what's the use of transport?

[joz]

Hi everyone,
I never used transport, just got to know that it exists. Here are my first questions

1
If I understood right I need a yahoo account if I want to use my jabber account to contact a yahoo user. Then I can transport from jabber to yahoo and back. And if I want to chat with a msn user I need to have a msn account, right?
So the use of transport is that it looks better in my chat client?

2
My jabber server does not support transport. Here (http://www.jabberes.org/servers/) I can chose a server that would transport me even if I am hosted elsewhere. But how do I do that? In my client or at the server's website ?
I use pidgin at the moment, if you recommend another on I'm always open.

Thanks for your hint and advises.
Greetings
Joz

[Jehan]

1/ It depends. If your use case is always connecting from your home, from the same multi-protocol client, no there is obviously no use. And you may even lose some features as they are not all passing well through transports (for instance speech features, I am not sure they can go through the Jabber transport).

But this can have some advantages:
- For instance you like very much a given Jabber client, but it is Jabber only and you don't want to use several programs in the same time. Hence you can use the Jabber client and other protocols through the transport.

- You move a lot between computers, and often not personal computers, so you don't want to save your logins/passwords on them. But you use several IM protocols, so you have one login and one password to remember for each protocol. Moreover it is boring to have to type them all each time you change desktop, or you don't always have the necessary clients on each. In such case, if you are subscribed to transports, you only have one login/password (the Jabber one) to remember and to type each time on a Jabber client, and you are automatically connected everywhere instantaneously.

If you have access to a Jabber web client for instance (like JWchat), then wherever you are, if you have access to a simple browser, by only one login, you access all your IM networks.

So as you see, the advantages or drawbacks depends on use case, and what you consider worthing it or not.

2/ At the end of this thread, I explain how to subscribe to a transport, using Psi:
http://www.jabberforum.org/showthread.php?t=312

You must use a client which supports transports to subscribe (I know at least Psi and Gajim do it, and indeed I think Pidgin does not). But once it has been done, you are not forced to use the same client. Once you are subscribed, you can go back to any (even the simplest!) basic Jabber client if ever you prefer. Transports will work on any clients, and your MSN/Yahoo!/other contacts will always appear.

[joz]

Thanks for your answer Jehan,
the JWchat seems quite convincing to me to use transport.
I'im going to try that out.
As I don't use speech features maybe the quality losses by using transport are not important to me.. what else could malfunction?

I guess with JWchat all the conversation logs would be stored on my web space (and not on my employers computer for example). That's an interesting option.

cheers
Joz

[zeller]

I've always though transports are pointless. The majority of jabber clients are multiprotocol clients. And even my favourite jaber web interface (meebo (http://www.meebo.com)) supports multiple protocols.

[joz]

Yes the meebo service looks quite handy. But I just like to know where my private data is stored, so the JWchat solution looks more interesting to me.

joz

[sander]

I've always though transports are pointless. The majority of jabber clients are multiprotocol clients. And even my favourite jaber web interface (meebo (http://www.meebo.com)) supports multiple protocols.

The majority of instant messaging clients are XMPP-only clients.

[zeller]

The majority of instant messaging clients are XMPP-only clients.

While I can't claim to have tried them all (nor can I know for sure that the list is extensive), looking at wikipedia's list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jabber_client_software) or clients, and removing in-active ones then the multi-protocol have a majority (that means 51% or more). Now if you just count all of the ones listed, then it is currently tied.

Now don't get me wrong, I support jabber only clients (and in fact I only use jabber). But I feel for end-users multi-protocol clients are easier to understand than jabber transports.

[Jehan]

Yes. That's why I said the interest of using protocols would differ from people. Because it has advantages and drawbacks. And depending on people and how they use IM, they will be more sensible to some of these advantages and drawbacks.
I don't use any other IM system than Jabber, so I don't use transports. But I know that if I really wanted to connect to some proprietray IM (which hopefully will never happen), I would prefer to use transports. This way I would keep my complete freedom. I don't have to wonder every time which client to use, how I can connect outside of my own computer, etc. Of course this is also because I like being able to connect Jabber anywhere. But this is also that I mostly use basic messaging: textual messages. I use the rest, but on the side. (And this is why I would like to work on the way to distinguish client capabilities, in order to still be able to use basic IM clients when I don't need more)
As a conclusion: interest is mostly a matter of needs.

To answer Joz about malfunctionning features, the answer is "I don't know". What I know for sure is that the text IM works well. Because I happened to use transports and I was just chatting. But I guess (I may be wrong though, as I said, I don't know the current status of transport services) that the non-working parts may be all the binary ones: voice chat, file transferts, etc.

About the jwchat client, it is really basic. I use it when I am not on a computer which I control (so I cannot install a Jabber software, or don't want because you are not going to do whatever you like with other's material). And all the place where it is installed, I never saw anything like a message storage feature. So all my chat logs during the use of this client are lost. This would be great, though the real best would be rather server-side storage feature (I hope to see this feature soon implemented on all Jabber servers!). This way, whichever the client I would use (at home, on the web, etc.), I will find my chat history.
Anyway I confirm there will be nothing stored on your employer's computer. Which is great also with a web client is the possibility to pass through firewalls, etc. As long as you have a web access, even if there is a firewall blocking Jabber ports, it doesn't matter because the client is on the web. But don't expect too much from jwchat. It remains a very basic client and has no extended feature.

For the meebo service, I discover this for the first time. This looks nice, I will give it a try someday.

[sander]

While I can't claim to have tried them all (nor can I know for sure that the list is extensive), looking at wikipedia's list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Jabber_client_software) or clients, and removing in-active ones then the multi-protocol have a majority (that means 51% or more). Now if you just count all of the ones listed, then it is currently tied.

That list is not complete.

Now don't get me wrong, I support jabber only clients (and in fact I only use jabber). But I feel for end-users multi-protocol clients are easier to understand than jabber transports.

Try Coccinella. Registering an MSN account is easier than in older versions of Pidgin (I read some newbe experience of Pidgin on a blog).

[zeller]

That list is not complete.

Do you happen to know where there is a more complete list?

[AJxn]

I've always though transports are pointless. The majority of jabber clients are multiprotocol clients. And even my favourite jaber web interface (meebo (http://www.meebo.com)) supports multiple protocols.

Multi protocol clients usally implements many protocol poorly. At least Jabber protocol for those that I have tried (Pidgin and Miranda).

Singel protocol clients usally impements a singel protocol good. At least those that I have tried (Gajim, Bombus, Coccinella, SamePlace).

Transports remove the need to run those (poorly implemented) multi protocol clients.