Fire
“The only IM client you need!” A Multi-Protocol IM Client For OS X

Some questions keep coming up on the mailing lists, so we’ve decided to make a list of them here for your convenience. Got something you’d like to see added? Go ahead and e-mail us at fire-core@lists.sourceforge.net, and we’ll see what we can do.

Questions

General

Application

Questions on Specific Services

Development

Answers

General

Fire crashes/unexpectedly quits often. What can I do to help the developers fix it?
When an application unexpectedly quits (also called a crash), Mac OS X is able to create a log of what was happening when the problem happened. To enable this feature, go to your /Applications/Utilities folder, open Console.app. In the Preferences dialog, turn on crash reporting and automatic display of crash logs. The next time a crash happens, please file a bug in Trac with the crash log included. A description of what happened before the crash is also helpful. If you are getting exactly the same crash over and over, please submit just the one crash log.
How do I file a bug report so the Fire developers can fix the problem?
The Fire development team uses the bug report list in Trac to track problems with Fire. If you are experiencing a problem with Fire, please fill out a bug report to alert the development team and help us resolve it. You can browse the existing bug reports or you can file a new one.

In your bug report, please include any crash logs together with a full description of what you were doing when the bug showed itself. Also please include in your description the version of Fire you are using.

How do I find out which version of Fire I’m using?
The version of Fire can be found in About box. Choose Fire → About Fire from the menu bar. If you’re using a nightly build or one you rolled yourself, include the date built too.
How can I let the developers know about a new feature that I would love to see in Fire?
New Feature Requests for Fire are tracked in Trac. If you have a great idea for something you would like to see in Fire, please browse the existing feature requests to see if someone else has already requested it, if not you can add a new one.
Who are the authors of Fire, and how can I thank them?
The Fire project was started in 1999 by Eric Peyton. He did most of the development himself for the first several years of Fire’s existence. However, in the true spirit of Open Source software, he leveraged the work of several other Open Source projects and libraries to make this happen without having to reinvent the wheel.

The development of Fire has included contributions from a huge number of people. However a few in particular have devoted a significant amount of time to its development. The most current list of people who have helped with this effort is available within the application by selecting “About Fire” from within the “Fire” menu.

If you wish to thank us, which is the only payment we receive, just drop us a line at: fire-core@lists.sourceforge.net. Also, please spread the word about Fire so that others can enjoy it as well.

Will there ever be a Fire for Mac OS 9.x?
The short answer is no, Fire will never be ported to Mac OS 9.

Fire is written in C and Objective-C using the Cocoa application frameworks. Fire also makes extensive use of Unix libraries for the different chat protocols. Cocoa is a Mac OS X-only technology, so porting Fire to Mac OS 9 wouldn’t really be a port at all; it would be a complete rewrite. The developers would rather spend their time improving Fire to take better advantage of the power and flexibility of Mac OS X than rewrite the application to run on a platform that is being phased out.

What languages are supported by Fire?
This question really has two parts. The first concerns which languages has the Fire UI been translated into. At the current time, the User Interface is available in 6 languages:
  • Danish
  • English
  • Italian
  • Japanese
  • Spanish
  • Swedish

The number of languages translated in each release varies based upon the availability of our volunteer localizers. In the past, Fire also had Chinese, Dutch, French, German, Icelandic, Portuguese and Russian versions.

All of these translations are available as part of the standard Fire installation. Fire will load the version which most closely matches your language preferences specified in the International Pane of the System Preferences.

The second part of the question has to do with sending messages in various languages. Based upon the capabilities of the IM service you are using, you should be able to communicate in any language that is supported by the Fonts and Input Methods of the OS on either end of the conversation. Consult your various Operating system documentation for a list of supported languages. As mentioned earlier, some of the IM services have peculiar ways of dealing with different characters, you can learn more about them by reading the Character Set FAQ.

Application

How do I customize my buddy list?
Your buddy list can be customized by going into the “customize” view using the View Toolbar item. This is done by clicking on the small wrench & hammer icon on the left side of your toolbar. Three-option buddies window view selection button. The “customize” view is selected.

Once in this customize view, you can use the toolbar items, popup menus (Control-click on an item), and main menu items in the “Buddies” Menu to add, delete, and edit your buddies. Also, you can drag and drop buddies from one group to another to change which group they are a part of.

Important note: You should be connected to the service (AIM, Yahoo, etc) for which you are editing buddies so that the changes will be reflected on the server as well as within Fire. You will have unpredictable results if you edit, add, or delete buddies while not connected.

Once finished customizing your buddy list, click on the Green Eye portion of the view toolbar button to see only online buddies, or on the green and red eye button to see online and offline buddies.

Future versions of Fire will likely make customizing your buddy list simpler.

How do I delete a buddy or group?
Currently, there is only one way to delete a buddy or group.
  1. Make sure that you are online and connected to the account you are deleting buddies or groups for. (AIM, Yahoo, MSN, etc.)
  2. Place the buddies list in “customize” view using the View toolbar item. This is done by clicking on the small wrench & hammer icon on the left side of your toolbar. Three-option buddies window view selection button. The “customize” view is selected.
  3. Click the buddy or group you would like to delete. (You may only select one at a time.)
  4. Delete the item by clicking on the “Delete Buddy” toolbar item. The Delete Buddy toolbar item

    (You may need to choose this item from the overflow menu, which appears as “>>” on the right end of your toolbar, if your buddy list isn’t wide enough to accomodate all the toolbar items.)

Note! Deleting a group will also delete all buddies in that group, so use with caution!
Fire won’t connect to my account. How do I fix it?
Here are some tips. If you ask the question on one of the mailing lists, let us know that you have tried these first:
  • Double check the username and password. Be sure they are formatted as the service expects. MSN needs the full passport ID (user@hotmail.com, not just user).
  • Try an official client on the same machine.
  • Try another unofficial client like Adium or Proteus on the same machine.
  • Are you behind a SOCKS proxy server or a firewall that is blocking IM protocols? Fire currently does not support proxy servers. It may be possible to use a different port number in some cases; check the account settings or ask your network administrator.
  • Try a different account if you have more than one.
  • Sometimes new Yahoo accounts don’t work with Fire at first.
Does Fire have a graphical smiley menu?
Yes, Fire has a graphical smiley menu which contains all of the smileys supported by the various services. (Including even the hidden ones.) To make this menu visible on your Chat Window toolbar, open a Chat Window and click on the “Edit Toolbar” icon (looks like a wrench and hammer). A dialog will then open showing you all of the toolbar items you can add to your toolbar. Among these is a smiley menu. Just drag its icon to the desired location on your toolbar and then click “Done” to dismiss the dialog. (Note, in some instances, the smiley icon will not show up in this list, but just click and drag in the area right above the word “Smileys” and you will be able to move the invisible icon to your toolbar, where it will show up correctly.) In a Fire 1.0 and later, this smiley menu is part of the default set of toolbar icons.
Does Fire support Custom Buddy Icons (like AIM)?
Fire does support limited buddy icons for AIM users. In the current version, Fire will receive and display custom buddy icons from your AIM buddies. You can also set your icon in the Profile pref. At this time, Fire does not have a user interface for assigning an icon to a particular buddy. That feature is being considered for inclusion in a future release of Fire. To enable this behavior, you must be using the “Oscar” version of AIM. This can be selected by going into the Fire Preferences and selecting the Services Pane. There you will be able to switch between the Oscar and TOC versions of AIM. Just select AIM-Oscar to get support for Buddy Icons.
Fire is crashing when first logging in to a service, how can I temporarily disable auto-login?
If you are experiencing a crash as Fire is logging into a service automatically at startup, you can temporarily disable auto-login by holding down the shift key when starting Fire. That will give you a chance to edit the accounts and disable the auto-login for the offending account.
How do I edit accounts and select which ones automatically login when I start Fire?
To edit accounts, go to the Accounts menu and select Edit Accounts…. This will bring up a dialog box listing all of your current accounts, and gives you the ability to edit, add, or delete accounts from this list. You can select only one of these accounts from each service type (MSN, Yahoo, AOL, etc.) to automatically log in when you start Fire. This is accomplished by clicking the checkbox at the right end of the line for a particular account. In the “Auto” column. (If this checkbox and column is not visible, you may need to make the Edit Accounts window larger so this column will be displayed.)
Does Fire support multiple accounts being connected to the same service at the same time?
No. At this time Fire only supports you being connected to a service with one account at a time. This means that if you are connected with one account for a service (like AIM), and you ask to have another AIM account connect, the first AIM account will be disconnected, and the second AIM account will then be connected. This may change in the future, as support for multiple connected accounts is a common feature request we receive.
Can Fire invite more people to an existing Group Chat?
Yes. This support was added in Fire 1.0. To invite more users to a group chat, click the invite button in the chat window toolbar (you may need to customize your toolbar to get it).
Does Fire work with firewalls and proxy servers?
The quick answer is that Fire can work with many firewall configurations, but will not work if your network administrator requires you to use proxy servers.

Firewalls - if your network administrator has configured the firewall to allow new outbound connections, you will be able to use Fire just fine. However, if they have restricted connections on the ports you need, you can try connecting on port 80, or you can ask your administrator to allow the connections on the ports you need.

If you need to change the port number for your connection, go to the “Accounts” menu and select “Edit Accounts” menu item. There you will be able to double click on the accounts in your setup and look at the configuration for each of the various accounts you have configured. On some service types you are allowed to enter the port number you wish to connect on. Keep a note of the port number currently there, and then temporarily change it to port 80 to see if a connection is then made. (This can be especially useful with AIM and Yahoo connections.) If that doesn’t work, your only resort is to convince the network administrator to change the configuration of the firewall. You should change the port number back to the original value.

Proxies - Some network administrators have set up proxy servers for use with connections to the outside world. Fire does not currently support connections via Proxy servers or ssh to the outside world. Such support may be added in a future release.

(Updated info 2 November 2003)

We have released a new version of Fire which supports the changes necessary to work with MSN. This release also fixes the crashes or connection failures that some users were experiencing with MSN. You must be using Fire version 0.32.h to continue working with MSN.

How do I set my Away Message (or Status) in Fire?
Fire allows you to change your Away Message (or Status) on all of your accounts at once. This is accomplished by clicking on the status tool in your Buddy List Toolbar. It is the image that looks like this: Status toolbar item

Clicking on this image will allow you to pick from a menu of pre-defined Away messages, and will also give you the option of defining your own.

Note for advanced users: This menu of Away messages can also be accessed by control-clicking on the Dock icon.

Why do I get a “missing version.plist” error on startup?
Fire is attempting to connect to the SourceForge website to check for updates. If you are not online, Fire will be unable to retreive the file and this error will show up. In order to stop the error message, turn off the automatic update checking by selecting “Manual” in the “Updates” preference pane. This is no longer an issue with Fire 1.0.
How does Fire handle Character Sets for communicating in various languages?
Fire does its best to fully support all languages and character sets to ensure that people can communicate. You should be aware that there are some differences between the various IM Services available within Fire. Support for different character sets falls into three categories in Fire

Latin Languages Only

  • AIM - TOC

These services only support the ISOLatin1 character set, which covers English and most Western European Languages. Sending messages using other character sets is not possible on these services.

User Selected Character Set

  • ICQ
  • irc

These services require the users on both ends of the chat to chose a common character set between them. If different character sets are chosen, the messages will be interpreted incorrectly, and will be displayed incorrectly. Within Fire, you can choose which character set you will use for these services by selecting an Encoding from the main menu. Go to the “Formatting” menu and select “Text Encoding” to get a list of supported encodings. Please note that this list of supported encodings will increase dramatically in the next major release of Fire. The person on the other end of the conversation will have to consult their client documentation to determine how to select a text encoding.

Unicode Character Set

  • AIM - Oscar
  • Jabber
  • MSN
  • Yahoo!

These services use versions of the Unicode character set, which includes support for all written languages currently in use. With these services, you can communicate in any language supported by the fonts and input methods of the OS on either end of the communication. The Text Encoding menu item is not used for these services.

Why don’t my buddies see messages in the font I am sending?
There are a number of reasons why the people on the other end of the conversation may not be seeing the message in the same font you are sending. Understanding what is happening, may give you some insights how to fix the issue:
  1. The other client may be blocking received fonts. For Example, Fire has a preference which allows you to override the incoming font and color of a message and display it in your preferred font and color instead.
  2. The service may not support sending font information. Jabber and ICQ do not support sending font information through their service.
  3. Fire might not support sending fonts for that service. Fire does not yet support sending font and color information for MSN messages. This is something we hope to support in a future release.
  4. They might not have that font on their system. The font you select must be one that they have installed on their system. If you select “Al’s CandyStripe Font” that you found on a website somewhere, chances are that the person you are chatting with will not have that font installed. When you select that font, the receiving system will not know what that font is, so the message will be displayed in a default font. This becomes especially tricky if you are sending fonts to someone on a different Operating System, like Windows, where the default set of installed fonts is different from what is available on Mac OS X. To be safe, you can select from one of the following “Web Safe” Fonts which should be installed on just about every system out there:
    • Andale Mono
    • Arial
    • Arial Black
    • Arial Narrow
    • Century
    • Garamond
    • Tahoma
    • Times New Roman
    • Verdana
How long must the machine be idle before an idle away status is sent? Can I change that time?
Currently, Fire will change your Away status to Idle after 10 minutes of inactivity on your computer. This delay can be changed in the “Status” preference pane.
Can I block messages from strangers (spam block)?
Yes, you are able to block messages from anyone who is not on your buddy list. This option can be selected by doing the following:
  1. Go to the Fire Preferences (Fire Menu → Preferences)
  2. Open the New Messages pane New Messages preference pane icon
  3. Click the checkbox for “Block messages from people not in my buddy list”
When will Fire support Audio and Video Chat?
Many of the instant messaging applications in the marketplace are beginning to support Audio and Video chat. At this point in time, Fire does not support this type of chat mechanism. However, there is considerable interest in providing that support in the future. One of the primary obstacles is that each instant messaging provider is using their own mechanism for these technologies. Because of this, Fire will have to develop solutions for each of the instant messaging solutions independently. Some work on support for Audio and Video has begun, but it will be some time before anything is released. Based upon the current staff working on this, our priority for release of support is as follows:
  • Yahoo! Webcam
  • iChat AV (audio and video)
  • H.323 (Microsft NetMeeting)
  • VoIP

Some of the protocols will be difficult to implement, because they use patented encoding schemes which are not publicly available for MacOS X. These include:

  • Yahoo! Voice Chat
  • AIM Voice Chat

There are also some protocols which still require more research before we can put them on our priority list:

  • MSN Messenger Voice and Video Chat
  • AIM Video Chat (currently being developed by AOL)

A great deal of work remains to be done before full support for these items is available. However, it is definitely something that the Fire team is interested in providing.

Questions on Specific Services

What are the two versions of AIM supported, and how do I select between them?
The AIM service has two connection types which it supports. These are known as “TOC” and “Oscar”. (Don’t blame us for the names, the AOL guys chose them!) In general terms, TOC provides bare bones access to the AIM service, and is intended for use by less complex devices or simple implementations. Oscar is the connection method used by the regular AIM clients, and supports additional features in such areas as buddy lists and buddy icons. Fire is one of the very few Open Source IM clients to support Oscar connectivity and its additional features. In general, you should use the Oscar connection type unless you are experiencing a specific problem which goes away when you use TOC.

To switch between the two connection types go into the Fire Preferences and select the Services Pane.

Icon for the Services preference pane

Within this pane you will be able to switch between the Oscar and TOC versions of AIM.

Some of my buddies never appear appear to be online even though I know they are.
AIM has a 200 buddy limit. If your buddy list exceeds this limit, you may experience strange behavior, including buddies not showing as online even when they are and an inability to send messages to buddies who have IMed you if Fire thinks they are offline. Sadly, this is a limit imposed by AOL, and we can’t do anything about it. To fix the problem, all you need to do is pare down your list of buddies. (And, really, who talks to 200 people regularly, anyway? Sheesh!)
I can’t connect to Yahoo, it just says Connecting… forever. What is happening?
You must be using Fire Version 0.32.f or greater to work with Yahoo.

Following Microsoft’s lead, Yahoo has decided to block all clients (including their own) which use older versions of the Yahoo protocol. As of 24 September 2003 all clients (including old versions of Fire) using the old protocol are no longer able to work with Yahoo. The Fire development team has released a new version of Fire which continues to work with Yahoo after this changeover.

Does Fire support Yahoo Webcams?
At this time Fire does not support Yahoo webcams. There is some work going on in the open source community to add support for these, and we anticipate adding it to Fire in the near future.
Does Fire support Voice Chat for Yahoo and AIM?
At this time Fire does not support voice chat with Yahoo and AIM. Unfortunately, the audio implementations used by these services are unique to the Microsoft Windows platform, and even the official Macintosh clients do not support it. Since the audio CODECs are proprietary and use patented technology, it is unlikely that Fire will be able to support them until the original manufacturers make them available on Mac OS X. (Ideally as a part of QuickTime, if Apple is listening‍….)
I can’t connect to MSN, it just says Connecting… forever. What is happening?
Citing security concerns, Microsoft made the decision to block all clients (including their own) which use older versions of the MSN protocol. As of 15 October 2003 all clients (including old versions of Fire) using the old protocol are no longer be able to work with MSN. CNet has an article describing this change.
MSN File transfer isn’t working behind my firewall, what can I do?
File transfer for MSN happens directly between the 2 client machines, and does not involve the central MSN servers. Therefore, both machines must be able to reach one another in order to transfer files. If your machine is behind a firewall (or a NAT device) you will not be able to do MSN file transfer unless you set up “Port Forwarding” on the firewall device. Specifically, ports 6891 to 6900 need to be forwarded for file transfer to work. Please consult the documentation for your Firewall or NAT device to find how to do this. More information on MSN communication can be found on the Microsoft Website.
Can Fire support Jabber SSL connections, and how do I set it up?
If you are running Fire on Mac OS 10.2 or greater, you are able to connect to Jabber servers using an SSL connection. The steps to configure this are as follows:
  1. From the Accounts menu and select “Edit Accounts…”
  2. Double click on your Jabber account to bring up the account editing window.
  3. Change the “Port” value to 5223 (Jabber’s SSL Port)
  4. Click on “Save” to save the new settings
Fire will then know to establish an SSL connection with the Jabber server when connecting the next time.
How do I enter an irc chat room?
To enter an irc chat room, you need to create an irc “buddy” to serve as a bookmark for that room. This irc buddy will be displayed in your buddies list, and you can enter the room by simply double clicking on the “buddy.” The steps are as follows:
  1. Choose “Add Buddy…” from the Buddies menu
  2. Name the buddy with the name of the room (without the “#”) and leave the Alias blank. (e.g. for the room #fire, you would put “fire” as the buddy name)
  3. Choose “irc” as the Service and choose the Group you’d like the channel to appear in
  4. Save the new buddy, and you’re done! The buddy (bookmark for this room) will appear in your Buddies List
Does Fire support xxx@mac.com buddies?
Yes, Fire supports all user@mac.com buddies just like iChat.
Does Fire support Rendezvous (like iChat)?
Fire gained support for Rendezvous, the networking protocol that allows iChat to automatically discover other users on your local network, in version 1.5. Users of previous versions will need to upgrade to use this functionality.

Development

How can I help with development of Fire?
The Fire development team is always looking for people who are willing to volunteer to help with development, documentation, localization, testing or artwork. If you have experience in some of these areas and would like to help, you can begin by taking a look at the development page and by participating in the fire-development or fire-localization mailing lists.
What is SourceForge and what is Fire’s connection to it?
SourceForge.net is a free service provided to the Open Source community by VA Software Corporation. They have a document about who they are and what SourceForge.net is all about. As Fire development was opened up to a wider audience of developers, Eric Peyton (the original author) decided to move the Fire development resources from the original epicware.com site to SourceForge in August of 2001. This site provides the Fire developers with the tools they need to remotely collaborate on the development of this software including mailing lists, software distribution, and an end-user website. It also provides an overview of the Fire development effort.
What is TOT?
TOT is an acronym that stands for Tip Of Tree. This refers to the latest version of the sources checked in to the Subversion server. The TOT version may have incomplete features, crashes, quirks, etc. Unless you want to help beta test the next release of Fire, or make changes to Fire, you’re better off sticking with the latest official release.
What programming language is Fire developed in?
Fire is developed primarily in Objective-C, an object oriented variant of the C programming language. Because we also use other third party open source libraries, some portions of the code are in C and C++.
How do I learn more about Objective-C?
If you are already a C or C++ developer, we would recommend that you read the Apple Overview of Objective-C. If you are not familiar with C programming, you might want to first become familiar with it before attempting Objective-C.
What programming tools are used for Fire Development?
Fire is built using Apple’s free set of development tools for Mac OS X, centered around a tool called Project Builder. You may have received a “Developer Tools” CD with your copy of Mac OS X, but we recommend downloading the latest version directly from Apple’s developer website. Step by step instructions for downloading and installing the tools are available on our Development page.
How do I get a copy of the source code? (And what is SVN?)
The Fire source code is available free to the public using a tool called Subversion (SVN). This tool will not only allow you to get a snapshot of the source code, but will also help you keep it synchronized as the source code changes over time. For more information about using SVN, there are some basic instructions for downloading the source code on our Development page.
How do I submit a source code change for inclusion in Fire?
If you have made changes to the source code, you can submit those changes to the Fire Development Team for consideration to be added to the Fire source code. We certainly welcome the help of the open source community in making Fire even better.

If you have a patch you wish to submit to us for inclusion into Fire, please do the following:

  1. Make sure you have the latest version of the source code

    svn update

  2. Make sure that your changes will compile correctly by building using Project Builder or Xcode
  3. Create a patch for us:
    1. For source code differences, send us a diff

      svn diff

    2. For nib differences, create a tar file of the new nib files

      tar cf [tar filename] [nib file]

  4. Send these patches to us by using the Patch tracker on the Fire SourceForge site.
  5. As you submit the patch, please include in the Detailed Description field, the problem or feature request you have addressed, and a brief description of what you did to address the problem/feature request.

The Fire development team will then review the patch and add it to the source code tree as appropriate. Also remember to be patient as your patch may need to wait until another feature or problem is addressed.

We would also strongly recommend that you join the fire-development mailing list.

I submitted a patch, but it hasn’t been used. What is happening?
Once a patch is submitted, one of the members of the Fire Development Team will review it for possible inclusion in the source code tree. Sometimes, it can take us a while to find the time to review and integrate the change, so please be patient. Occasionally there are issues with the submission, and you will be contacted via email for clarification. Also, in some rare instances, the patch may conflict with other work going on, and it may not be used. However, if you communicate what you are doing on the fire-development mailing list, your chances of creating an incompabible patch are greatly lessened.
I speak another language and would like to help translate Fire. How do I get started?
As mentioned in another area of the FAQ, Fire is available in a wide variety of languages. This is only made possible through the generous volunteer efforts of our localization (translation) team, made up of people throughout the world.

Fire is written in English, so you will need to speak both English and the target language. To begin, please join the Fire-localization mailing list. That is a resource you can use to get help, and volunteer to help. Next, you should read the Fire Localization: HOW TO document which describes the basics of localizing Fire.

NOTE! We are actively seeking people to help us with the following languages (this is not an all-inclusive list):

  • Dutch
  • Icelandic
  • Japanese
  • Korean
  • Portugese

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