Methods
| Remove | () | → | nothing | |
| UpdateParameters | (a{sv}: Set, as: Unset) | → | as: Reconnect_Required | |
| Reconnect | () | → | nothing |
Signals
| Removed | () | |
| AccountPropertyChanged | (a{sv}: Properties) |
Properties
| Interfaces | as (DBus_Interface_List) | Read only | |
| DisplayName | s | Read/Write | |
| Icon | s | Read/Write | |
| Valid | b | Read only | |
| Enabled | b | Read/Write | |
| Nickname | s | Read/Write | |
| Service | s | Read/Write | |
| Parameters | a{sv} | Read only | |
| AutomaticPresence | (uss) (Simple_Presence) | Read/Write | |
| ConnectAutomatically | b | Read/Write | |
| Connection | o | Read only | |
| ConnectionStatus | u (Connection_Status) | Read only | |
| ConnectionStatusReason | u (Connection_Status_Reason) | Read only | |
| ConnectionError | s (DBus_Error_Name) | Read only | |
| ConnectionErrorDetails | a{sv} (String_Variant_Map) | Read only | |
| CurrentPresence | (uss) (Simple_Presence) | Read only | |
| RequestedPresence | (uss) (Simple_Presence) | Read/Write | |
| ChangingPresence | b | Read only | |
| NormalizedName | s | Read only | |
| HasBeenOnline | b | Read only |
Description
An Account object encapsulates the necessary details to make a Telepathy connection.
Accounts are uniquely identified by object path. The object path
of an Account MUST take the form
/org/freedesktop/Telepathy/Account/cm/proto/acct, where:
- cm is the same Connection_Manager_Name that appears in the connection manager's well-known bus name and object path
- proto is the Protocol name as seen in ConnectionManager.ListProtocols, but with "-" replaced with "_" (i.e. the same as in the object-path of a Connection)
- acct is an arbitrary string of ASCII letters, digits and underscores, starting with a letter or underscore, which uniquely identifies this account
- Clients SHOULD parse the object path to discover the connection manager and protocol
- Clients MUST NOT attempt to parse acct
- Clients MUST NOT assume that acct matches the connection-specific part of a Connection's object-path and bus name
- The account manager SHOULD choose acct such that if an account is deleted, its object path will be re-used if and only if the new account is in some sense "the same" (incorporating the 'account' parameter in some way is recommended)
Rationale:
This API avoids specifying the "profiles" used in Mission Control 4.x or the "presets" that have been proposed to replace them. An optional interface will be provided for AM implementations that want to provide presets.
There is deliberately no functionality here for opening channels; we intend to provide that in the channel dispatcher.
Other missing features which would be better in their own interfaces:
- dynamic parameter-providing (aka provisioning)
- saved server capabilities
- account conditions
- account grouping
Methods
Remove () → nothing
Possible Errors
- Permission Denied
UpdateParameters (a{sv}: Set, as: Unset) → as: Reconnect_Required
Parameters
- Set — a{sv}
- Unset — as
Returns
- Reconnect_Required — as
If all of the parameters had the DBus_Property flag,
the empty list, signifying that no reconnection is required for the
new parameters to take effect. For example, if the only parameter
updated is ...Cellular.MessageValidityPeriod,
the new value can be applied immediately to the connection.
Otherwise, a list of the names of parameters with changes that
will not take effect until the account is reconnected. User
interfaces that require "instant apply" semantics MAY call
Reconnect in response to receiving a
non-empty list. For example, if the caller updates both
...Anonymity.AnonymityMandatory
and require-encryption, the former can be applied to the
current connection, but the latter needs a reconnect to take
effect, so this method should return
["require-encryption"].
Change the value of the Parameters property.
If any of the changed parameters'
Conn_Mgr_Param_Flags include
DBus_Property, the change will be applied immediately to
the
corresponding D-Bus Property on the active
Connection, if there is one. Changes to
other parameters will not take effect until the next time the account
is disconnected and reconnected.
Rationale:
In general, reconnecting is a destructive operation that shouldn't happen as a side-effect. In particular, migration tools that twiddle the settings of all accounts shouldn't cause an automatic disconnect and reconnect.
Possible Errors
- Permission Denied
- Invalid Argument
Reconnect () → nothing
Re-connect this account. If the account is currently disconnected and the requested presence is offline, or if the account is not Enabled or not Valid, this does nothing.
If the account is disconnected and the requested presence is not offline, this forces an attempt to connect with the requested presence immediately.
If the account is connecting or connected, this is equivalent to remembering the current value of RequestedPresence, setting its value to (OFFLINE, "offline", ""), waiting for the change to take effect, then setting its value to the value that was previously remembered.
Rationale:
Clients desiring "instant apply" semantics for CM parameters MAY call this method to achieve that.
In particular, if the account's Connection is in the Connecting state, calling this method causes the attempt to connect to be aborted and re-tried.
Rationale:
This is necessary to ensure that the new parameters are picked up.
Signals
Removed ()
Rationale:
AccountPropertyChanged (a{sv}: Properties)
Parameters
- Properties — a{sv}
Properties
Interfaces — as (DBus_Interface_List)
DisplayName — s
Rationale:
Icon — s
Rationale:
Valid — b
Rationale:
Enabled — b
This property gives the users the possibility to prevent an account from being used. This flag does not change the validity of the account.
A disabled account can never be put online.
Rationale:
Use cases:
- user has two or more accounts capable of calling contact X, but he doesn't want the UI to prompt him everytime about which one he wants to use for the call. He can then disable all the equivalent accounts but one.
- There is some temporary server error and the user doesn't want to be be bother by error messages, or change the account configuration: temporarily disabling the account is quicker.
The AccountManager SHOULD allow this property to be set on invalid accounts, but MUST NOT attempt to put invalid accounts online even if they become Enabled.
Rationale:
There doesn't seem to be any good reason not to allow this.
Nickname — s
Rationale:
Service — s
Some protocols, like XMPP and SIP, are used by various different user-recognised brands, such as Google Talk and Ovi by Nokia. On accounts for such services, this property SHOULD be set to a string describing the service, which MUST consist only of ASCII letters, numbers and hyphen/minus signs, and start with a letter (matching the requirements for Protocol). For the jabber protocol, one of the following service names should be used if possible:
- google-talk (for Google's IM service)
- ovi-chat (for Ovi's IM service)
- facebook (for Facebook's IM service)
- lj-talk (for LiveJournal's IM service)
The Icon property SHOULD be set to a corresponding brand-specific icon name, if possible. In the future, this property may be used as an index into additional service-specific customizations. If this property is the empty string (or missing), the service is determined by the protocol name (either because this is a single-service protocol like msn, or because this is just a generic jabber or sip account without specific branding).
This property MAY be set, if appropriate, when calling
CreateAccount. Updating this property will fail on
externally-stored accounts whose StorageRestrictions include
Cannot_Set_Service.
Parameters — a{sv}
A map from connection manager parameter names (as in the ConnectionManager interface) to their values. This property includes only those parameters that are stored for this account, and SHOULD only include those parameters that the user has explicitly set.
This property cannot be altered using Set() - use UpdateParameters instead.
AutomaticPresence — (uss) (Simple_Presence)
The presence status that this account should have if it is brought online.
Rationale:
Setting this property MUST NOT actually change the account's status until the next time it is (re)connected for some reason.
The value of this property MUST be one that would be acceptable for RequestedPresence, with the additional restriction that the Connection_Presence_Type MUST NOT be Offline.
Rationale:
Otherwise, it would not be possible to use this presence to bring the account online for a channel request.
ConnectAutomatically — b
Rationale:
Connection — o
Either the object path of the Connection to
this account, or the special value '/' if there is no
connection.
If this object path is not '/', the Connection's well-known bus name can be derived from this object path by removing the first '/' and replacing subsequent '/' characters with '.'.
Rationale:
ConnectionStatus — u (Connection_Status)
Rationale:
ConnectionStatusReason — u (Connection_Status_Reason)
Rationale:
ConnectionError — s (DBus_Error_Name)
If the last connection to this account failed with an error, the D-Bus error name of that error; otherwise, the empty string. The account manager is expected to set this by observing the Connection.ConnectionError and Connection.StatusChanged signals.
If ConnectionError is received before the connection disconnects, its first argument should be used to set this property; otherwise, the Reason argument of StatusChanged should be converted to a suitable D-Bus error name.
Whenever the Connection connects successfully, this property should be reset to the empty string.
Rationale:
This combines the state-recoverability of ConnectionStatusReason with the extensibility of Connection.ConnectionError.
ConnectionErrorDetails — a{sv} (String_Variant_Map)
If the last connection to this account failed with an error, a mapping representing any additional information about the last disconnection; otherwise, the empty map. The keys and values are the same as for the second argument of Connection.ConnectionError.
Whenever the Connection connects successfully, this property should be reset to the empty map.
Rationale:
This combines the state-recoverability of ConnectionStatusReason with the extensibility of Connection.ConnectionError.
CurrentPresence — (uss) (Simple_Presence)
Rationale:
RequestedPresence — (uss) (Simple_Presence)
The requested presence for this account. When this is changed, the account manager should attempt to manipulate the connection manager to make CurrentPresence match RequestedPresence as closely as possible. It should not be saved to any sort of persistent storage.
When the account manager automatically connects an account, it must signal this by setting the RequestedPresence to the same thing as the AutomaticPresence.
Rationale:
The Connection_Presence_Type in this property MUST NOT be Unset, Unknown or Error.
Rationale:
Requesting those presence types doesn't make sense.
ChangingPresence — b
If true, a change to the presence of this account is in progress.
Whenever RequestedPresence is set on an account that could go online, or whenever an account with a non-offline RequestedPresence becomes able to go online (for instance because Enabled or Valid changes to True), ChangingPresence MUST change to True, and the two property changes MUST be emitted in the same AccountPropertyChanged signal, before the Set method returns.
When the account manager succeeds or fails in changing the presence, or the connection disconnects due to an error, ChangingPresence MUST change to False as part of the same AccountPropertyChanged signal.
Rationale:
This allows UIs to indicate that a presence change is in progress or has finished, even if the change was initiated by a different UI.
For instance, Maemo 5 and Empathy indicate a presence change by having the presence indicator alternate between the RequestedPresence and the CurrentPresence; they should start blinking when ChangingPresence becomes true, and stop when it becomes false.
NormalizedName — s
The normalized user ID of the local user on this account (i.e. the string returned when the InspectHandles method is called on the result of GetSelfHandle for an active connection).
It is unspecified whether this user ID is globally unique.
Rationale:
As currently implemented, IRC user IDs are only unique within the same IRCnet. On some saner protocols, the user ID includes a DNS name which provides global uniqueness.
If this value is not known yet (which will always be the case for accounts that have never been online), it will be an empty string.
It is possible that this value will change if the connection manager's normalization algorithm changes, although this SHOULD be avoided.
Rationale:
It's not always completely clear what normalization algorithm should be used; for instance, in Gabble, we currently use JIDs, but it would also have been reasonable to use xmpp URIs.