Aug 06
Just figured out how to get Twitter update the pidgin status (e.g. GTalk, Jabber, ICQ, MSN, etc.). For that, you need to install a pidgin plug-in written in Perl. Here is a small howto about it (as the Perl stuff was a bit tricky):
Download and install the multi-network Pidgin client
Install Perl. On Windows (yeah, I know. It’s at work. 
), install Active Perl version 5.8.8.X. Don’t take the last one, the 5.10.0, as Pidgin does not support it yet.
Install the Package XML:XPath, either using the CPAN console (install XML:XPath) or using the package manager of Active Perl.
Restart Pidgin and check that Perl is enabled. (Help -> About -> at the bottom of the page, you should see ‘Perl: Enabled’).
Download the twitter plugin and put it in the plugin folder of Pidgin. (For instance on Windows in ‘C:\Program Files\Pidgin\plugins’)
Configure the plug-in and enjoy!
Leave a Reply
August 7th, 2008 at 12:18 am
I’m surprised that it was so easy for you. When I tried it I ran into problems with library locations, Perl versions, etc.
August 7th, 2008 at 12:19 am
Gah, URL got stripped.
http://www.emacswiki.org/alex/2008-05-14_Pidgin_and_Twitter
August 7th, 2008 at 7:30 am
In fact I did too. I tried first with Vanilla Perl. Did not work. Then with the last version of Active Perl (5.10.0). Perl still wasn’t recognized.
That’s cool that it works with version 5.8.8. Should be documented somewhere.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:08 pm
I ran into some issues, but now that 5.8.8.824 is installed, and XML-XPath is installed, Pidgin is still reporting Perl as disabled. Pidgin 2.5.1 if that matters.
September 30th, 2008 at 11:48 pm
I figured it out, thanks to http://code.google.com/p/pidgin-twitter-profile/wiki/HowToInstall
Key here was this bit: You should install version 5.10 (x86) unless you have a Pidgin version less than 2.5.0 and are on Windows: then you should install Perl 5.8 (x86). It is important that you install the x86 (32-bit) version because the x64 (64-bit) version will not work with Pidgin, which is 32-bit.
Since I was on Pidgin 2.5.1, I had to have Perl 5.10.