The K Desktop Environment

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1. Introduction

ktalkd is an enhanced talk daemon - the program that handles incoming talk requests, announces them and lets you respond to it with a talk client. GLOSSARY : In those pages, if somebody wants to talk to you, you are designated as the "callee".

ktalkd has the following features :

KDE or not KDE

That is the question. :) More seriously, this means that ktalkd is able to be compiled with or without KDE support. To use without KDE, the compilation stage will detect if X or Qt or KDE is not installed, but you can force a non-KDE daemon if you use the configure option '--without-X'.

Answering machine

If the callee isn't loggued, or doesn't answer after the second announcement, an answering machine is launched, takes the message, and mails it to the callee.

Sound

If desired, a sound is played with the announcement.

X Announce

If compiled with KDE installed, ktalkd will use ktalkdlg, a KDE dialog, for announcement. If ktalk is running, it will be asked to make the announcement itself. (New since 0.8.8).

Multiple displays annoucement

If you are logged remotely (e.g. with an "export DISPLAY=..." command), the X announcement will be made on this display too. Answer on the one you want ! If you're also logged in a text terminal, and if you're NOT using xterms (internal restriction), then you'll see a text announce too, in case you're using the text terminal at the time of the announce.

Forwarding (New since 0.8.0)

You can set up a forward to another user even to another host if you're away. There are 3 different forwarding methods. See section 'Usage'.

Configuration

If KDE-compiled, it reads config from KDE config files, the sitewide ($KDEDIR/share/config/ktalkdrc) and the user one, in its home directory. The sitewide one has to be manually edited by the administrator, but there is now a configuration dialog for the user one. It's called kcmktalkd and can be found in the KDE Control Center after installing ktalkd. On non-KDE systems, ktalkd will read /etc/talkd.conf.

Internationalization

Under KDE, the announcement will be in your language provided that you set it in the KDE menus and that someone translated ktalkdlg to your language. Same for the configuration dialog, kcmktalkd.

Support for otalk and ntalk (New since 0.8.1)

ktalkd now supports both protocols, even when forwarding. ktalk supports both too.

I hope you will enjoy this talk daemon,

David Faure

faure@kde.org

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