# rype – Ruby library to talk to the Skype API

## Description

This library is a simple wrapper for Skype's dbus-based Linux API.

Currently, it has the following capabilities:

* Get a list of your chats,
* send chat messages,
* receive chat messages,
* use the raw Skype protocol via Rype::Api#invoke and Rype::Api#on_notification. More information about the protocol at [developer.skype.com](http://developer.skype.com)


## Installation

In order to work with the rype gem, there are a few requirements:

- You need to be on Linux
- You need to have Skype running
- You need dbus installed (e.g., via apt on Ubuntu)
- You need the ruby-dbus gem:
  - wget http://github.com/downloads/mvidner/ruby-dbus/ruby-dbus-0.3.1.tgz
  - tar xzf ruby-dbus-0.3.1.tgz
  - cd ruby-dbus-0.3.1
  - follow the instructions in README
- You may want Xvfb (if you want to run Skype head-less)


## Verify your installation

To confirm it's working, start skype and sign in. Then, open an irb session and:

    require 'dbus'
    bus = DBus::SessionBus.instance
    skype_service = bus.service("com.Skype.API")
    client_to_skype = skype_service.object('/com/Skype')
    client_to_skype.introspect
    api = client_to_skype["com.Skype.API"]
    api.Invoke("NAME rype")

If everything is set up correctly, Skype will now ask whether "rype" should be allowed to connect.


## Usage

There are a few examples in `examples/` that should give you an idea of how
to use the gem.


## Head-less Skype

Say you want to be running an app that connects to Skype on a box that won't have a display attached. For this use case, Xvfb is quite handy:

> "Xvfb or X virtual framebuffer is an X11 server that performs all graphical operations in memory, not showing any screen output." (wikipedia)"

In `examples/start_skype`, there's a shell script that shows how to start Skype and Xvfb.

You can safely ignore warnings about missing fonts, but if they bother you, try:

     sudo aptitude install xfonts-100dpi xfonts-75dpi xfonts-scalable xfonts-cyrillic

If Xvfb won't start at all, more drastic measures may be required:

     sudo apt-get install xserver-xorg-core

## small print

This product uses the Skype API but is not endorsed, certified or otherwise
approved in any way by Skype.