Warning: Work in progress!

Tessa IM

Tessa is a FOSS, cross-platform, modular Jabber client, employing C++ and Lua.

Philosophy

Goals:

1. Be flexible
2. Be small
3. Be easier
4. Be cross-platform

_{Yes, these may look familiar...}

Also, you can view a 'map' of the things we want Tessa to be, at TessaMap.

Network

Tessa will be able to support multiple network plugins. However the first, and main one will be a Jabber plugin, using gloox ( http://camaya.net/gloox/ ).

GUI

The GUI is the hardest part of this application. It has the need to be both cross-platform and flexible. Building Tessa in a way that it relies on a specific GUI API would violate goal #1 of the project.

The first GUI will be developed in wxWidgets, with the chance to develop more as Tessa grows. (If you would like a different interface for Tessa, and think you could do it, email us or find us in the Tessa Jabber conference at tessa@conference.jaim.at).

Plugins

Why plugins?

Practically all people who have used plugins in one application or another will agree they are excellent.

However, there are more reasons that make using plugins in applications a good idea:

• They attract a good developer community (which only means good for any OSS application)
• They enforce structure within the application
• Smaller parts are easy and quicker to develop, debug and maintain
• Replaceable parts allow for great customisation of the application by end-users, who don't need technical knowledge to use them

Technical

Plugins may be either binary or Lua. Binary plugins must be valid Lua modules. (currently)

For more info on how plugins will integrate with Tessa's core, see Plugins.

Feedback

Discussion of this document can take place in Feedback on Tessa IM