Karin Chan

Install Friends App (Gwibber Rewritten In QML) In Ubuntu 13.04 Or 12.10

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Gwibber, the microblogging client available by default in Ubuntu, has been rewritten in QML recently and is now called Friends App. </b><br /><br />Also, Gwibber Service (the backend) and the Gwibber Unity Lens have been replaced with "<a href="https://blogs.gnome.org/kenvandine/">Friends Service</a>" and Unity Friends Lens and the new packages have landed in the Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail repositories for a while, but they <a href="http://www.webupd8.org/2013/04/ubuntu-1304-raring-ringtail-final-beta.html#comment-852897951">didn't work properly</a>, at least for me, until a couple of days ago.<br /><br />Gwibber used to be installed by default in Ubuntu, however, the new Friends App isn't (though the Friends Lens is installed by default) available by default in Raring and I'm not sure if it will make it, but you can easily install it via Ubuntu Software Center. <b>Below you'll find instructions for installing the new Friends App in Ubuntu 12.10 or 13.04.</b></div><br /><a name='more'></a>Here are a few Friends App (and Unity lens) screenshots:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/friends-app.png" imageanchor="1" rel="image_group" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="Friends App" border="0" height="295" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-3IPt9rpYlUk/UWgUHMq3ggI/AAAAAAAAO88/aPG5QFASJvg/s320/friends-app.png" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/friends-app_2.png" rel="image_group"><img alt="Friends App" src="http://img.netupd8.com/friends-app_2_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/friends-lens.png" rel="image_group"><img alt="Friends Unity Lens" src="http://img.netupd8.com/friends-lens_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="http://img.netupd8.com/friends-lens-preview.png" rel="image_group"><img alt="Friends Unity Lens Previews" src="http://img.netupd8.com/friends-lens-preview_thumb.png" /></a></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">As you can see in the screenshots above, the new Friends App uses the Ubuntu Phone OS design so it's not exactly optimized for the desktop: there's no longer a menu (to add your Twitter, Facebook, etc. accounts you must go to <i>System Settings > Online Accounts </i>manually), at least for now, or toolbar and there's a large "Timeline" text on top of the application which is pretty annoying on the desktop. However, the new version is very fast and has some nice effects, smooth scrolling, etc. </div><br /><br /><br /><h2>Install Gwibber QML in Ubuntu 12.10 or 13.04</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Friends App is still work in progress: some features may be missing, you may find bugs and so on. Also, please note that the Friends Unity lens didn't work in my test under Ubuntu 12.10 (but it does work in Ubuntu 13.04).</b></div><br /><br />To install Friends in Ubuntu 12.10 or 13.04, follow the following steps:<br /><br /><b>1. Install Friends App (Gwibber rewritten in QML).</b><br /><b><br /></b> <b>Ubuntu 13.04 Raring Ringtail:</b> all you have to do is click the button below:<br /><br /><div style="text-align: center;"><a href="apt://friends-app"><button class="thoughtbot">Install Friends</button></a></div><br />Alternatively, you can also install Friends via command line:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install friends-app</code></pre><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">For <b>Ubuntu 12.10</b>: installing Friends will remove the old Gwibber application! Also, you'll need to add the Ubuntu SDK and QT 5 PPAs (which will install quite a few packages) as well as the Super Friends PPA:</div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo add-apt-repository ppa:canonical-qt5-edgers/qt5-proper<br />sudo add-apt-repository ppa:ubuntu-sdk-team/ppa<br />sudo add-apt-repository ppa:super-friends/ppa<br />sudo apt-get update<br />sudo apt-get install friends-app unity-lens-friends</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>2.</b> You may need to restart your computer or else Friends might not work (this could be avoided by killing the existing Gwibber Service process in Ubuntu 12.10, launching the Friends process, restarting Unity, etc., but to avoid any issues that could result in Gwibber not working, a system restart is recommended).<br /><br />Report any bugs you may encounter @ <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/friends">Launchpad</a>. </div><br /><br /><h2>Reverting the changes and returning to the old Gwibber in Ubuntu 12.10</h2><br /><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>To remove Friends App and reinstall the old Gwibber back in Ubuntu 12.10, use the following commands:</b></div><pre class="linux-code"><code>sudo apt-get install ppa-purge<br />sudo ppa-purge ppa:super-friends/ppa<br />sudo apt-get install gwibber unity-lens-gwibber</code></pre>

Install Friends App (Gwibber Rewritten In QML) In Ubuntu 13.04 Or 12.10

Gwibber, the microblogging client available by default in Ubuntu, has been rewritten in QML recently and is now called Friends App. Also, G...

<div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Facebook doesn't currently work with Gwibber (the Facebook feeds aren't updated - bug <a href="https://bugs.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+source/gwibber/+bug/1088775">HERE</a>) and this bug affects Ubuntu 12.10, 12.04 and probably older Ubuntu versions as well.</b><br /><br />Update: This bug also affected Ubuntu 13.04 (currently under development), but a fix was <a href="https://launchpad.net/ubuntu/raring/+source/gwibber/3.6.0-0ubuntu2">pushed</a> a few minutes after publishing this post. Hopefully the fix will make it into older Ubuntu versions soon.</div><div style="text-align: justify;"><br /></div><div style="text-align: justify;">There is, however, a <b>work-around which I can confirm it works for Ubuntu 12.10 Quantal Quetzal and 12.04 Precise Pangolin</b> - so here's how to apply it and get Facebook to work with Gwibber again!<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0Jp1IPonWKY/UPQOcjon_1I/AAAAAAAAMq8/XKoJ6dFqMWU/s1600/gwibber-working.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="gwibber facebook working" border="0" height="284" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-0Jp1IPonWKY/UPQOcjon_1I/AAAAAAAAMq8/XKoJ6dFqMWU/s320/gwibber-working.png" title="gwibber facebook working" width="320" /></a></div></div><br /><a name='more'></a><br /><b>1.</b> Open <i>/usr/share/gwibber/plugins/facebook/__init__.py</i> as root with a text editor - we'll use Gedit so to open the file, run the following command in a terminal:<br /><pre class="linux-code"><code>gksu gedit /usr/share/gwibber/plugins/facebook/__init__.py</code></pre><br /><b>2.</b> In the newly opened file, <b>search for the following code:</b><br /><br /><pre class="source-code"><code>      m["privacy"]["description"] = data["privacy"]["description"]</code></pre><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">It should be on line 329 for Ubuntu 12.10 (with Gwibber 3.6.0-0ubuntu1) and on line 210 for Ubuntu 12.04. The line number may be different on other Gwibber / Ubuntu versions.</div><br />And <b>replace that line with the following code:</b><br /><pre class="source-code"><code>      if data["privacy"].has_key("description"):<br />        m["privacy"]["description"] = data["privacy"]["description"]<br />      else:<br />        m["privacy"]["description"] = "Unknown"</code></pre><div style="text-align: justify;"><b>Make sure the code is pasted exactly as it's displayed above, including the spaces</b> in the beginning, or else it won't work!</div><br />Then, save the file. Here's how the file should look after editing it:<br /><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P9wRcTmgIn8/UPQOqK3xneI/AAAAAAAAMrE/xAmBTnxZg5M/s1600/gwibber-facebook-fix.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img alt="gwibber facebook fix" border="0" height="259" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-P9wRcTmgIn8/UPQOqK3xneI/AAAAAAAAMrE/xAmBTnxZg5M/s320/gwibber-facebook-fix.png" title="gwibber facebook fix" width="320" /></a></div><br /><br /><b>3.</b> Restart Gwibber Service:<br /><pre class="source-code"><code>killall gwibber-service<br />gwibber-service &</code></pre><b>Then close Gwibber if it was running, start it again and Facebook feeds should now update in Gwibber under Ubuntu 12.10 or 12.04.</b><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;"><i>Thanks to Ruben Rocha for the tip and <a href="https://launchpad.net/~bjoern-kautler">Björn Kautler</a> for the fix!</i></div>

Fix Facebook Not Working With Gwibber In Ubuntu 12.10 Or 12.04

Facebook doesn't currently work with Gwibber (the Facebook feeds aren't updated - bug HERE ) and this bug affects Ubuntu 12.10, 12.0...

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