callPopPy

callPopPy is a utility to monitor an Asterisk server's Manager Interface and provide popup notification of incoming calls. callPopPy looks up the incoming number in a SQLite database and includes the caller's name in the popup notification if it is found. Separate utilities are available for managing this database.

callPopPy can make use of pynotify on Gnome based Linux distros such as Ubuntu. Otherwise it will use Daniel Woodhouse's gtkPopupNotify (https://github.com/woodenbrick/gtkPopupNotify), which is included in the distribution.

callPopPy is written by Chris Hastie, http://www.oak-wood.co.uk and is a fork of pyCalledMe by Olivier H. Beauchesne http://olihb.com/2010/08/08/incoming-call-popup-under-ubuntu-and-asterisk/

Requirements

callPopPy is a Python script. It requires Python (http://www.python.org)

callPopPy uses the starPy library to interact with Asterisk. Grab that from http://www.vrplumber.com/programming/starpy/

Other requirements will probably be present on a modernish Linux system. Windows users should refer to README-WINDOWS.txt. Other requirements include:

pysqlite2 twisted.internet zope.interface gobject gtk2

Installation

Unpack the archive to a suitable location.

Create the directory <homedirectory>/.callpoppy On Linux/Unix based systems

mkdir ~/.callpoppy

On Windows, the directory should be somewhere like c:\Documents and Settings<username>.callpoppy

Copy config.sample into this directory, edit it and rename it to config, ie you should now have a file at

<homedirectory>/.callpoppy/config

If you're not sure where it should be, just run callPopPy anyway and the resulting error message should help you.

Create a SQLite database at <homedirectory>/.callpoppy/callpoppy.db (see later).

Now run callpoppy. From the directory to which you unpacked it:

python callpoppy

On Unix like systems you can run it by calling it directly. From the directory in which it is

./callpoppy

You may have to ensure the first line of the script points to your python binary, and ensure that the script is executable:

chmod 755 callpoppy

Once you're sure that it's all working you'll probably want to set it up to start when you login or start your computer. How you do this will depend on your operating system.

Configuration

For a minimal configuration you will need to provide information about logging into the Asterisk server in the [Asterisk] section of the config file. All values in this section are required, expcept for port, which defaults to 5038.

You will also need to configure which extension(s) you wish to monitor. You can monitor multiple devices for incoming calls. The section [Extensions] consists of key: value pairs of devices. The key is an Asterisk channel / device, the value is an arbitary friendly name that will be used in the popup. For example

[Extensions] SIP/john: John

will monitor the channel SIP/john for incoming calls and result in a popup titled "Incoming call for John" when it detects one.

Database

callPopPy expects to find a SQLite database at <homedirectory>/.callpoppy/callpoppy.db. Other utilities should maintain this database, such as Squalit (http://www.oak-wood.co.uk/callpopy/squalit).

The database must contains at least a table named 'numbers'.

This table should contain at least a field 'tel' and a field 'name'. Duplicates should not be allowed in 'tel'. A suggested schema is:

CREATE TABLE numbers (id INTEGER PRIMARY KEY, tel VARCHAR(20) UNIQUE, name VARCHAR(255))

The 'tel' field should contain the phone number, with all punctuation (hyphens, spaces, periods, brackets) stripped. callPopPy checks against only the last 10 digits of this number. The number of digits is configurable (in the [Database] section of config, the 'digits' key), but in the UK at least, 10 seems a good figure.

The reason for using only the last 10 digits is to get around inconsistencies in the way in which different providers and trunks report calling numbers, some with country codes, some without, some with dial prefixes. For example, the UK number 01926 410410 may appear as any of

01926410410 00441926410410 +441926410410 901926410410

What is consistent is that the last ten digits are always 1926410410

callPopPy does not mind if the database contains additional tables, or if the table 'numbers' contains additional fields.

A Thunderbird extension, Squalit, is available that can create and maintain a suitable database from Thunderbird's address book. http://www.oak-wood.co.uk/callpopy/squalit