds later you will receive a confirmation of the successful subscription. To show all of your feeds you’re subscribed to, type “list”. A complete manual of all parameters of jabrss is listed on http://cmeerw.org/
Change your personal profile data
- During your first login you had this window with your user information. To change the data within your profile just right-click on your own contact in the roster and choose “User Info”. Add/Remove all the information you’d like and press “Publish”. Now the user information on the server is updated.
