Useful XMPP chat notifications in Pidgin

Question

I'm using XMPP chat rooms at work via Pidgin for team chat. I'm used to Slack, but we haven't fully switched over as of yet.

Pidgin doesn't seem to be set up to allow useful persistent chat notifications, by which I mean:

• notify me when I get a direct message
• notify me when I get mentioned in group chat
• somehow indicate when there are new messages in group chat, but don't notify me for every one
• do the above as long as the app is running and I'm in the room; don't make me have the chat window actually open

So far, when the chat window is closed, the only notification I get when someone mentions me is a color change on the tray icon, which is hidden in Windows. And I get no indication at all when there's other conversation occurring. I've played around with the Message Notification plugin settings, but haven't found a combination that gives me what I want above.

In summary, are there some recommended Pidgin settings for XMPP group chat, to make notifications work more like Slack?

Answer 1

There's a lot of notification plugins at https://developer.pidgin.im/wiki/ThirdPartyPlugins#Notifications that would work for your use-cases. You'll probably want to try them out individually to see which one you like best. Personally I like guifications and Win8Toast, but your experience may differ.

We don't include any notification plugins as part of Pidgin, we leave that up to third-parties to implement.