xchat.sgml

The major functionality added in this release includes: - Rootless mode in X11 - Widget Templt

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 <article>
 <title>XChat 1.2
 </title>
 <author>Peter Zelezny and Adam Langley
 </author>
 <date>July 1st, 1999
 </date>
 <abstract>This document attempts to document XChat and introduce IRC generally. Large
 parts of the first section are taken from the alt.irc FAQ, thanks and credit
 goto the authors of it.
 </abstract>
 <toc>
 <sect>IRC
 <sect1>What is XChat?
 <p>XChat is a graphical IRC client that runs on UNIX like systems. It uses
 the GTK+ toolkit for graphical abstraction. It if GPL'ed software (free software).
 It is known to run on these systems:
 </p>
 <p>
 <itemize>
  <item>Linux (primary development platform)
  <item>FreeBSD
  <item>OpenBSD
  <item>NetBSD
  <item>Solaris
  <item>AIX
  <item>IRIX
  <item>SunOS
  <item>OS/2
 </itemize></p>
 <sect1>Introduction to IRC
 <p>IRC stands for &dquot;Internet Relay Chat&dquot;. It was originally written
 by Jarkko Oikarinen ([e-mail]) in 1988. Since starting in Finland,
 it has been used in over 60 countries around the world. It was designed as
 a replacement for the &dquot;talk&dquot; program but has become much much more
 than that. IRC is a multi-user chat system, where people convene on &dquot;channels&dquot;
 (a virtual place, usually with a topic of conversation) to talk in groups,
 or privately. IRC is constantly evolving, so the way things to work one week
 may not be the way they work the next. Read the MOTD (message of the day) every
 time you use IRC to keep up on any new happenings or server updates.
 </p>
 <p>IRC gained international fame during the 1991 Persian Gulf War, where updates
 from around the world came across the wire, and most irc users who were online
 at the time gathered on a single channel to hear these reports. IRC had similar
 uses during the coup against Boris Yeltsin in September 1993, where IRC users
 from Moscow were giving live reports about the unstable situation there.
 </p>
 <p>The user runs a &dquot;client&dquot; program which connects to the IRC
 network via another program called a &dquot;server&dquot;, which runs on another
 computer. Servers exist to pass messages from user to user over the IRC network.
 </p>
 <p>XChat is a graphical client that runs using GTK(<url url="http://www.gtk.org" name="GTK Homepage">), it is mainly designed
 to run under UNIX (By this I mean all the UNIX's, like Linux, *BSD etc), but
 also runs under Win32 systems without some features.
 </p>
 <sect1>IRC Basics
 <p>As mentioned above the channel is the basic unit of collective IRC chatting.
 Everyone who is &dquot;in&dquot; a channel can see all messages written to
 the channel and can (usually) write to the channel themselves.
 </p>
 <p>All IRC commands start with a &dquot;/&dquot;, and most are one word. Typing
 /help will get you help information etc
 </p>
 <p>Once on a server a /join &num;channel command will join you to the channel
 &num;channel in the current window, any further joins while still joined (e.g.
 before a /part) will open a new window. Once in a channel just type
 </p>
 <p>Channel operators are kings/queens of their channel. This means they can
 kick you out of their channel for no reason. If you don't like this, you can
 start your own channel and become a channel operator there. 
 </p>
 <p>An IRC operator is someone who maintains the IRC network. They cannot fix
 channel problems. They cannot kick someone out of a channel for you. They cannot
 /kill (kick someone out of IRC temporarily) someone just because you gave the
 offender channel operator privileges and said offender kicked you off.
 </p>
 <p>&num;hottub and &num;initgame are almost always teeming with people. &num;hottub
 is meant to simulate a hot tub, and &num;initgame is a non-stop game of &dquot;inits&dquot;
 (initials). Just join and find out! 
 </p>
 <p>To get a list of channels with their names and topics, do /list -min 20
 (on ircII) which will show you channels with 20 or more members. You can also
 do this for smaller numbers.
 </p>
 <p>Many IRC operators are in &num;Twilight_Zone ... so if you join that channel
 be prepared for a lot of senseless dribble, more like what you find on the
 other channels listed above (&num;hottub). What was once a place of people
 who could help you has turned into just another place for those who have nothing
 better to do with themselves than just be there. If you find other documents
 saying go there to ask questions, ignore them. They should be considered to
 be out of date. 
 </p>
 <p>There are not enough nicknames to have nickname ownership. If someone takes
 your nickname while you are not on IRC, you can ask for them to give it back,
 but you can not *demand* it, nor will IRC operators /kill for nickname ownership.
 If you goto &num;Twilight_zone, you will find a bunch of people who will refuse
 to do this for you, yet they will do it for themselves or their friends or
 use /kill for even less reasonable uses. There are, literally, millions of
 possible channel names, so if someone is on your usual channel, just go to
 another. You can /msg them and ask for them to leave, but you can't force them
 to leave.
 </p>
 <p>Channel operators are the owner(s) of their respective channels. Keep this
 in mind when giving out channel operator powers (make sure to give them to
 enough people so that all of the channel operators don't unexpectedly leave
 and the channel is stuck without a channel operator).
 </p>
 <p>On the other hand, do not give out channel operator to everyone. This causes
 the possibility of mass-kicking, where the channel would be stuck without any
 channel operators.
 </p>
 <p>You have one option. You can ask everyone to leave and rejoin the channel.
 This is a good way to get channel operator back. It doesn't work on large channels
 or ones with bots, for obvious reasons.
 </p>
 <p>On IRC, you cannot be banned from every single server. Server-banning exists
 only on a per-server basis (being banned on one server does not mean you are
 automatically banned from another). &dquot;Ghosts are not allowed on IRC&dquot;
 means that you are banned from using that server. The banning is in one of
 three forms:
 </p>
 <p>
 <itemize>
  <item>You are banned specifically, you yourself. Only you can be responsible
 for this (if you are using a shared account, this obviously does not apply).
 Thus the responsibility lies completely with you and you have no-one to complain
 to. 
  <item>Your machine is banned. Chances are it wasn't you who committed the wrongdoing.
 Try using another machine on campus and seeing if you can use that particular
 irc server then.
  <item>Your whole site is banned (where &dquot;site&dquot; == &dquot;school&dquot;,
 &dquot;company&dquot;, &dquot;country&dquot;). This almost certainly wasn't
 your fault. And chances are you won't be able to get the server-ban lifted.
 Try using another server.
 </itemize></p>
 <p>The most general answer is "use another server&dquot;, but if it bothers
 you, try writing to the irc administrator of that site -&gt; /admin server.name.here
 -- plead your case. It might even get somewhere!
 </p>
 <p>The best, basic, IRC user's manual is the IRC Primer, available in plain
 text, Postscript, and LaTeX from cs-pub.bu.edu:/irc/support ... Another good
 place to start might be downloading the <url url="ftp://cs-pub.bu.edu/irc/support/" name="IRC tutorials">.
 </p>
 <p>The IRC protocol is fully documented in <url url="ftp://cs-pub.bu.edu/irc/support/rfc1459.txt" name="RFC 1459">
 </p>
 <sect1>Etiquette
 <p>This subsection is by Lea Viljanen, Ari Husa and Helen Rose for irc2.9.5,
 thank you
 </p>
 <sect2>Language
 <p>The most widely understood and spoken language on IRC is English. However!
 As IRC is used in many different countries, English is by no means the only
 language. If you want to speak some other language than English (for example
 with your friends), go to a separate channel and set the topic to indicate
 that. 
 </p>
 <p>On the other hand, you should check the topic before you move to a channel
 to see if there are any restrictions about language. On a channel not restricted
 by a topic, please speak a language everybody can understand. If you want to
 do otherwise, change channels and set the topic accordingly.
 </p>
 <sect2>Hello/Goodbye
 <p>It's not necessary to greet everybody on a channel personally. Usually
 one &dquot;Hello&dquot; or equivalent is enough. And don't expect everybody
 to greet you back. On a channel with 20 people that would mean one screenful
 of hellos. It's sensible not to greet, in order not to be rude to the rest
 of the channel. If you must say hello, do it with a private /msg. The same
 applies to goodbyes.
 </p>
 <sect2>Discussion
 <p>When you come to a new channel it's advised you to listen for a while to
 get an impression of what's discussed. Please feel free to join in, but do
 not try to force your topic into the discussion if that doesn't come naturally.
 </p>
 <sect>Getting, Building and Running
 <sect1>Getting
 <p>If you re lazy, or don't want to install any support libraries then Peter
 Alexandrou has started hosting the <url url="http://www.users.bigpond.com/redowl/xchat/" name="X-Chat static binary webpage">
 </p>
 <p>The main distribution point for XChat is <url url="http://xchat.linuxpower.org" name="the XChat homepage">, XChat also needs <url url="http://www.gtk.org" name="GTK">. Optionally
 XChat can use <url url="http://www.gnome.org" name="GNOME"> and <url url="http://www.perl.com" name="Perl">.
 </p>
 <sect1>Building
 <p>XChat uses the GNU autoconf system, so building it is quite easy, for most
 systems the auto detection will work:
 </p>
 <p>
 <code>./configure ; make ; su ; make install
 </code></p>
 <p>On some systems gmake might be needed rather than make.
 </p>
 <p>The configure script can be passed some options as well
 </p>
 <p>
 <itemize>
  <item>--disable-perl = Disables Perl support
  <item>--disable-gnome = Disables GNOME support
 </itemize></p>
 <p>Be aware that if you don't have perl or GNOME the configure script will
 pick this up and you don't need to pass these options, they are only if for
 when you do have them, but don't want support for them.
 </p>
 <p>If you are having problems with this method you can try the old method:
 </p>
 <p>
 <code>cp Makefile.gtk Makefile ; make ; su ; make install
 </code></p>
 <sect1>Running
 <p>The build process makes a binary called xchat. If you installed it typing
 xchat at the console should run it, if not cd into the XChat directory and
 type ./xchat
 </p>
 <p>The directory &tilde;/.xchat should be created for you, XChat uses this
 directory to store per-user settings and logs.
 </p>
 <sect>The GUI
 <p>When XChat is first started it brings up a window with 5 main parts:
 </p>
 <p>
 <enum>
  <item>The menu bar
  <item>The tool-bar
  <item>The text box (middle - left)
  <item>The user-list (middle - right)
  <item>The input box (bottom)
 </enum></p>
 <p>On startup 1 window is created with no state (it is labeled &dquot;&lt;none&gt;&dquot;),
 if you join a channel that window then contains all the information from that
 channel. If someone /msg's you a new window may be created containing all further
 /msg's from that person
 </p>
 <sect1>The menu bar
 <p>The menu bar has 6 menus in it (the text may change if you have language
 packs active):
 </p>
 <p>
 <enum>
  <item>&dquot;X-Chat&dquot; - Major operations, like a &dquot;File&dquot; menu
  <item>&dquot;Windows&dquot; - Each of the XChat windows can be called from this
 menu, it also contains operations affecting the buffer
  <item>&dquot;User Modes&dquot; - All the items in this menu are toggle items
 changing the state of the IRC user
  <item>"Settings&dquot; - All the configuration dialogs can be called from here
  <item>"Scripts &amp; Plugins&dquot; - Operations effecting these
  <item>&dquot;Help&dquot; - Standard help menu
 </enum></p>
 <sect1>The tool bar
 <p>The tool-bar contains the leafs of each window attached to the main window,
 these leafs have the name of the channel or nick of the window. Clicking on
 one of these leafs brings that window to the front. If the text in a currently
 hidden window changes the text in the leaf goes red
 </p>
 <p>The &dquot;X&dquot; button at the far left closes the currently window.
 If that is the only window XChat quits. The text box contains the topic of
 the channel which is currently active in the top window or the address of the
 nick, if a nick is currently active.
 </p>
 <p>The "^" button (or an up arrow if you use GNOME), next to the "X" button, links
 or delinks the window. If you have a series of tabs then clicking this will
 delink the window and make it a separate window. After this, clicking it again
 will link the window back into the notebook. You cannot delink the only window
 in a notebook and if you try to link a window when there is no notebook window
 then one will be created.
 </p>
 <p>The buttons at the right of the tool-bar set the channel modes, and only
 have effect when the window contains a channel and you are chanop. They stand
 for:
 </p>
 <p>
 <itemize>