Managing Users

Since the roster is the central point of Gabber, several functions are provided for managing the users and groups that make up the roster.

Subscriptions

A subscription request must be sent and approved by a user before being able to see their status. When adding a user, Gabber automatically sends a subscription request to the user being added. To manually send a subscription request (useful for when a friend accidentaly denied a request), select Re-request Subscription from the User Context Menu (see the section called User Context Menu).

On the receiving end of a subscription request, Gabber displays the Subscription Request dialog. This dialog also allows the user to add the sender to the roster and to rename the nickname used for the user (to be displayed throughout Gabber). After changing the customizable information, simply approve or deny the request by clicking Yes or No.

Adding Users

To add a user, load the Add User druid by selecting Add User... from the Services menu or the first icon on the toolbar. The Add User druid will step through the entire process of adding a new user. If the new user's address is not known, the druid allows for searching through several Jabber user databases to find the user. Directions are provided through every step of the process.

Editing Existing Users

The User Information dialog (loaded from User Context Menu, View User Information...), displays a dialog for editing and viewing user information (nickname, personal information, status, client information, etc.).

Group management is accessible via the Edit Groups dialog (available from User Context Menu, Edit Groups...).

User Information

To find out all of the little details about a person on the roster, the User Information dialog is where to do it. Everything from their presence and status to their email address to their birthdate to their operating system is listed within the tabs of the User Information dialog.

Above the tabs are two important text fields that list the person's Jabber ID and their resource. Use the drop down box to fetch resource specific information such as presence, GnuPG signature and client information.

The General Info, Personal Info, Location, Organization and About tabs provides current vCard information (full name, email address, address, web site, etc.) about a user. This information is submitted through the user's client. Gabber provides editing of vCard information from the My User Information dialog. The value of the Nickname field is used for display in the roster and in messages. The nickname field is editable.

In addition to vCard information, the General Info tab shows two valuable bits of information. Exact "away" messages given by the user are listed in the Presence and Status text area. This status information is set in Gabber through the Status toolbar (see the section called Status for more information). At the bottom right of this box is a small icon that provides information about the GnuPG signature of this user. Hovering over this icon will indicate if the user has signed their presence and is thus able to receive encrypted messages. If the person did sign their presence, clicking on this icon will provide information on the signature. See the section called Encrypted Messages for more information about signatures and encrypted messages. Another useful bit of information is found in the Subscription area where the current status of subscriptions with this user is displayed. the section called Subscriptions explains subscriptions in greater detail.

The Client Info tab shows information queried from the user's client application. If no information is shown or if the fields are blank, the user's client does not support that type of query.

Edit Groups

The context sensitive Edit Groups dialog allows users to be easily added and removed from groups. At the top of the dialog the user's nickname and JID is listed for reference. The left side of the dialog lists groups that the user currently belongs to. Using the central Add and Remove buttons, the user can be added and removed from the available groups on the right side of the dialog by selecting a group in one of the two lists and clicking the appropriate button. To add a new group, simply type the name in the Group text box and click the Add button.

Deleting Users

To delete a user from the roster, simply right click on the user and select Delete User from the User Context Menu (see the section called User Context Menu).

View History

If set in the Preferences, Gabber will log conversations between users. If logs are set to be saved as XHTML, View History... on the User Context Menu will load the log into the default GNOME web browser. XML logs cannot currently be displayed properly in a web browser; nonetheless, Gabber will attempt to load the log in a web browser.