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Terminal Tips: Centericq open source chat aggregator on OS X

by Fabienne Serriere Oct 22nd 2005 at 5:00PM

centericq
In my everlasting quest for the best multi chat protocol client, I decided to check out Centericq. The Centericq chat client, despite its name also supports aim (and .mac accounts), yahoo, jabber (and therefore peripherally talk.google), irc, gadu gadu (the polish chat protocol), and msn. The client is purely terminal based. After trying Centericq for a few days, I must conclude that there are a few things left to be desired. I didn't enjoy the annoying key combos to bring up menus (Esc-Esc [wait then] b for the basic menu) or the mislabeled menu keys that obviously are already assigned in OS X (F9, F2 etc). To change between chat conversations, the key combos actually work on OS X (Ctrl-B or Ctrl-N to scroll forward or backwards).

The msn compatibility, incidentally, is broken on OS X and other BSD systems for some reason: no m$ chat for you! Other downsides for Centericq are the lack of accented character support (even though my terminal supports it) and some irc anomalies. All things considered, I've decided that Centericq is the most stable and intuitive terminal based chat client.

Read on for installation instructions particular to OS X after the jump.
I tried grabbing a pre-compiled package with fink (even added the unstable branch) or finding it elsewhere, with no success.

To install on OS X you are best off compiling the application yourself. You'll need a copy of the Apple Developer Tools, available "free" with registration as a 751MB download (thanks Apple) from the XCode Tools section.

When that's squared away, grab the Centericq source from freshmeat or from Centericq's site. We used Centericq 4.21.0. In the main source folder run:

./configure --disable-msn

Now run:

make

And then:

make install

Finally copy the application to your favorite path location (e.g. /usr/local/bin) and launch it. Configure and then enter the login data for each chat client and irc server/channel you use. Esc-esc brings you back to the top level and q quits the application from there. Documentation for Centericq is on their project page and in the README included with the source code.

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In my everlasting quest for the best multi chat protocol client, I decided to check out Centericq. The Centericq chat client, despite its...
 

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Fabienne Serriere

Jim: a good book for beginners is Learning Unix for Mac OS X or check out some other tutorials here on TUAW.

October 23 2005 at 12:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Jim

Hi I don't know the first thing about the terminal. How do I install this stuff? How do I complile it in Xcode? Are there instructions on the site? Thanks.

October 23 2005 at 12:10 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Logan

Oh, and on many macs, Developer Tools may be on the HD, just not installed. Look in the Applications folder.

October 22 2005 at 8:42 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Logan

"4. Oops, stupid me--I think you're talking multi-protocol chat clients, and Adium's IRC-only. Cancel the previous comment. ;-)" "Adium is a free instant messaging application for Mac OS X that can connect to AIM, MSN, Jabber, Yahoo, and more. Learn more about Adium..." ?

October 22 2005 at 8:35 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
isnoop

I run a FreeBSD machine and don't have any problems with MSN. I have been using CenterICQ for the past couple years. It is fantastic if you have a webhost that will let you have an SSH shell; you can run ICQ in a Screen window and have a constant, 24x7 IM connection that you can access from anywhere with an SSH client.

October 22 2005 at 6:22 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris Ryland

Oops, stupid me--I think you're talking multi-protocol chat clients, and Adium's IRC-only. Cancel the previous comment. ;-)

October 22 2005 at 6:17 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Chris Ryland

I think Adium's the best one going right now--fully Cocoalicious.

October 22 2005 at 6:15 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
Threnody

For those who need MSN in the Terminal I highly recommend TMSNC (http://tmsnc.sourceforge.net/). It works great on OS X, and from the sound of things the interface is better than Centericq (it's easy to get to the menu :) ) Adam

October 22 2005 at 5:41 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
nate

I actually love centericq. When I need to get on any of my instant messaging accounts I just ssh over to my shell account and use it there if for some reason I can't use chat locally on my power book. Though if my power book is with me I just tunnel the protocol through my shell and tell adium to use my localhost for the proxy. CenterICQ saved me when I was a government contractor out east. I wrote a policy and implemented it (I was the senior security engineer for the entire world wide network) and it banned outside chat from internal hosts. Said nothing about ssh and use of centericq. Yeah I'm a bastard.

October 22 2005 at 5:20 PM Report abuse rate up rate down Reply
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