Pictogram support (Montreal Summit)

[Cesar Mauri <cesar crea-si com>]

Hi all,

Recently I suggested to Meg Ford, who was attending the Montreal Summit,
to ask Telepathy developers whether it would be possible to add support
for pictogram based communication.

Here is my suggestion:

> Thinking in people with language and communication disorders (i.e.
> people not able to read/write due to cognitive/mental disorders), it
> would be interesting to have a IM client able to compose, send and
> display messages made up pictograms + text.
>
> So, messages would look like this:
>
> http://1.bp.blogspot.com/___h4z60kN9fAk/TBnOIM61kUI/__AAAAAAAAAQ8/TM0fBXcTvyA/s1600/__cumplea%C3%B1os.png
>
>  Also, it would be useful to add TTS support in order to hear
> messages written in plain text (which could be also useful for blind
> people).
>
> There had been some efforts in that way:
>
> http://www.fundmaresme.com/messengervisual/


And here Meg's answer:

>   I spoke to one of the developers of Telepathy about this, and here is
> what he said:
>
> Currently Telepathy does not support this type of feature. For example,
> users cannot send emoticons that they have drawn themselves. Therefore,
> you would need to write a library for this. If you are willing to write
> a library, they would be happy to have this feature.
>
> Secondly, they recommend that you write a seperate app for this feature,
> but use the Empathy contact list. They recommend that the feature be
> accessed through the accessibility menu.

Regarding the feasibility of implementing such a library on top of the 
supported protocols, Meg also told me:

> Do they all support sending icons? I assume that all of the chat programs
> do, but you would need to ask the Telepathy developers.  I know enough about
> A.T. to be able to explain what this type of feature does from a user-end
> perspective, but I am not a programmer. Guillame Desmottes said that you
> would need to write an API to support this type of program. Again, you can
> speak to him about it. He said that some chat programs support, for example,
> sending user-made icons such as these http://emoticonhq.com/   . He said
> that you would need to write this type of A.P.I. for Telepathy in order to
> support the feature you are proposing. However, it would be best if you
> would discuss this with him if you want more details.


And so here I am. My questions is:

- Do (most commonly used) supported protocols allow for sending 
arbitrary images along with text? Otherwise it would be pointless to try 
to write a library for this.



Thanks.

César