/purple-gowhatsapp

Pidgin/libpurple plugin for WhatsApp Web.

Primary LanguageCGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

purple-gowhatsapp

A libpurple/Pidgin plugin for WhatsApp Web.

Powered by go-whatsapp, which is written by Lucas Engelke.

Being developed on Ubuntu 18.04.
Last seen working with go-whatsapp 5e33cb4.

Building

  • Build using the supplied Makefile.
    Optional: Try make update-dep for the most recent go-whatsapp version.

Pre-Built Binaries

Installation

  • Place the binary in your Pidgin's plugin directory (~/.purple/plugins on Linux).

Set-up

  • Create a new account
    You can enter an arbitrary username. However, it is recommended to use your own internationalized number, followed by @s.whatsapp.net.
    Example: 123456789 from Germany would use 49123456789@s.whatsapp.net.
    This way, Pidgin's logs look sane.
  • Upon login, a fake conversation should pop up, showing a link to a QR code.
    Using your phone's camera, scan the code within 20 seconds – just like you would do with the browser-based WhatsApp Web.
  • Note: Some settings only take effect after a re-connect.

Please also notice the wiki page regarding common problems.

spectrum2 specifics

Spectrum 2 users must set this plug-in's option system-messages-are-ordinary-messages to true. By default, the log-in message is a system message and Spectrum 2 ignores system messages.

Features

  • Receive text messages.
  • Sending text messages.
  • Download files from image, audio, media, and document messages.
    Files are downloaded to ~/.pidgin/gowhatsapp.
  • Under the hood: Reasonable callback mechanism thanks to Eiron Robb.
  • Fetch contacts from phone, keep track of time last seen, download of user profile pictures courtesy of Markus Gothe.

Note: You may need to force the TLS version to 1.2 using the NSS plug-in for download of user profile pictures to work on some systems.

Instant Message

Missing Features

  • Anything beyond simple messaging, really

What could be done next

From approximate most important to approximate least interesting.

  • Find memory leak.
  • Support stickers.
  • Add proxy support.
  • Use a callback for getting current preferences everywhere consistently.
  • Have purple handle the message, then conditionally request download where appropriate.
  • Add option to ignore invalid message IDs silently.
  • Sanitize invalid message IDs (e.g. I/fb36).
  • Support group conversations properly.
  • Sort old messages by date.
  • Improve spectrum support:
    • Make online status work.
    • Handle incoming files the way purple-skypeweb does.
  • Support sending document messages.
  • Find out how whatsapp represents newlines.
  • Wait for server message received acknowledgement before displaying sent message locally.
  • Do not block while sending message.
  • Defer logging debug messages from go-whatsapp to purple_debug_info().
  • Refactor the file-handling code as it is really ugly.
  • Be compatible with the "Autoreply" plug-in by having an "Away" state.
  • Be compatible with the "Conversation Colors" plug-in.
  • Find spurious segfault.
  • Consistently use dashes in key names.