Andrei Neculau

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Back in September 2007, I started to build a common Smiley Theme for the Pidgin Multi-protocol Messenger. The innovation was that it was implementing the original emoticons/smileys of their respective messenger/protocol - Yahoo!, AIM, ICQ, etc.

Today I give it a major push - easy installation and new hosting place.

Messengers/Protocols Supported

• Yahoo!
  + access to hidden emoticons
• MSN/Live!/WLM
  + access to hidden emoticons
  + support for msn-pecan plugin
• AIM
• ICQ
• Google Talk
  + access to hidden emoticons
  + round emoticons
  + square emoticons
  + colored emoticons
• Skype (requires the Skype plugin for Pidgin)
  + access to hidden emoticons
  + support for D-Bus plugin
• Sametime
• MySpaceIM
• Gadu-Gadu
• Tlen.pl (thanks to Kasper Wieczorek)
• Tencent QQ/Messenger (experimental; looking for feedback!)
• Facebook (requires the Facebook Chat plugin for Pidgin)

Latest Version
1.3 (changelog inside the archive - pidgin-original/changelog.txt)

Installation

1. Download Original Smileys (17643) - 2.45 MB
2. Open Pidgin, click Tools from the main menu, then Preferences (or simply Ctrl+P in the Pidgin window)
3. Go to the Smiley Themes tab
4. Drag and drop the downloaded tgz archive (i.e. pidgin-original-x.x.x.tgz), or click Add and point to the archive
5. Select Original Smileys from the list, and click OK

If you want to install the smileys for all users, read how to do it in the FAQ section.

You can also take a look at
My Pidgin Setup - Graphics and My Pidgin Setup - Plugins.

Looking forward to your feedback!

FAQ

TGZ - UNIX only?
Even if 0.8.3+ versions have changed to TGZ format (instead of ZIP), this doesn’t make the theme UNIX specific. You can install it the same way under Windows too. The file it is still an archive and you can easily convert it to ZIP, if you feel like it, by using many archive converters (e.g. like the freeware ArcConvert for Windows).

Transparency Issues
On dark backgrounds, you may notice that the smileys are not perfectly transparent. Stop wining about it! First of all, a light background is perfectly fine. The fact that you want a dark background is your issue! If you have the time and knowledge to improve the transparency of the smilies, you’re most welcome to do it on your own and then send me some updates.

Duplicate themes?
If you had the 0.8.2 or lower version, after you performed the “easy installation” of newer versions, you might find yourself with “duplicate” Original Smileys themes.
One is the new version, one is the old version.
That is because previous versions were being installed for all users, while the “easy installation” (drag & drop) performs the installation in the user’s profile.
Read below if you want to perform an installation for all users.
-
In order to delete the old version, installed for all users, you must

1. Exit Pidgin! (not just the Buddy List Window)
2. First, you need to find out where Pidgin is installed on your system.
   On Windows systems, the default path is C:\Program Files\Pidgin\ . You can also just right click the Pidgin shortcut, and you will see to which path it points to (without pidgin.exe or pidgin-portable.exe) .
   On UNIX systems, the default path is /usr/lib/purple .
   Whatever path you found, we will call it {Pidgin_install}.
3. Go to the following path:
   Windows systems: {Pidgin_install}\pixmaps\purple\emotes\
   UNIX systems: {Pidgin_install}/pixmaps/purple/emotes/
4. Delete any folder starting with “pidgin-original”

Installation for All Users?
There is no “easy installation” (drag and drop) for all users, but it’s not that hard either.

1. Exit Pidgin! (not just the Buddy List Window)
2. First, you need to find out where Pidgin is installed on your system.
   On Windows systems, the default path is C:\Program Files\Pidgin\ . You can also just right click the Pidgin shortcut, and you will see to which path it points to (without pidgin.exe or pidgin-portable.exe) .
   On UNIX systems, the default path is /usr/lib/purple .
   OK, so whatever path you found, we will call it {Pidgin_install}.
3. Secondly, you need to find a way to decompress the TGZ archive you’ve just downloaded.
   For Windows systems, read the above TGZ - UNIX only?
4. Copy (decompress) the contents of the archive to
   Windows systems: {Pidgin_install}\pixmaps\purple\emotes\
   UNIX systems: {Pidgin_install}/pixmaps/purple/emotes/
5. Make sure you delete the theme installed in the user’s (users’) profile.
   Read the above Duplicate themes?