Fugu is a graphical client for the Gale instant messaging system. Its features include: multiple screens for different subscription lists; a detachable puff composer window; simple threading facilities for jumping to the next and previous puff in a thread; searching for the next puff by this author; clickable URLs; and thumbnail pictures depicting puff senders.

Fugu is written in Python/Tk. It requires Python 2.1, Tcl/Tk 8.0, the OpenSSL library, and Python MegaWidgets. It's known to work on Linux and Windows 98/2000. The Windows version is maintained by Peter Haight.

The current stable version is 1.2.3.

Fugu is a standalone Gale client and doesn't depend on an installation of Dan Egnor's Gale distribution. It's built on top of PyGale, a reimplementation of the client side Gale protocol in Python, which implements the vast majority of the features available in the stock Gale libraries. Documentation on PyGale can be found in the PyGale source distribution.

Related Gale clients

vtFugu is a curses-based implementation of Fugu.

Toxin is a lightweight interface which pops up a new window on every puff, similar to Zephyr or ICQ. Toxin is the concentrated essence of Fugu.

• Screenshots
• Download (tarball, RPM)
• Debian packages
• WinFugu (Fugu for Windows 95/98/NT/2000)
• FreeBSD port

• Python
• Gale
• Pmw

Version 1.2.3 (6/17/2003):

• Bugfixes to work with Debian unstable, and possibly RH9 and others:
• Patched OpenSSL layer to work with newer openssl libraries
• Work around threaded-Python Tkinter interface change

Changes in 1.2.2:

• Minor bugfixes to vtFugu
• PyGale updated to work with GTK2
• PyGale updated to maintain puff callback across server reconnections

Changes in 1.2:

• Lots of minor bugfixes
• Converted to DistUtils for building/installation
• PyGale is now distributed separately

Changes in 1.1.8:

• URL detection regexp includes parentheses
• Fix bug in gsub causing busy loop after server restart
• A few tweaks to look better on Windows
• Statusbar disappears after 60 seconds
• Presence dropdown moved to buttonbar
• Bugfix for users with ampersands in their real names
• Enable module-specific debugging from command line (-Dmodule)
• Allow a user's key pair to be from a different domain than GALE_DOMAIN
• Important bugfixes in pygalesetup wizard

Changes in 1.1.6:

• Added gsend/gsub clients
• Updated pygale for synchronous operation
• Respond to presence queries for future gwatch implementation

Changes in 1.1.3:

• Updated README
• Threading on locations with regexp chars works now
• Fix bug whereby some locations are not found on startup

Changes in 1.1.2:

• Bugfixes
• Support X resource definitions of fonts used in screens; see Fugu.ad

Changes in 1.1.0:

• First Dangermouse release

Changes in 1.0:

• Detect semicolons in URLs
• Configurable puff persist interval (how often Fugu pauses to write the puff history to disk)
• Use Python 1.6's unicode function if it exists; Fugu proper should be Unicode-aware, although the Tk text widget is not fully compliant
• Detect null ids in people list
• Fixed bugs in thumbnail code related to Python 2.0
• Better support for debugging; run "fugu -d" to enable configurable debugging output

Changes in 0.9.9e:

• Fix for Python 1.6
• Fix to disable gzipped pickles on Python 1.5.1 (which is terribly buggy, and should be upgraded to 1.5.2 everywhere)
• Fix to detect empty real name field in passwd file, and not set message/sender field if this is blank
• Bugfix: wm_transient was called transient in Python 1.5.1 (which should be upgraded to 1.5.2)
• Asynchronous thumbnail fetcher has been upgraded to HTTP/1.0 to work with Squid proxy
• Support for user-specified thumbnails (see File|Preferences)
• Thumbnails will be automatically refetched every so often
• Alt-{up,down,pageup,pagedown} always scroll the puff cursor (even when focus is in the text widget)
• Turn on keepalive for server connections
• Check for "/pub"

Changes in 0.9.9d:

• Keep an in-memory key cache (this needs work, to expire keys after a time, and check for keys changing on disk)
• AKD should work again
• Save the puff history to disk every five minutes (in case your X server crashes before you can quit Fugu); this may cause a slight slowdown every five minutes, because persisting the history takes a little bit of time
• Bug fix for Tcl/Tk 8.3 and wheel mice (scrolling was going in units of a page plus several lines)

Changes in 0.9.9c:

• Bugfixes for symlink keys, AKD, and both in conjunction
• More consistent font specification on Unix
• Bugfixes to work with Python 1.5.1 (though not all features are available)
• Closing Fugu using the Windows close box saves puff history

Changes in 0.9.9b:

• Subject area to type in a puff subject
• Extra space between thumbnail and sender name
• Partial support for the WQP (text beginning with "> " is italicized)
• Boolean config file variables use the "on" attribute rather than having their presence or absence be significant

Changes in 0.9.9a (not released):

• Autocompletion of category strings
• Chain together new key requests occurring within seconds of each other, to prevent authstorms
• Reply to a notice puff goes to the person sending the notice
• Fixed that bug where moving a screen up/down in the screen config dialog resets the subscription back to the defaults
• Strip /bot condiment from reply category
• Reply to a private puff with multiple recipients replies to all recipients and sender (except self); use reply-to-sender (C-S-R) to reply only to sender

Changes in 0.9.9:

• Fixed a bug with the gzip module detection (importing it works the second time even if fails the first time!) causing problems saving the puff history when you don't have the zlib module
• Incorporated MKF's patches (click in the puff window moves focus to public category box; cosmetic fixes)
• Trap errors in URLcommand argument substitution
• More fixes to the Heath detection code
• Trap errors when sending puffs while the send connection is not connected
• Incorporated mshadow's Jihad patch to work with directed categories
• GUI setup wizard now the default on both Win32 and Unix
• Reply to a puff that you sent to someone else is directed to the recipient, not to you
• Fixed bug that caused a spurious stacktrace when sending to symlink keys
• PyGale now constructs the server name automatically from GALE_DOMAIN, rather than checking GALE_SERVER (which is now obsolete)
• PyGale only requests public keys via AKD once a minute; multiple requests for the same key (within a 60-second time span) are chained to the first

Changes in 0.9.8b:

• Fixed a bug in presence setting that causes a crash when you reconnect to the server, then quit/restart

Changes in 0.9.8a:

• Fixed a bug in 0.9.8 in the Heath detection routine

Changes in 0.9.8:

• Support for version 3 Gale keys
• XML config file (~/.gale/fuguconfig.xml)
• Turn on/off sending return receipts on a per-screen basis
• Save state in a compressed file (if zlib module available)

Changes in 0.9.7i:

• Windows bugfix: when replacing an existing key, delete it first
• Trap window-close for the screen-configure popup
• Another fix to work with Pmw 0.8.3 (creating new screens)
• Got rid of tear-off menus
• CUA-standard keybindings (C-c copy, C-x cut, C-v paste)
• Send id/instance fragment in presence notification puffs
• Comboboxes with drop-down history in category fields
• Presence change dropdown widget added to menubar

Changes in 0.9.7h:

• Fix to work with Pmw 0.8.3
• Fugu-config works again
• Creating new screens works again
• Make sure that deleted screens close a connection to the galed

Changes in 0.9.7g:

• Hopefully starts up faster now
• Search by thread is insensitive to dots-or-slashes
• Strip trailing dots and commas from URLs
• Don't crash on startup when we don't have Python 1.5.2 and thumbnails are turned on
• Strip /url, /q*, and /fwd* from categories during a reply-to
• Commas allowed as a separator for private recipients

Changes in 0.9.7f:

• Automatic reconnection to server when the link fails
• Better setup procedure for new users (reads gale/conf if it exists)
• Public subscriptions default to GALE_GSUB; private subscriptions default to GALE_SUBS

Changes in 0.9.7e:

• Thumbnail cache clearing has more options now
• A text search feature
• Optionally save window width on exit
• Fixed bugs where newly created screens had the same subscription

Changes in 0.9.7d:

• No more exception spew on exit (hopefully)
• Support for having multiple servers in the GALE_SERVER list (it chooses the one that completes the handshake first)
• Confirm crosspuffing to a pub category and a private recipient
• Got rid of flashing buttons (they're now merely highlighted)
• Added JTR's requested cc:self feature
• Send out user's public key on request (a la gsub); no more need to have a gdomain running to serve user keys
• Cross-platform installation wizard (beta)

Changes in 0.9.7c:

• Updated configure setup to use a local copy of RSAREF, if available
• Fixed AKD bug: silly gsub expects AKD request puffs to contain a question/key fragment
• Added JTR's jihad patch and his reply-to-sender patch
• RSAREF wrapper build might use CFLAGS and LDFLAGS correctly
• There's a bug that sometimes surfaces when sending notifications, but I don't know where it is. I added code that might help track it down next time it happens.
• Log an error if you try to display thumbnails using a Python/Tkinter version that doesn't have image_create.

Changes in 0.9.7a and 0.9.7b:

• Fixed quote bug in ui.py
• Thumbnail fetching happens asynchronously in the background. Fugu ought to start up more quickly.
• Various miscellaneous bugfixes that caused crashes and other inappropriate behavior.

Changes in 0.9.7:

• Warning: the conf file format changed in this version. Be sure to save your configuration before starting up the new Fugu.
• Easier to build than ever! Runs on top of PyGale, so doesn't require libgale
• The puff buttonbar (Send/Options/Detach) can be unmapped to save screen real estate
• Save and restore window height (oops---width coming soon) and proportions
• Asynchronous signature verification: signatures that cannot be immediately verified are first displayed as *verifying* and then filled in when the proper key has been received
• Thumbnail pictures for each puffer
• Support for installing Fugu into a system directory (make install)

Changes in 0.9.6:

• Kill by category (negates the selected puff's category and adds it to the current screen's subscription list)
• Copy URL to clipboard (right-button menu)
• Colorization of puff sender names via ~/.gale/fugu-colors
• Fixed bug with button bindings not being updated when screen orderings changed
• Added semi-automatic puff citation (right-button menu)
• Puffs can be detached to another window for viewing
• Send notification when presence is changed
• Added Peter's buttonbar widget (buttons now wrap to the next line)

Changes in 0.9.5a:

• Fixed to work with 0.19b (using gale_global instead of gale_error_handler)

Changes in 0.9.5:

• Requires Pmw 0.8
• Warning: the default is now not to save puffs in between Fugu sessions. To turn this back on, use the Screens/Configure menu and enable it for each screen.
• Turn off puff persistence on a per-screen basis (for faster loading)
• Presence announcements
• Logging of outbound puffs
• C-z will iconify the window
• Fixed the off-by-one bug (I think)
• Fixed for Gale 0.19b (don't use null_text, use '-')
• Strip ['/q', '/url'] from categories on reply
• Receipts use 4 digits for the year
• Show the id/class for each puff

Changes in 0.9.4:

• Requires Gale 0.19
• Fixed replying to multiply-addressed puffs
• Ignore /pings
• Gwatch support
• Reconnect to server menu option
• Can be run from any directory
• Build static python by default

Changes in 0.9.3:

• Added -lsocket and -lnsl for Solaris (untested)
• Added wordwrapping to text widgets for the new linebreaking convention

Changes in 0.9.2:

• Autoconfiscated
• Uses Python's Makefile.pre.in to build shared libraries; should work on most systems now