IRC
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) allows real time chat over the internet. People can communicate in groups in rooms known as channels or one to one through private messages.
Redbrick's IRC server is hosted on Deathray and although prone to the odd crash now and again, it's fairly active most of the time.
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) on RedBrick
[ Author : Mark (mark) : 2000 ]
This is hopefully an introduction to the general use and ettiquette of IRC not only here on RedBrick but a global use of this communication device. IRC
As already stated above IRC stands for Internet Relay Chat, it is generally a great a way to meet other people on RedBrick and in this on-line tutorial I hope to familiarise the general commands, explain how to make a file filled with aliases so that you can talk longer and quicker :0)
I also hope to explain the general ettiquette of chat and the role played by channel operators How to Connect to IRC server on RedBrick
Simply type chat at the prompt. This will start up BitchX the IRC client on Redbrick.
If you want to leave chat just type
/quit <text>
Which disconnects you from the IRC server and return you to your shell the text parameter is optional when used gives a reason to the others for your leaving, for example..
[#lobby] /quit I have to go home How to Navigate around IRC
The general idea and layout to an IRC server is like, erm... a corridor with lots of rooms, when you first connect to the server you will find yourself in channel (room) [0], you can walk in and out of most rooms see who's there and join a conversation. This is hard enough to imagine because RedBrick has one main chat room the #lobby and the help channel #helpdesk. And when you type chat at the shell, you automatically join this room. To see if there are other rooms open type `/list`, you will get an error asking you if u are sure you want to do this as it is usually a bad idea, and yes usually it is but on RedBrick the amount of rooms is generally quite low so it is okay to do it. To force the command add -yes to the end. like...
[#lobby] /list -yes
This will give you a list of the rooms with two or more people in them, and the topic associated with them.
Every member has the power to create channels, to this you simply have to join a room that doesn't already exist. So I might as well tell you how to join a room. This is not difficult simply type
[#lobby] /join #<name of channel>
So lets say you want to join the #helpdesk room, to ask a quiestion, you would type
[#lobby] /join #helpdesk
and someone should be there to help :0)
You might notice that you can still see what's being said in the #lobby, except the people names are followed by the name of the room....
<prince_v:#lobby> I am in #lobby, but you are somewhere else
This is where IRC become un-life like :0). You can be in a few rooms simatuanliosy. Your prompt tells you what room you are in at the moment. So if you talking in #lobby you prompt will look like
[#lobby]
So you might want to see who's in a certain room, you can do this by using the who command. So for example if you want to see who's in the channel #helpdesk you would type
[#lobby] /who #helpdesk
This will give you a list of the people in the room. So if you are in two rooms and you want to talk to people in both you can switch between the rooms by typing the channel command....
[#helpdesk] /channel #lobby
so this will move you into #lobby and talk there, but you will still see what's going on in #helpdesk. So you're talking in #hepdesk and it's nigh impossible to see what's being said in the channel because there is a huge amount of people in #lobby and there all talking, and basically it's annoying you, so leave the room, and yes you've guessed right the command is /leave
[#helpdesk] /leave #lobby
Now you should have no trouble getting to where you want to :0), so I'll go ahead and talk about chatting :0) How To "Chat"
IRC is one of the easiest way's to talk to other people and a great way to get to know other people in DCU as well as getting help for anything, computer related or not. You probally figured out to talk you simply type what you want to say and hit heturn
You type....
[#lobby] I love myself <hit return>
<prince_v> I love myself appears
If you want to do an action simply type /me then the action and hit return
You type....
[#lobby] /me loves himself <hit return>
ð prince_v/#lobby loves himself appears in BitchX......
- prince_v loves himself appears in IRCII.
Don't worry people will know what you mean :0)
You should have a look on the page about smilies to see the best way to show emotions.
I want to tell blah I love her but not tell the whole world, well the best way is to send a private message like so
[#lobby] /msg blah I love you
This will send the private message "I love you" to the user blah. When you recive a reply (if you recive a reply :oP) it will look like this...
[blah(blah@enigma.redbrick.dcu.ie)] Oh my god, who are you!!!!! go away ! now ! In BitchX, and like
- blah* Oh my god, who are you!!!!! go away ! now ! in IRCII
So now I think you know all about chatting on IRC :0) Chat ettiquette and IRCop's
Chat like in real life has a certain amount of un-writen rules about being polite and courtious to others. Now I'm not going to start banging on at you about things your mother told you when you were 6, however there are a few specific rules of ettiquette. DON'T TYPE WITH CAPS, it's like shouting. You're in a room everyone can here you. Avoid using color, especially in the #lobby and just generally be nice to other people. But because as a race we are mean and we like to break the rules >:o> there are IRCop to keep an eye on things w and to keep some sort of order. IRCop's - Myth's and truth's
IRCop's, Channel Operators, are denote by having and @ symbol before their name like, @prince_v, denotes that prince_v is a Channel Operator. On RedBrick, in the #lobby channel, there are 4 IRCop's aswell as all comittee members who can "oper up". People who open a new channel become the Channel Operator of that room and it is their job to keep an eye on what happens in there. Their general jobs to keep trouble messers at bay and to make sure no one is abusing the system however there are many myths about what Channel Opers can and cannot do.
* Channel operators can kick you for abusing, the rules. To see the rules on #lobby type /motd at the prompt. Channel Operators in other rooms can kick you for any reason they see fit because they are the op's and they make the rules. * Channel operators can ban you from a room for contious abuse of the rules. * #lobby Channel operators have no control of other rooms * #lobby Channel operators cannot invite themselves into a +i room (more on that later) * Channel Operators cannot see private messages * Channel Operators can see server messages, if they choose to do so * Channel operators are _NOT_ better than you and the rules apply as much if not more to them * Channel Operators cannot change their Nick * Channel Operators cannot emply mode onto other users (Only Admins can)[More on modes later]
Aliases in IRC
There is a file you can store your aliases to make chatting quicker and more fun. The two files are .bitchxrc (For BitchX) and .ircrc (For IRCII)[In fact BitchX loads eithier of these files :0)] There are generally, two type of aliases to be added for the "normal" user :0) and a few more for IRCop's
* The first are msg aliases to kill those awkward usernames :0) alias pv=/quote msg prince_v Invoke this alias by typing at the prompt [#lobby] /pv A private messgae to you :0) * The second are speach aliases... alias bxb say BitchX BaBy! Invoke this alias by typing [#lobby] /bxb . This will display <prince_v> BitchX BaBy!
Modes
Just a little quick word on Modes in IRC. Each room has theire own set of modes to determine who is let into the conversation or not. This is generally done by makind a room invite only by typiny the following (Obviousy you have to be the channel operator to do this)
[#myroom] /mode #myroom +i
Now this room is invite only so to invite people who are already logged to to the chat server type
[#myroom] /invite prince_v
to invite prince_v
there are a few other important modes such as o, which we mentioned earlier, is ops. so to give ops to someone in your channel type
[#myroom] /mode #myroom +o prince_v
to give Operator status to me :0)
There a few other modes but generally these are the most important :0) Stuff
IRC also has a few other options such as the /exec comand which lets you execute a shell comand like at the prompt for example
[#lobby] /exec ls
Is like typing ls at the shell :0) of course there are other you can type too like
[#lobby] /exec perl -e 'print "hello\n";'
Which is a simple perl command line script to print hello
there is a load of other IRC thingy's here too many to list so have fun looking for a few :0) like /scan and /whois I'll leave you for a few more Finale
IRC is pretty kewl and one of the most used features on RedBrick, I hope you enjoy using it and I hope to see you there :0)