HowTo: Google Voice SMS in Digsby with DigsbyGV 1.1
This product has been deprecated, Use GVNotifier.net instead.
Start by downloading DigsbyGV 1.1, and unpacking the ZIP archive.
Unpack the DigsbyGV files to a directory with read/write permissions. A good place is the My Documents folder.
Double-click DigsbyGV.exe to start DigsbyGV for the first time. DigsbyGV will register itself the first time it is run.
After DigsbyGV has obtained it’s registration file, it won’t attempt to register again.
The configuration file is validated, and a message is shown if errors are present.
These errors will be corrected after selecting OK.
Enter your Google Voice account details.
- Username: Your Google Voice username (you@gmail.com, etc).
- Password: Your Google Account password
- Callback Number: The number which Google Voice will call when selecting to call a contact. This number must exist in Google Voice as a phone on your account.
Click Test Account to check if the settings are correct.
Select XMPP Server to configure the Connection from Digsby. The password must be configured manually, no default password is present. This is the password which will be used when connecting from Digsby.
Save by clicking OK or Apply. Upon doing so, Google Voice will begin connecting, and XMPP connections will be allowed.
DigsbyGV will remain in the notification area, the icon may be hidden by selecting Hide Icon from the right-click menu.
Add the DigsbyGV XMPP account in Digsby
Create a new account in Digsby, press Ctrl + P to access the Preferences menu.
Create a new IM account with the type Jabber.
The Jabber ID is always voice@localhost. The password is configured in the XMPP Server tab of DigsbyGV. Advanced settings do not need to be changed.
Once the Jabber connection connects to DigsbyGV, contacts will be placed in the Google Voice group. Note: it may take a minute or more to authenticate with Google Voice for the first time.
If a friendly name is configured within Google Voice, it will be shown on the contact list. Selecting the Website link will connect a call between the selected user, and your callback number.
SMS Messages, and Voicemail transcripts will be sent as detected. Note: Messages will only be shown if detected while DigsbyGV is running. SMS Messages and Voicemail messages received while DigsbyGV is not running will not be shown.
Google Voice support comes to Digsby (DigsbyGV)
Google Voice support is few and far between on the desktop. I’ve created a plugin for Digsby which allows SMS messages to be sent and received as if they were sent from the Google Voice web interface.
Messages are sent and received from the phone number itself, contact name support is not enabled yet. To send a new message, use the Digsby->New IM… option, and enter a phone number as 1235554567 or (123)555-4567.
Download DigsbyGV and run the application. Enter your Google Voice information, and create a password which you will use to connect from Digsby. Create a new Jabber account in Digsby, with the username voice@localhost, and the password that is set in DigsbyGV. Once the account is connected, new SMS messages will be routed to Digsby as an IM!
Update: DigsbyGV has been replaced by GVNotifier.net
DigTweet 1.2 – Set your Digsby Status via Twitter
I’ve done some retooling of the DigTweet application this weekend. I decided to drop the whole command line thing, and wrap it up really nicely. I’ve added some new features that some may find useful.
First off, the menu now contains some useful options:
- Quickly Enable/Disable automatic updating.
- Manually update.
- View settings.
- View past sync history.
Clicking on View Status Messages will yield the log window:
Updates and Errors will be logged for review.
Clicking on Settings from the tray menu will invoke the all new Settings dialog:
Select the Twitter URL — no need to find your RSS link, just enter your profile URL (e.g twitter.com/davux) and it will be resolved for you.
Choose an update interval, and select whether or not you’d like to cause an update event when a reply is found.
You can also now create a list of words to “ignore.” These words will automatically reject the tweet regardless of any other settings.
Choose to update Digsby, and or execute a command, or write to a file when an update is found. DigsbyStatus.exe is no longer required, and a focus bug has been resolved.
DigTweet can now automatically run when windows starts up, and can also optionally start updating upon start.
Updates will be passed down in the form of a message informing you that a new version is available.
Enjoy!
Download: DigTweet 1.2 [ZIP]
Digsby-GoIm – Have Digsby recognize and handle aim: URL’s
There was a request a few weeks back on the Digsby forums for the ability to have Digsby recognize and interpret aim: links. AIM Links allow you to add a URL to a webpage which will automatically launch AIM. You have the ability to specify to “add a specified contact” or “send a message” to a contact.
Examples:
Send a message:
aim:goim?screenname=davux
Output: Send Dave a message!
Add a contact:
aim:addbuddy?screenname=davux
Output: Add Dave to your contact list!
Note: Alternate aim:// links are also supported.
Usage
This Flexibility works great on message boards and community sites where single-click access to an alternate communication medium is advantageous.
The Catch
This program (like many of my Digsby enhancements) works by simulating a user, and due to some limitations in Digsby itself, I’m unable to gracefully get around this single limitation for the software. I hope that for most people, it would be trivial.
You must have your AIM account as the primary account in Digsby.
This means that your AIM screen name must be the first one listed when you view your accounts. You can view your accounts by clicking on Tools and then Preferences and select the Accounts tab. You can move the account by simply dragging it up or down.
Note: A restart is required for these changes to take effect.
The Software
DigsbyGoIm is easy to use. You’ll need to install it just once, and it will work without any extra interaction on your part. There is no need to start run it manually. Clicking on any aim: link will launch it, and in turn, Digsby.
Once downloaded, copy the executable to a location which you will not accidentally delete it. The program will register itself to that location, and if you remove or delete the file, links will no longer be handled. If you do decide to move the program–don’t worry. Re-running the executable to install will update the references and links will be handled at the new location.
Double-click DigsbyGoIm.exe to install. You will be prompted with a set of options.
Selecting YES will install the handler. Note that this will overwrite any current AIM link handler. You will need to reinstall AIM in order to recover your old link handler. AIM will continue to function properly in all aspects other than handling links.
If you are using Windows Vista, you will be prompted to elevate. This is a one-time action and is required in order to add the registry entry to HKEY_CLASSES_ROOT that will allow this program to register itself to handle links.
That’s it! Links will be handled now, and you can enjoy not having to copy and paste screen names to send messages. Note that addbuddy link identifier will not actually add the buddy to your contact list, but rather just invoke the Add Contact dialog, and fill in the name. You will have the option to select an alias and click Add. Also note that the message parameter will be ignored for goim links.
Download
DigTweet Graphical Application
Due to some demand, I’ve wrapped DigTweet up into a graphical program that runs in the tray. Optionally, you can still run it from the command line, with some new feature, and some updates to the error detection scheme.
New Features:
- Choose to ignore replies so they don’t end up as your status message.
- Choose the update interval.
- Run graphically or from the command line.
- Save settings between sessions.
Due to some of the limitations of .NET, I’ve compiled two versions, one for strictly graphical users and one for mixed-mode users. The two versions are functionally equivalent, however the console version will flash the window when launching, whereas the GUI version will not attach to the console window which it is launched from.
Screenshots
Download
DigTweet 1.1 Graphical (Recommended)
Microsoft .NET Framework v2.0 is required.
DigsbyStatus is included.
Update Digsby Status automatically when on Twitter update!
As I mentioned in my previous post, I was working on a solution to sync the twitter update status (one-way), with Digsby’s status. This works great for those that update twitter throughout the day with contact information and such important things. This is a simple console application that makes use of the DigsbyStatus.exe to update the status.
It isn’t a full XML parser and could probably be broken pretty easily by other RSS feeds, so I wouldn’t recommend trying that.
Using the utility is easy, just make sure the DigTweet.exe and DigsbyStatus.exe are in the same folder, and pull up a command prompt.
DigTweet.exe RssLinkSo for example, to sync to my feed, I would enter:
DigTweet.exe http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14261383.rss
You can find your Twitter RSS feed at the bottom of your personal page (not your homepage, that link will go to a feed of everyone’s status).
If you like, you can make a single-click batch file. Just open notepad and enter the following:
DigTweet.exe http://twitter.com/statuses/user_timeline/14261383.rss
Change the RSS path to your own, and save the file as StartDigTweet.bat. Be careful to not have ‘.txt’ appended to the end by notepad. Click this file and the window will open. You can largely ignore what it’s saying, just minimize it and go on with whatever you’d normally do. Tweets are only updated ONCE, so if it changes the status, and you switch to something else, it won’t be overwritten until a) you restart DigTweet, or b) you have something new in the “top slot” in your feed. (Note: deleting a tweet will cause a sync on the previous tweet)
You can grab a copy of DigTweet today.
Set Digsby Status from Command Line
There was a request today on the Digsby forums about setting the status based on a twitter feed. I thought this was a great idea, since this is something I could use. Normally I don’t use status message at all – but I do twitter.
I set to work figuring out how to set the status from outside the application. I went with the same approach that I had used before, simulating a local user via Win32 Window messages. This is a great solution because it doesn’t interfere with any actions that a user may be performing locally – you don’t even know it is happening.
I broke this project up into the two logical components, the part that gets the twitter feed and the part that actually does the work of setting the status. What I’ve come up with is a little command line utility to set the status.
It can be used like so:
DigsbyStatus.exe "This is my new status message"
Or, to clear the status:
DigsbyStatus.exe ""
Quotes are needed as to simulate a “blank” argument. The status classification can’t be changed, so you will still be available or away based on the protocol and the last state of the computer. I figure someone else might find this useful to, say, update status based on some unsupported media player.
Download: DigsbyStatus_100.zip [10KB]
Digsby Widget
I’ve been using Digsby since it came out in February, and I’ve had the Widget attached to my Facebook profile, but I’ve added it here now.
The Digsby Widget is a little flash application that allows users on a website to directly contact you via Digsby. This is my widget for this site:
When a user clicks the object to enable it, they show up on my Digsby contact list.
Just type into the widget to send a message!
It’ll show up on my computer, just like a regular IM window:
I’ve never seen anything like this in any other IM client, and although it’s not really all that useful for many people, it’s certainly a cool feature. Feel free to strike up a conversation with me!
The road to DigsbyToGo: Encryption fully implemented!
I’m pleased to announce the DTG is now fully encrypted. There is no need to worry about your sensitive conversations being read by ANYONE but you. The new DTG Client (Build 6b) includes these features:
- Triple DES Encryption on ALL meaningful personal data being sent. This means contact names, timestamps, messages, open windows– it’s all completely encrypted. I couldn’t see your information–nobody could.
- Windows Credentials Management – Windows is now in charge of your user name and password. There is still a settings.dtg file that stores the URL to DTG, but log-on credentials are stored and maintained by windows.
- Windows Vista UAC support. You’ll no longer have to right-click on the EXE and run it as an administrator to install skin hooks. The skin installer is now integrated with UAC and you will be prompted when opening it.
- I’ve tracked the WLM bug – there is a bug in Digsby’s skin parser that needs to be corrected before I MSN/WLM contacts (and possibly networks other than AIM) can be shown. Sorry – I can’t do anything about this.
The web interface may seem slower to load now – the javascript is redundant and not optimized. It is on my task list but the UI needs to be brought up to snuff before I can do that.
Digsby-ToGo current issues
This is a list of the current known issues with DTG:
- When there are not any IM windows open, the contact list will be blank and offer no indication that there are not any open windows.
- When a window is closed locally, the remote client does not remove the page. This functionality is expected, however the ability to Send still exists, even though is will fail.
- There is a case where a window cannot be located even when the window cache is built, I’m working to find this one.
- When another session is created, or the session is cleared, you may receive the You have been logged out. Message more than once.
- If there is an error contacting the web server (From the bridge), that message will be lost. I am working to build a queue so requests are never lost.
- There is no visual indication in the IM window that DTG is active. I’m working to build a solution that would show this visually without getting in the way.
- There is not any indication when a new IM comes in to the remote client. I’m looking for a solution to this.
- Internet Explorer is not supported by the remote client: This is expected, since the site is currently Gecko/WebKit specific. I will be building a desktop-browser solution soon. If anyone is willing to help with this (looking for someone experience in building pretty websites), let me know.
- The client constantly reconnects every X (likely 5 minutes) and checks for messages even though there isn’t any need – this is expected, but will be optimized to not do so soon.
- The bridge application opens slowly: this is due to connecting at startup, this will be fixed soon. My web server isn’t exactly speedy, and sometimes connect times are relatively high.
- There isn’t any way to see more than 20 (or so) lines on the remote client: This is expected, however I think I have found a solution which will allow the user to toggle between “functional” and “history” modes, viewing past lines.
- Emoticons are not supported: This will be coming soon, however I am not sure whether it would be best to convert to text, or convert to images, perhaps a setting.
- Login and registration pages don’t look good: They are temporary, I will replace them with iPhone/browser specific ones when I can.
- UAC does not prompt for elevation for the Skin Installer under Windows Vista: A fix is in the works for this.
- Requests often get queued up on top of each other, and messages are added to the same window twice: I need to figure out how that is possible before I fix it.
- Status messages and “day change” time stamps are displayed strangely – I’ll have a fix for this soon.
With all these changes, I will soon be implementing a version check–you will need to be using the latest build every time you restart the bridge.
If you find any other bugs, please email or IM them to me so I can be aware–and fix them, as fast as possible!