🐦 Pidgin 2.x — GTK 3 port

Keep the classic Pidgin 2 buddy list alive on modern Linux desktops.

A fork of Pidgin 2.15.0dev (the 2.x line) ported from GTK+ 2 to GTK 3. It keeps the classic Pidgin 2 experience — the same buddy list, conversation windows, status box, plugins and protocols — while running on a modern, still-maintained toolkit.

This is not Pidgin 3. The goal is to keep the mature 2.x UI alive on current systems, not to migrate to the 3.x codebase.

⭐ Like keeping Pidgin 2 alive? Star the repo — it genuinely helps others find it.

See AUTHORS and COPYRIGHT for the list of contributors.

Components

Component	Description
libpurple	Core library for IM clients that connect to many networks (XMPP, etc.).
Pidgin	Graphical IM client written in C, using the GTK 3 toolkit.
finch	Text-based IM client written in C, using the ncurses toolkit.

What the GTK 3 port changes

The port replaces the deprecated GTK 2 APIs that either warn loudly or render nothing under GTK 3, and fixes the layout and teardown regressions that came with the toolkit change:

• Theming moved from GTK 2 RC files to GTK 3 CSS providers and live style contexts — buddy-list colors, dark-mode detection, the pidginrc plugin, per-tab conversation colors, and custom fonts.
• Deprecated widgets/APIs replaced — GtkArrow, GtkMisc/GtkAlignment alignment, gtk_widget_modify_font, gdk_cairo_create, gdk_screen_width/height (now per-monitor geometry), tree-view rules hints, and stock item / item-factory menus.
• Layout fixes — collapsed conversation history, dead voids below the entry box, GtkPaned child collapse in the log viewer, a buddy list that now shrinks horizontally, and the status box no longer stretching over the list.
• Status box — self-painted dropdown arrow (gtk_render_arrow(), always visible under any theme), restored avatar box, and fixes for the status-dropdown hang and shutdown GObject assertions.
• Menu icons — restored under GTK 3 (which hides GtkImageMenuItem icons by default) and aligned into one column with check items.
• Built-in tray icon — an Ayatana AppIndicator (SNI) docklet backend that works on modern desktops out of the box.

Build

Pidgin is built with Meson and Ninja:

meson setup build
ninja -C build

Run meson configure build to see the available options, and set them with, for example:

meson setup build -Dgtk=enabled -Ddbus=disabled

Building Pidgin requires GTK 3 and its development files; Meson fails to configure without them. Install them via your distribution's package manager.

Optional dependencies:

• Sound — GStreamer.
• Spellchecking — GtkSpell.
• Tray icon — ayatana-appindicator3-0.1 (falls back to appindicator3-0.1); auto-detected.

Read the INSTALL file for more detailed directions.

Run

Install so plugins and other files land where they are expected:

sudo ninja -C build install

Then run pidgin (or finch) and add a new account to get started.

To run straight from the build tree without installing:

env LD_LIBRARY_PATH=build/libpurple \
    PURPLE_PLUGIN_PATH="$PWD/build/libpurple/plugins:$PWD/build/pidgin/plugins" \
    ./build/pidgin/pidgin

Plugins

Plugin support is enabled by default. To disable it entirely, configure with -Dplugins=false and rebuild.

ninja -C build install puts plugins in $PREFIX/lib/purple ($PREFIX defaults to /usr/local, set it with meson setup build --prefix=...). libpurple looks there by default. Plugins may also be installed per-user in ~/.purple/plugins. Pidgin and Finch additionally look in $PREFIX/lib/pidgin and $PREFIX/lib/finch for UI-specific plugins.

To build a plugin from a .c file, add it to the appropriate plugins/ directory's meson.build and rebuild with ninja -C build.

Reporting bugs

For upstream Pidgin issues, see https://issues.imfreedom.org/. For problems specific to this GTK 3 fork, use this repository's issue tracker.