Bitlbee

Bitlbee tunnels instant messaging traffic (including MSN, ICQ, Yahoo, Jabber) to a virtual IRC channel and virtual IRC queries. What does that mean in english I hear you say. Basically it lets you connect to yahoo, msn or google talk through your redbrick chat.

Starting Bitlbee

To start bitlbee in irssi type

/connect bitlbee

This opens a new window, the bitlbee control window. You'll notice there seems to be another person in this channel called "root". This is the bitlbee system (we'll tell you how to rename it later).

Adding accounts

This section tells you how to add accounts to the system.

MSN

account add msn <msn address> <password>

Yahoo

account add yahoo username@yahoo.com <password>

Google Talk

account add jabber username@gmail.com <password> talk.google.com:5223:ssl

Facebook

account add jabber username@chat.facebook.com <password>

Signing In

Once you've set up your accounts turn them on by typing

account on

If you have multiple accounts set up you can turn them on one by one by specifing the number (accounts are numbered from 0 in the order you set them up)

account list

will tell you the numbers associated with each of your accounts. To turn on account one type

account on 1

Similarly you can sign out by typing

account off
account off 1

Seeing who else is signed in

You've probably noticed by now that you've been joined in this channel by your buddies. Using the /names command as usual will tell you who is signed in, but you'll see much more information by typing

blist

Sending a message

You can use bitlbee in two ways - either talk directly to your buddies in the bitlbee window, or open pms with them by typing /msg as you would to normally open a PM. you'll notice that irssi is somethimes including the server in the /msg command as you use the tab complete e.g.

/msg -Redbrick undone
/msg -bitlbee landa2

it's nothing to worry about :D

NickNames

Setting your nickname

Bitlbee allows you to set different nicknames for each of the account you have connected. First need to know the number of the account you want to add them to (see above). For example if I want to change my name on MSN to Sleepy Guy, and msn is account 1 I would type

nick 1 "Sleepy Guy"

Setting nicknames for other people

When you use your regular IM client you can see the names that each of your buddies has set for themselves, but on bitlbee you can only see the first part of their email address. This can get quite annoying if people have strange email addresses. So, for example if your friend Kevin happenns to have a strange email address like undoneisthecoolestever@hotmail.com you can rename him to just kev by typing

rename undoneisthecoolestguyever kev

You can also use this command to rename "root" to whatever you like.

Adding new buddies

Occasionally you'll want to add new buddies. For example if my msn account is number 1 and i want to add undone@hotmail.com I would type

add 1 undone@hotmail.com

You can also specify custom names when you add new buddies

add 1 undone@hotmail.com kevin

If I get tired of listening to kevin I can simply remove him by typing

remove kevin

Getting more help

The help in bitlbee tells you how to use every command, just type help in your bitlbee channel for more