This is basically a side note for this series. In my experiences with IRC in general, I have concluded that I do not want to connect to each of my favorite networks and every channel each time that I open the application. Not only that but, keeping up with which channel is where becomes a bit troublesome when it takes up to the letter “Y” on the keyboard. (yes, Irssi will go there) I have started creating multiple config files in my ~/.irssi folder. For example: I setup Irssi for liquidbabble with auto-connect and auto join to all of my favorite channels and use /save to save the configuration. I then used the mv command to rename the config:
mv ~/.irssi/config ~/.irssi/lbconfig
Now, the next time I start Irssi, it creates a new, blnk config file to work with. If I want to start it connecting to liquidbabble, then I just use this command:
irssi -config=~/.irssi/lbconfig
It starts and does all of the auto connects and auto joins that I saved before. I can now use the blank config to create connections to other netwoks and rename them accordingly. Each time I choose to connect somewhere else, I just point the app to the correct config file. Use this method if you choose. I find it convenient. Happy chatting

So you have multiple networks and multiple channels that you auto join every time you start up Irssi now. alt+# is cycling through those channels just fine. You’ve noticed that you spend more time in two or three channels than in any others. (one of those is #slackstuff on irc.liquidbabble.com) <-- shameless plug

I like having my two most active channels viewable at all times. Wait, I said two. The terminal is just one window and, you have to cycle through the channels in it. How do you show two channels at the same time?

Split windows

Windows can be manipulated and made viewable by splitting in Irssi. Each channel has it’s own “container”. I have three windows showing as my default set up. It’s actually really easy to do. Lets start with the channels that we are in. Window one is the status window, window 2 is #slackstuff and window three is #TwoFourTech (#TwoFourTech is the channel of my good friend DedRyzing who can be found in my blogroll and at TwoFourTech.com) all on irc.liquidbabble.com

The first thing that need to be done is to unstick window two so that it can be moved around. Set window two active by pressing alt+2. Now type:
/window stick off

Now press alt+1 to set the status window active. Always start here because channel containers need to be hidden at first and so that all other windows split above this one. To open the first container, While in window one, type:
/window show 2

A split is automagically created and window two is now above the others in it’s own container. Now to keep window two in the top section. If you want the containers resized, use:
/window gr 1 to grow the size or /window shr 1 to reduce the size, make sure it’s active by typing alt+2 and then:
/window stick on so that it doesn’t move to another container.

If this is good enough for you then using /layout save will save the layout of your windows and Irssi will open the same way when you restart it. Like I said before, I use three windows. So press alt+3 to make #TwoFourTech active, type: /window stick off because it’s the next channel to show. Now, press alt+1, back the status window and type:
/window show 3
The same goes here for growing and shrinking the size of the container.

Another container opens between #slackstuff and the status window, holding #TwoFourTech, giving you the three windows or visible containers actually. All that is left is to save you layout. Type:
/layout save

and your nice split window layout is saved! Enjoy Irssi with split windows and look here for more Irssi later.

The plain blue status bar and topic bar in Irssi are ok. Yuck! What am I saying? It’s plain and ugly. I want something a little nicer to look at.
Enter themes
Themes for Irssi are an extremely easy thing to apply, and there are an abundance of themes available, pre-made and awaiting your use. Find these themes at http://irssi.org/themes
Themes in Irssi are stored and saved as .theme files. They are saved in your ~/.irssi directory. For those of you who don’t know what that is; it’s a hidden sub-folder of your home directory. Im my case, themes are stored in /home/usr_local/.irssi
When you’ve selected a theme (you should grab at least 2 or 3) and downloaded it (you just right click the link under the image on the themes page at http://irssi.org/themes ) It is most likely on your desktop. The easiest way to get it to the proper location, is to open a terminal and issue this command:

mv ~/Desktop/*.theme ~/.irssi

If you get any errors after issuing that command, just try using each theme name individually. Like:

mv ~/Desktop/chaves.theme ~/.irssi

Once you have your themes in place, as per the example above, hop over to your Irssi session and type:

/set theme chaves

Irssi knows what theme files are so you don’t have to enter the .theme part. Whammo! Automagically your Irssi session just changed to multiple colors and now looks much more pleasing to your eyes. Hopefully you grabbed a couple of themes so, try the ones you have. Once you have decided to keep one on for a while, use the save command, you remember that one don’t ya?
/save to save your theme as the default and the next time you start Irssi, it will be themed.

I currently use the chaves theme in a split window layout. We’ll get to split windows later in this tutorial series.

Well, that’s it for themes in Irssi.
Watch for the next installment. Irssi FTW !!

oh, here are a couple of Irssi screenshots and links to my favorite themes

We have connect to our favorite networks and to our favorite channels with Irssi. Now we have to issue these commands every time we start Irssi and it’s getting old and you do not want to use Irssi any more. Wait, you do not have to do that. Irssi can be configured for automatically identifying and connecting to your favorite channels. So lets get that going. (I would like to remind you that all of this information is available at anytime inside Irssi itself by typing /help or /help )

The network command
The first step is to set up the network. This network will be used later to tell Irssi where the channels belong. Lets add LiquidBabble. We really need to be in #slackstuff there
(In the following example, those attributes inside [these brackets] are optional though you probably want to use most of them)

Start Irssi and type:

/network add [-nick ] [-user ] [-realname ] -autosendcmd “/^msg nickserv identify ” liquidbabble

In the above command, we added liquidbabble as a network, accessible in the commands to come by using the name “liquidbabble”. These are the standard flags that I give to a network when I add a new one to Irssi. They should be self explanatory. touching a little deeper on the “-autosendcmd” attribute, the ^ character is necessary for you to properly identify with nickserv and the quotes are required for Irssi to recognize the beginning and end of the command Also, multiple commands can be sent to the network by separating them with a semi-colon “;”. For example, if you are an Oper on a network, yours could look like this:

(identify with nickserv) (wait a few seconds) (send the oper command)
-autosendcmd "/^msg nickserv identify password;wait 2000;/oper “

The server command
Now Irssi has to know what server to connect to for the newly added network. Now we type:

/server add -auto -network liquidbabble irc.liquidbabble.com

With that command, we told Irssi to add the round-robin address of “irc.liquidbabble.com” to the network “liquidbabble” and to auto connect to it. Since we sent nickserv the identify command the network add; we will be identified when we connect to the server. If you choose, you can put an individual server name in this command instead of the round-robin address of irc.liquidbabble.com. Again, there are other options to the server command that can be used like making an ssl connection with the -ssl attribute. These are, as stated before, available inside Irssi by typing “/help “.

Channels

I want my favorite channels on liquidbabble to be auto joined and I’m sure you do too. So, type:

/channel add -auto #slackstuff liquidbabble

That is the shortest one that we have done so far. In this command, we added #slackstuff the the channel list on the network “liquidbabble” and told Irssi to auto join it. That was easy enough. You can set up multiple networks and multiple channels. You can have some networks as auto join and some that you connect to with the “/connect” command by just issuing “/connect ” if you so choose. What did I tell ya in the beginning? Irssi is extremely configurable and, as with anything, get easier the more you use it. I might even show you how to set up different configs for multiple Irssi sessions. I do that alot also.

Hope your liking Irssi and I look forward to having you back for part 3. Until then; laterz

I use Irssi daily. Almost religiously. It really is all that i prefer to use. Oh, what is Irssi you ask?

Irssi is the IRC client of the future

You can find it here.

It is a CLI IRC client. If you don’t know what an IRC client is; stop reading now. Irssi is extremely configurable and scriptable. Getting started with Irssi is easy. Install it to your current distro, open your terminal and type:
irssi
Your new seesion will open with the status window in front of you. You are not currently connected to any networks or channels. Irssi has an abundance of build in commands to manipulate it with and they can all be accessed insisde Irssi itself. No need to use “man irssi” in another terminal. Inside the open Irssi session just type: /help

All Irssi commands are preceded with the / character. Now that we have started Irssi, lets join a network. Issue the command: “/connect irc.liquidbabble.com” to join liquidbabble. Now join a channel with “/join #slackstuff” These commands work for any network and any channel. You can also join multiple networks and muliple channels.

Viewing your channels
In Xchat you are familiar with “tabs”. They each hold a channel of which you are currently joined and the first tab always holds the console. The console is where the network messages scroll and the server motd is shown. You might get things like network announcements and global messages in that “tab”. In Irssi we call those “windows”. Each channel is opened in its own window inside the terminal and only one window is viewable at a time unless… oh wait, we’ll get to that in a minute. Each window is hidden except for the “active” window. The active window will be the most recent channel that you joined. It automatically becomes the active window. To view the “hidden” windows that contain the other channels that you joined; use the alt key in combination with the number key coinsiding with the window that you want to see. For example, in the video we joined two channels that gave us three windows. Three windows accessed with alt+1, alt+2 and alt+3.

Normal IRC commands work in Irssi just like with any other client. /join, /part, /msg(for PMs) and so on.

The status bar
How do know that there is activity in a channel or if I get hilighted?
The status bar at the bottom of the Irssi session (at the bottom of the terminal) has numbers on the right side, corresponding to the number of windows that you have open. Just as alt+1 will take you to window one, the number one on the right side of the status bar will change colors when there is activity in that window and will change to a different color for hilights. There are configurable settings for hilights and much more that we will get into later in this series but, at this point you should be able to open Irssi, connect to your favorite IRC networks and channels and use it effectively. So, until the next post in this series… /quit