Re: [GnomeMeeting-list] SIP Click to Dial

["David Corking" <lists dcorking com>]

On 3/10/06, simon <simon mungewell org> wrote:
> What I am _really_ interested in (and should have explained better) is
> the ability to use my computer to instruct the SIP hard phone on the
> desk/sofa next to it to dial a number without having to use the phone's
> keypad.

Could this be a standalone, separate from Ekiga?   It would register
as an endpoint directly with your provider's SIP router (such as
ekiga.net)  There is a nice graphic of how this works on
http://www.enum.at/index.php?id=479&L=9

Perhaps a dialer can be built directly on top of GNU libosip2 or OPAL
???  Is there a mailing list for that kind of suggestion?

However, you are right, the Ekiga coders are good, and they know
evolution, _and_ a lot of them have IP hard phones on their desks! 
There may even be some ekiga code to reuse.    I bet the SIPTAPI folks
would be jealous of Ekiga's STUN support!

An alternative to a standalone would be a compile-time option for
ekiga, that basically built an alternative UI, the SIP endpoint and
the addressbook, but skipped all the content negotiation and codecs,
compiling only sufficient support to be able to INVITE and REFER
another SIP endpoint.

Anyway - Ekiga 2.0 gets released on Sunday so don't expect Damien to
respond to feature suggestions until he has the release behind him.

I guess that however it is done, there won't be much code to borrow
from SIPTAPI - it would be more of a reimplementation of the features.
 Did you notice that without a GUI at all it could be a great call
centre app (if such a thing doesn't already exist for Linux) ?

> For me this has the following advantages over using a softphone:
> 1). My computer is old and slow, can't really cope with doing lots of
> things at once.
> 2). My IP phone has better codec support

Good logic.   Fast computers are often hot and noisy too.  Who wants a
hot and noisy phone?

> 3). I could dial arbitrary numbers, include letters and '@' which I can't
> on the phone keypad.

I heard some IP phones have keypad hacks to allow this (like mobile
phones.)   Don't they have built-in phone books?  Pretty clunky in
both cases, though, I concede.

Best, David