I'm an IRC newbie even though I've been using email for 15+ years. IRC seems great for those issues that benefit from the experience of many but aren't large or important enough to warrant hitting the mailboxes of 100 people. It also seems useful for determining the magnitude of an issue. Anyway, now that I'm using IRC, I wanted to make my client of choice, XChat, less annoying to use:
- XChat highlights a channel when any new messages show up, including join/quit. So, as long as join/quit messages are displayed, the channel highlight wasn't very informative. I learned that it's easy to disable join/quit messages. Note that in in XChat 2.8.6, the "hide" option is under "Settings".
- By default, XChat starts with no server connection and no channels. You can get it automatically connect and open channels via the "XChat"/"Network List..." menu. "Edit..." your server, check "Auto connect to this server at startup" and click the button next to "Favorite channels" to provide a list of auto-connect channels.
I have been using IRC for about as long as you've been using email and I do love my XChat just as much as I love IRC bots.
ReplyDeleteThe greatest benefits of XChat are the number of plugins that can be used to write in different scripting languages. The default installation usually includes C/C++, Perl, Python, and Tcl but you can also get plugins for Lisp, Java, and Ruby.
Another great option to have turned on is for auto-rejoin on kick:
/set irc_auto_rejoin 1
Most clients include a rejoin on kick function so kicking has become a thing friends do amongst each other (I know I do.)
There are many more options available in the configuration file (default location ~/.xchat2/xchat.conf) but I believe all of them can be set through the client via the command /set [option].
A complete list of commands may be found here:
http://toxin.jottit.com/xchat_set_variables
If you ever happen to find yourself on the Rizon network (irc.rizon.net), I am most often there as iasov and in a number of channels (most of which are for an online game I once played called eRepublik) but also #iasov, #USLP, and #uslib2 are good places to reach me.
Feel free to /QUERY me, talk to my eggdrop bot Liberty, or my friend's #XKCD Bucket-clone called Buckette. :)
Additionally, I would be happy to help you with anything IRC-related should you need help and, in return, I might just require some Linux help from you as I do from time to time.
My name is also Jason, btw... thus, my nick iasov comes from combining the Greek spelling with its Romanized equivalent.