Hard Light Productions Forums

General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Interviews => Topic started by: Stormkeeper on February 21, 2009, 09:22:53 am

Title: Connecting to IRC
Post by: Stormkeeper on February 21, 2009, 09:22:53 am
If you wish to get connected to IRC, follow the below instructions:


First, obtain an IRC client. You have several choices:

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1) ChatZilla

One of the easiest clients to use, if you use Firefox. Since its a Firefox plug-in, it should work on any operating system. If you want a simple, clean IRC client to get in and out, ChatZilla will work fine.
Installation

Follow this link (https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/16). Then just hit the big green button that says "Add to Firefox". Give it permission to install, let Firefox restart, and it's installed. To use, just go to the "Tools" drop down menu in Firefox and select "ChatZilla".

2) mIRC

Another popular IRC client for Windows. While free to use, a donation nag window pops up at startup after the 30th day.

   *mIRC Homepage (http://www.mirc.com/)

3) Colloquy

Colloquy is a full-featured open source IRC client for the Macintosh, iPhone, and iPod Touch.

    *Colloquy (http://colloquy.info/)

4) Pidgin

Pidgin is a multi-protocol instant messaging program. It supports many common IM protocols out of the box (such as Messenger, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, etc.), and it also supports the IRC protocol.

    *Pidgin Homepage (http://pidgin.im/)

5) Opera

The Opera browser comes with an inbuilt IRC chat client. It's fairly similar to ChatZilla.

    * Opera Homepage (http://www.opera.com/)

6) Trillian

Trillian is another multi-protocol instant messaging program, coming with IRC support as well. There are currently two available versions of Trillian: Basic and Pro. Both have IRC support, so there's no need to buy the Pro version.

    * Trillian Homepage (http://www.ceruleanstudios.com/learn/)

7) XChat

XChat is an IRC client that rivals mIRC not only in power but also in popularity.

It was originally completely free and open-source, but now it only remains free for Linux.

The Windows version is available to try at the homepage, while there is a version compiled by someone else (for free) available at silverex. Keep in mind that the latest free compiled version is still many steps behind the latest official release, and that it is compiled from the Linux source (freely available), rather than the source used in official Windows releases, meaning that free compiled versions may not function as well as the official releases.

    * XChat Homepage (http://xchat.org/)

8) Mibbit Webchat

For those who don't want to install more software on their computer, Mibbit is the solution. You can register an account to store all your servers and channels so you don't have to do it each time you go to the site, but you can always use it without an account.

    * Mibbit Homepage (http://mibbit.com/)

9)Irssi

Lobo Jeff Vader reckons its the bestest IRC client in the known universe.

Lobo Jeff Vader may reckon so, but Stormkeeper does not. But he will leave the link here anyway, because he is a generous, grateful, honest, modest, nice, loving, caring, generous, honorable, dedicated, involved, modest, powerful, loves cake kind of person.

     * Irssi (http://irssi.org/)
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This guide was made with ChatZilla in mind, but most clients should be similar enough that it'll work for all. If it doesn't tell me and I'll try to help.

The channel is based on esper server:
Quote
irc.esper.net
And the chatroom is
Quote
#hlp-Interview

Enter your desired nick in the bottom left button, next to the input bar. To
To join the server, type (or copy/paste)
Quote
/server irc.esper.net
If your nick isn't already in use on the server, you can register it with
Quote
/msg nickserv register <your password> <your e-mail>
An activation code will be sent to your e-mail which you have to use to verify your registration. HNZ's IRC channel does require registration to enter the channel, so I suggest verifying it before joining. After verifying and connect to the server, type
Quote
/join #hlp-Interview
Then its all done! Type and chat away.
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To reconnect, repeat the steps above, except that instead of registering your nick, type
Quote
/msg nickserv identify <your password>
to identify yourself.
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To auto-connect a server, with the server window open, right-click the tab and select 'Open this network on startup'.
To auto-join a channel, select the tab of the channel you wish to auto-join in the future. Right click within the window and select 'Open this channel on startup'.
To auto-identify, go to the toolbar at the top, click Chatzilla -> Preferences -> Select the server in the panel on the left (in this case irc.freenode.com) -> click the 'Lists' tab -> Press 'Add...' in the Auto-perform section -> Fill in the following (remember to replace "password" with whatever your password is!):
Quote
/msg nickserv identify <your password>
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Note that you can join the regular #hard-light channel once your client is set up.