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+What is the SkypeProxy for imo.im
+----------------------------------
+Back in 2005 when I developed the Skype plugin for Miranda IM, I also developed
+a very simple protocol to tunnel the Skype API protocol via a socket.
+The reason was, that some users wanted the possibility to run Skype on a
+machine different to the machine they are using Miranda IM on.
+So to tunnel the Skype API remotely over the network SkypeProxy was built and
+was shipped with every Skype plugin build.
+
+The Skype API plugin for Miranda got more and more functions as the API evolved
+and finally as I didn't have enough time to continue development, I handed over
+development to user "tweety" who did the later versions.
+The SkypeProxy-feature is still present in the current versions, as it is very
+simple. It just wraps the communiction layer with the Skype API, therefore
+this concept can also be adopted by other Skype-Plugins of other IMs.
+
+Ever since the first version of Skype plugin, people complained that they had to
+install the Skype client on their machine in order to get it to work.
+The Skype client was always bloated but it got even worse throughout the years.
+I abandoned Skype some time ago, as this application is just consuming far too
+many system ressources. However, there are some people that are only using Skype
+and I need a way to communicate with them. I'm just interested in the chat
+feature, so I only need to send and receive messages from other chat users.
+So what can we do about it?
+
+There were some attempts to reverse-engineer the Skype protocol, but nobody
+succeeded so far as the protocol relies heavily on cryptography, is proprietary
+closed source and the Skype client itself is heaviely protected agains all
+kinds of reverse-engineering (decrypts code on the fly, uses anti-debugging
+tricks, etc.).
+
+However some users recently discovered, that there is a new Web 2.0 service that
+makes it possible to do Instant messaging via the web browser using the Ajax
+framework. The name of the service is imo.im
+imo.im managed to provide basic connectivity to the Skype network via SkypeKit
+and the nice thing about their service is, that you don't need to register, you
+can just use it out of the box.
+However most people are not so excited about IM in a web interface, there are
+many features that an IM application provides and that are not so convenient in
+a webinterface. But as their service is a webservice using jSON calls,
+it is relatively easy to talk to their application server and so users of
+Instant messengers that provide Skype protocol support can take advantage of
+this for providing basic connectivity to the Skype network for instant messaging
+without having to install the bloated Skype client application.
+Only instant messaging is possible. In fact there is also alpha-Support for
+Voicechat via the imo.im flash application, but this currently doesn't work
+reliable due to some Macromedia Flash sandboxing issues.
+But I think for most users like me that just want to stay in contact with
+other Skype users via chat these functions will be enough.
+
+So as mentioned above the most generic approach to link imo.im services with an
+Instant messanger would be to implement this as a wrapper between imo.im and
+the Skype API. This way, we don't need to implement an extra plugin and it is
+easily adaptable to Skype plugins of IMs, as you only need to use the
+application in Skype API emulator mode. The Skype Plugin of the IM would need to do
+proper error handling, but if the plugin is coded well (must be compatible with
+Skype Protocol V3), this may even work out of the box.
+The plugins mustn't assume that an API call always returns something useful on
+every call.
+The Skype API Emulation currently only works on Windows, other clients would
+need to implement the very simple socket protocol for message exchange.
+This application was originally developed to work with Miranda IM, so this IM
+is officially supported.
+
+The application runs on Win32 as well as on Unix, so it's a cross-platform layer
+that you can also install on your personal Server. By design, it would be even
+able to manage multiple users at once, however this feature is currently not
+implemented in the SkypeProxy protocol. Depeding on the user's needs, this
+can be implemented, most of the code for this is already there.
+
+For usage with Miranda IM, a special plugin version was written, which
+implementes the layer as a plugin so that it can be loaded into Miranda
+and the user doesn't have to run the proxy application seperately.
+The plugin version also has the advantage that it is able to communicate
+with the Skype plugin directly.
+
+How does it work
+----------------
+
+Is described in the preamble, this is just a drop-in replacement for the
+communication end point of the Skype API.
+The classical communication model for Skype API is:
+
+[ Skype servers ] <--> [ Skype App ] <--> [ Plugin ]
+
+The SkypeProxy communication model is:
+
+[ Skype servers ] <--> [ Skype App ] <--> [ SkypeProxy ] <--> [ Plugin ]
+
+Now with this Drop-in replacement the communication model is:
+
+[ Skype servers ] <--> [ imo.im ] <--> [ SkypeProxy ] <--> [ Plugin ]
+
+The application communicates via a socket connection on Port 1402, like
+SkypeProxy does. It uses the imo.im services to connect to the Skype network.
+
+You also have the possibility to emulate the Skype WIN32-API so that
+any plugin can communicate with this application instead of Skype.
+
+As said, there are 3 connection points to communicate with the plugin:
+ - WIN32 Skype API via Windowmessages, emulates the real Skype API for
+ compatibility with any Skype plugin. (Windows)
+ - Socket communication layer via TCP/IP. (Windows/Unix)
+ - Internal plugin communcation layer used by the Miranda IM plugin to
+ communicate with Skype plugin versions starting with 0.0.0.46
+ (Windows, Miranda IM plugin only)
+
+How to compile
+--------------
+On Unix type systems, just extract this package and type "make".
+After compiling, you will find imo2sproxy in the bin/ directory
+
+On Windows systems, you will find Visual C 6 project files in the
+msvc/ subdirectory.
+You have Makefiles available for the appropriate modules:
+imoskype.mak - Compiles the imo2sproxy standalone executable
+imoproxy.mak - Compiles the Miranda IM Plugin
+
+There are 4 available Targets:
+Win32 Release - 32bit Windows Release version
+Win64 Release - 64bit Windows Release version
+Win32 Debug - 32bit Windows Debug version
+Win64 Debug - 64bit Windows Debug version
+
+i.e.:
+nmake -f imoskype.mak CFG="Win32 Release"
+
+Requirements
+------------
+On Linux, libcurl Libraries and the pthread library for threading
+are needed in order to get this to work.
+You can download CURL on http://curl.haxx.se/download.html
+To install, just use libtool as usual.
+
+On Windows, WININET is required which should be shipped with
+Internet Explorer. So on an average Windows System, you shouldn't
+need to install any additional libraries.
+Please note, that libcurl IS NO LONGER NEEDED on Windows.
+
+How to use the commandline version
+----------------------------------
+Find the precompiled binaries in the bin/ subdirectory.
+
+imo2sproxy [-d] [-v [-l <Logfile>]] [-t] [-i]
+ [-m<s|a>] [-h <Bind to IP>] [-p <Port>] <Username> <Password>
+
+-v - Verbose mode, log commands to console
+-l - Set logfile to redirect verbose log to.
+-d - Daemonize (detach from console)
+-i - Use interactive mode (starts imo.im flash app upon call)
+-t - Ignore server timestamp and use current time for messages
+-h - Bind to a specific IP, not to all interfaces (default)
+-p - Bind to another port (default: 1401)
+-m - Specify connection mode to use:
+ s Socket mode (SkypeProxy protocol) [default]
+ a Skype API Emulation via Window messages (real Skype API)
+
+-ma is only available on Windows systems.
+
+As there is currently only a single-user implementation of this application, you
+ need to start imo2sproxy with your Skype username and password as parameters.
+
+Example for using the socket protocol:
+imo2sproxy -d -h 127.0.0.1 myuser mypass
+
+As soon as the imo2sproxy is running, setup your Skype Plugin to use the
+SkypeProxy at the machine you are running imo2sproxy on.
+If you are running imo2sproxy locally, enter 127.0.0.1 as IP address.
+After setting the SkypeProxy, you have to restart Miranda IM.
+
+If all works well, you should now be able to use Skype via imo.im.
+If it doesn't work, you can use the -v parameter to see what's going on and
+if the connection works.
+
+If it all works well, you can also install imo2sproxy on your machine
+as a service using srvany.
+
+Example for using the Skype API Emulation (win32 only):
+imo2sproxy.exe -d -ma myuser mypass
+
+As soon as the imo2sproxy is running, just try to use your Skype plugin and
+see if it connects to the imo2sproxy locally.
+Of course, if you have the Skype application installed, you mustn't run
+it concurrently with the plugin with this configuration.
+
+How to use the Miranda plugin
+-----------------------------
+Copy the imoproxy.dll file to your Miranda Plugins-directory.
+As the name starts with i and the the Skype plugin name starts with s,
+the imoproxy.dll module is loaded prior to the Skype-Plugin DLL which
+is important to work properly if you are using the socket method.
+
+For older versions of the Skype plugin (prior to 0.0.0.46, which is
+currently still beta), you should use the socket communication method:
+Configure the plugin DLL in the Options dialog Network/Skype Imoproxy.
+Bind to address 127.0.0.1, Port 1401
+Make sure that the Skype Proxy settings in your Skype plugin are the
+same. The Skypeproxy-Plugin tries to take care of that.
+Enter your Username and Password, set the appropriate options and press
+OK. The Skypeproxy-plugin restarts itself. Try to reconnect Skype plugin
+and see if it works.
+The plugin is still experimental and may contain some bugs or stability
+problems, so use with care. It may be harder to hunt down bugs with this
+Plugin as its running as Miranda plugin and the only logging facility is
+a logfile. So if you want to hunt down bugs, you may be better off with
+using the standalone version, however the plugin is a start to make the
+use of imo2sproxy easier. Feel free to improve the plugin.
+
+For Skype plugin versions starting with 0.0.0.46, there is an internal
+plugin link facility which makes it easier for the user to setup.
+Bascially this should work out of the box, just enter your username and
+password in the options dialog and ensute that the internal plugin
+link service is active.
+It will then automatically register to the Skype plugin.
+
+Module structure
+----------------
+
+For the structure of the code-modules, please refer to the
+structure.txt document.
+
+SkypeProxy protocol
+-------------------
+
+Plase download the sourcecode of skypeproxy.c of Miranda IM Skype plugin, it's
+all well documented in the .c file. Basically the protocol just consists of:
+
+[UCHAR: number of bytes to send/receive][<char> Data]
+
+for every line sent or received.
+
+Contact
+-------
+Feel free to contact me regarding this project or if you wish to implement
+SkypeProxy protocol in your own Skype-plugin implementation.
+
+leecher@dose.0wnz.at
+
+
+Vienna, 10/07/2009