INSTALL.md

Installation

Windows and Linux

purple-signal now stores the account information in Pidgin's account data store. If you want to modify the account with signal-cli, you need to move the data manually.

Windows

1. a x86 (32-bit) Java, e.g. 11.0.9
   Unpack it to a directory*. I assume c:\opt\openjdk-11. Modify your user's PATH environment variable to include c:\opt\openjdk-11\jre\bin\client;.
2. signal-cli
   Unpack it to a directory*. I assume c:\opt\signal-cli.
3. Pidgin
   Install it to a directory*. I assume c:\opt\pidgin.
   Modify your user's PATH environment variable to include c:\opt\pidgin;c:\opt\pidgin\Gtk\bin;
4. purple-signal
   Both purple-signal.dll and purple_signal.jar are needed.
   Put them into c:\opt\pidgin\plugins. Yes, in the Pidgin installation directory. For reasons beyond my understanding, the plug-in cannot not be loaded from user directory.
   Launch Pidgin, create a new account. Enter your phone number (internationalized format +491234567890) for a username. Set the signal-cli path to c:\opt\signal-cli\lib.

*) It may or may not be necessary for that directory not to have spaces in the entire path. The default C:\Program Files (x86) may not work. I did not check thoroughly.

Linux

1. Java
   Have a Java JRE installed (tested with OpenJDK 11). Architecture should match your system (must match Pidgin's machine type).
2. signal-cli
   Unpack it to a directory* spaces. I assume /opt/signal-cli.
3. Pidgin
   Installed via your distribution's package manager.
4. purple-signal
   Build with cmake and make. javac, gcc and libpurple-dev dependencies such as libglib-dev are required.
   Copy or link libpurple-signal.so and purple_signal.jar into ~/.purple/plugins.
   Launch Pidgin, create a new account. Enter your phone number (internationalized format +491234567890) for a username. Set the signal-cli path to /opt/signal-cli.