Pidgin's Buddy pounce, a powerful Notification Feature

Consider this scenario - you want to have an imp. discussion with someone on your chat list and the person is marked away. You are wondering if there is any way you could be notified when he returns. Of course, we can leave a message but it won't be any more useful than a short email if you are sleeping or away. Now you would ask,"Then how would a notification be of any use if I am sleeping :P?". Well, what if the notification is audio-visual - a song, horror sound, annoying alarm etc. No, I am not dreaming, it can be easily done using Pidgin's Buddy pounce.

This is one of the finest Pidgin features. Not just a notification for being available, you can easily configure it to add notifications which will let you know when the person signs on, goes offline, goes away, becomes idle or sends you a message.

And not just a pop up notification or playing a song, you can even trigger a command or send him a message.

How to add a buddy pounce

In order to add one, right click on a user and select "Add Buddy Pounce..." option. You will see the following window.

The conditions are under the "Pounce when buddy" category and the actions to be taken are under the "action" category. Once you are done, just hit add.

In order to view all the active buddy pounces, go to Tools-> Buddy pounces. Once the condition is met and you are notified, the concerned buddy pounce will be removed.