GC IRC client walkthrough: ircle

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Overview

The structure of this walkthrough, as with all of them, matches that of the IRC guide, providing more detailed information for the client in question. You may wish to consult with the glossary in the IRC guide for explanations of terminology not covered directly in the guide.

Getting Started with ircle

Availability: ircle 3.0.4 is available for Mac OS classic, and 3.1 beta is available for both Mac OS classic and X. This tutorial is based on 3.1 beta.

When you first load ircle, you are presented with four windows. One is the console (top left), and the other three are floating windows – the inputline (bottom left) where you type text in, the userlist (top right) which shows all the users in the current channel, and the connections list (centre right). The inputline and userlist work with whichever channel window is currently selected – text is sent to that window, and as you select different channel windows, the userlist window updates to match that channel.

The Connections window is where you configure ircle for SlashNET. ircle mandates that you have settings for exactly ten IRC networks at any time, although a preset is provided for each slot. SlashNET is not amongst the presets, so you will have to change one of the presets to your own settings. To do this, choose one of the networks from the Connections window, and click Edit. You will now see the Connection Preferences dialog.

The connections window

Connection Preferences dialog

Firstly, click the Select button at the top to choose a new server, from the servers dialog:

The server list

Scroll down the list and select a SlashNET server, but bear in mind that their list is a bit out of date – services.slashnet.org and perdition.slashnet.org are no longer around. If you want to use the generic irc.slashnet.org server, click the Add button, and fill in the server details as shown:

Adding the generic server

Once you have a server selected, fill out the remaining details in the Identity tab as wished. Bear in mind that your nick can be up to 30 characters (letters and numbers) on SlashNET, despite the fact that it says 9 in the dialog (which applies to some other networks like Undernet).

You will then want to select any channels you want to join on connect, so select the Autoexec tab:

The autoexec tab

For each channel that you wish to have it join, type /join followed by the channel name. If you want to join more than one channel, separate each /join command with ; In this example, I have entered #joyoftech and #aftery2k.

If you look in the Misc./CTCP tab, you may find that it has entered your e-mail address in as the Finger reply. For the sake of privacy, you may wish to delete it.

When you are finished, close the Connection Preferences dialog. Now when you look in the Connections window, you will see that the default nick ‘ircleuser’ for one of the networks is now replaced with your own. With that network selected, click Connect.

Using ircle

Getting accustomed to ircle

Once connected, you should see the channels which you have joined; you will see something like the following:

IRC channels

Note the red speech bubble in the title bar of the window at the back, which tells you that new messages have arrived in that channel since you last had that window frontmost. Channel windows also have the topic shown in their status bar, alongside a little button offering a menu of options relating to the channel.

The floating inputline

The first thing to get used to is the floating inputline. Instead of having an inputline attached to each channel window, you have a single floating inputline window that sends text to whatever window is active. This concept can take some getting used to, and if it is not to your taste, check the ‘Attach inputline to channel windows’ option in the Miscellaneous preferences, and reload ircle.

Command equivalents

User interface methods for replacing IRC commands in ircle can be found in various places. Sometimes, though, the program will just enter the command into the inputline for you ready for you to provide parameters. The Command menu gives you shortcuts to most regular IRC commands, and is best suited for actions that relate to channels (e.g. Join) and the network (e.g. Away). For commands that are directed at users in the channel (e.g. Whois or Msg), it is better to select the user in the userlist window and click the appropriate button at the bottom of the window. Finally, to change your nick, use the Nick button on the Connections window.

Hints and tips

For a bar of all channel and console windows, select Channel Bar from the Window menu:

The channel bar

The speech bubble icon is used to show which channels have had new messages arrive since that window was last frontmost. Click the button to bring the channel window forwards, and hold option and click a button to hide that channel window.

Like with most IRC clients, pressing the up and down arrow keys in the inputline lets you browse through all the messages and commands that you have entered so far, letting you resend them if wished, amending them if necessary. Because up and down arrow are also used for beginning and end of line on a Mac, this might pose a nuisance. You can require the option key to be held down to browse the history (the saved messages) by checking the ‘Option key required with up/down arrow’ setting in the Miscellaneous preferences.

Geek Culture IRC client walkthrough: ircle