Empathy is a messenging program built upon the Telepathy protocol which is based on Gossip. With the help of Telepathy, Empathy can easily communicate with other GNOME applications, for a seamless, integrated desktop experience. Empathy supports: Multiple protocols, file transfer via XMPP and local networks, voice and video support, limited IRC support, conversation theming, sharing of location, conversation logging, and much more. In this article I will walk you through the installation and setup of Empathy.

Installation

Empathy is quite easy to install. But before you go on with the attempt at installing, you should first check your Applications > Internet directory for the Empathy entry. If it’s there, you need not bother with the installation. If it is not there, continue on with this section.

To install Empathy follow these steps:

• Fire up your package management system (Synaptic, Ubuntu Software Center, gnome-packagekit, etc).
• Search for “empathy” (No quotes).
• Select the Empathy entry and mark for installation.
• Click Apply to install.

No you will find Empathy in Applications > Internet.

Adding your first account

When Empathy is open click on Edit > Accounts to open up the accounts editor. In this window follow these steps to create a new account:

1. Click the New button.
2. Select the type of account you want to create from the drop down.
3. Click the Create button.
4. Enter the credentials for the account you want to create.
5. Click the Connect button.

Figure 1

Once you click the Connect button you will be immediately taken to the main window (see Figure 1) where your buddies (if you have any) will all show up.

Figure 2

Empathy should behave precisely as you would expect it. After you create your account(s), one of the first things you can do is edit the personal information for each account. You can change your alias as well as your account avatar for each account you have configured. To do this click on Edit > Personal Information which will open up the PI Window (see Figure 2). You can change the information for different accounts by selecting the account to change from the drop down. To change the Avatar, simply click the icon button and locate a small image to use.

Connecting to IRC rooms

You can do away with your IRC client by using Empathy. To connect to an IRC room follow these steps:

1. Click Edit > Accounts
2. Click the Add button.
3. Select IRC from the account type drop down.
4. Click the Create button.
5. Select the server from the network drop down.
6. Enter any credentials you need to enter.
7. Click Connect.
8. Close the account creation window.
9. Click on Room > Join from the main window.
10. Select IRC from the dropdown.
11. Enter the room name you want to join.
12. Click Join.

A new window will open dedicated to your IRC chat room.

Gotcha

One of the issues you might come across with Empathy is that you can only send files to buddies on Jabber, Google Talk, and People Nearby services. All other accounts are out of luck.

Final thoughts

Empathy is an outstanding chat client that can be used for multiple and various services. Give it a try and you’ll find yourself never going back to your old client.

The client Coccinella takes the second path by adding new features like a whiteboard to the Instant Messenger. It can connect to any Jabber/XMPP messaging server (including MSN, ICQ, AOL Instant Messenger and Google Talk). But first the basics. The client has all the usual standard features like client lists, group chat, file transfers, avatars, emoticons and secure connections.

Besides that Coccinella supports Voice over IP connections and the previously mentioned whiteboard. Take a look at the screenshot below to get an understanding of how the chat whiteboard works.

That feature comes in pretty handy if you want to visualize information or just draw a nice heart to your loved one. The chat client comes with installers for Windows (Windows 98 to Windows XP, no Vista support yet), Apple Macintosh and Linux. The source is also available at the download page of the website.