Configuring Gaim
To configure Gaim, choose Tools->Preferences in Buddy List window. This will open Preferences window shown below.
This window contains the following options.
Interface
This group contains settings related to Gaim interface. It contains the following settings.
- Smiley Themes
A Smiley Theme is a collection of icons used for smileys. You can find smiley themes for Gaim on Gaim Themes page. To install a theme, download the theme file to your computer and drag it to this window. To use one of installed themes, just select it using the mouse.
- Fonts
Here you can select font to be used for messages in the conversation window. Note that this option will not change the font used for Gaim menus, toolbars, and other elements of user interface. The user interface font is determined by your current GTK theme and can be changed by using Font preference tool found in GNOME control center.
- Message Text
Here you can configure various aspects of how the messages should be shown. In particular, here you enable or disable spellchecking.
- Shortcuts
This section allows you to customize some of the keyboard shortcuts used by Gaim. In particular, you can choose keyboard shortcut to send the message. If you frequently use multiline messages, you may want to unselect Enter sends message option, so that you can use Enter key to start a new line without sending a message.
- Buddy List
In this section, you can customize the settings controlling the appearance of the Buddy List window. The following options are available:
Buddy List Sorting: whether the buddy list should be sorted. Possible options are none, Alphabetical, By status (buddies who are currently online shown first), By log size.
Buddy List Toolbar: wheter the buttons at the bottom of the Buddy List window should use icons, text, or both.
Buddy List Window: Raise window on events. If this option is selected, Buddy List window will be raised on top of other windows whenever one of the buddies goes online, offline, or otherwise changes his status.
Group Display: Show numbers in groups. If this option is selected, Buddy List will show, for each buddy group, the number of buddies online and the total number of buddies in group.
Buddy List Display. Show Buddy Icons will allow your buddy list to display buddies user selected icons. Showing warning levels will display the times your buddy has been warned. Showing idle times will display the amount of time your buddy has been idle. Enabling Dim Idle Buddies will cause your buddy list to dim the text of the idle buddy, allowing for quick identification of idle buddies.
Conversations
This set of options allows you to configure your conversation window.
The placement option allows you to configure where you will want your conversations to be put when innitiated. Using the Last Created Window option will open a window in the last place a window was created. The Send URL's as Links option will enable your buddies to click on any url's that you type into the window, and their browser will open and display the link.
The Tab Options configures placement of new buddy windows in an existing conversation window. The Tab Placement box will configure where you want the different conversation tabs to be located in the main conversation window. Enabling the Show IM's and chats in tabbed windows will allow you to use the tabs options. If you wish to have your tabs display a close button on them, check the Show close button on tabs option.
Browser
Here you can select the web browser to be used when you click on a web address (URL) in Gaim. Most commonly used browsers are shown in the drop-down list. If the browser you are using is not listed, select Manual in the drop-down list and enter the command in the text entry box. In the command, use %s for the URL.
Logging
Here you can configure logging (see the Section called Logging). You can select log file format (HTML or plain text) and select whether by default all IM conversations and chats should be logged.
Option Log all instant messages controls whether all IM conversations should logged by default. You can override this for a particular conversation by selecting or unselecting Enable logging option in the Options menu of the conversation window.
Similarly, option Log all chats controls whether all chats should be logged by default. You can override this for a particular chat by selecting or unselecting Enable logging option in the Options menu of the conversation window.
Sounds
This section contains options realted to the sounds used by Gaim to alert you to various events, such as arrival of a new message.
No sounds when you login disables sounds during login. If you have enabled autologin for many accounts, it it is advised to add this option selected, otherwise you will get a lot of sounds. This option does not affect the sounds after you login.
By default, Gaim produces no sounds while you are marked as being away (see the Section called Going Away). If you want to enable sounds while you are away, select Sounds while away option.
Sound method controls the method Gaim uses to produce sounds. In normal cases, there is no need to change this field.
Sound Events subsection allows you to select sounds associated with various events. To disable sound for a given event, make sure the checkbox next to event is not checked; to enable sound, make sure this checkbox is checked.
Buttons at the bottom of the page allow you to customize the sound used for the selected event. To play currently used sound, click on Test. To select a different sound, click on Choose... button and select the sound file. To return to the default sound, click on Reset.
Away/Idle
This section contains options related to setting your "away" status (see the Section called Going Away). It contains the following options.
Sending messages removes away status: if this option is selected, your away status is automatically removed when you send a message
Queue new messages when away: if this option is selected, all new IM messages that arrive while you are away are queued instead of opening a new window FIXME
If you are frequently away, disable sounds while away, and queue messages, you will never realize when someone is messaging you.
Auto-response: send auto-response. If this option is selected, Gaim will automatically send a response to all new messages which arrive while you are away. FIXME
Idle: this option controls how Gaim computes the time you have been idle. This time is used by Auto-away options below. Possible values are none (Gaim does not compute idle time, as if you were always active); X usage (compute idle time from the moment you last interacted with the window system, i.e., form the moment you last used your mouse or keyboard), and Gaim usage (compute idle time from the last action you did in Gaim, e.g. by sending a message).
Auto-away: set away when idle. If this option is selected, Gaim will automatically set your status to "away" if you have been idle for the specified interval. You can also select the away message Gaim will send to your active conversation when it sets your status to "away", from the list of configured away messages.
Subsection Away Messages allows you to edit the list of available away messages. For each message, you need to select a title (which will be used by Gaim in various menus) and the message text. By default, there is only one away message, with the title Slightly less boring default.
Plugins
Plugins are small pieces of software which extend the functionality of Gaim. A number of plugins is include in Gaim; additional plugins are available from independet developers and can be installed separately.
This section provides a list of all installed plugins with brief description of each of them. To enable plugin, check the Load checkbox next to the plugin name; to disable, uncheck the checkbox.