f1r1cf TOPIC:r0 c7IRC r1cfDESCRIPTION:r0 c7Internet Relay Chat c2 WARNING, THIS IS A LARGE FILE AND IT IS SUGGESTED THAT YOU BUFFER IT. IRC - short for Internet Relay Chat is what you would use to communicate in a live, interactive chat forum. If you are familiar with the CNet BBS's Conference area, then you will like this setup. IRC is basically a conference area with thousands of people in hundreds of different rooms. Topics can range from sports to the weather. The IRC client (program) can be rather cryptic to use. We are using the program called AmyIRC which is not a very complete IRC client. Some of the commands do not work in the client, but are listed in the IRC Client documentation later below. c6How to use "I" from the main menu: cc INetShell's interface with AmyIRC will allow you to pick a Nickname (like your CNet BBS handle-which is the default). You are then taken to a menu of IRC servers. The server is what the IRC Client uses to transfer messages back and forth from you to other users on the server. You may pick an entry from this list of servers. If you do not get connected to one, you can try another. Sometimes a server will refuse connection if it is full and can't accept any more connections, or if they are refusing connections to the server during certain times of the day (prime time for example). c6 Commands available at this menu are: c5# c1A number from the list of servers on the display. ccThis is a number from the list of servers on the display. Choosing one of the numbers on this list will start the IRC client and send you to the server of your choice. c5N c1Move to the next page on the display ccThis option is only available if there is a 2nd page. c5P c1Move to the previous page on the display ccThis option is only available if there is a previous page to view. c5C c1Change nickname ccThis option allows you to change your nickname before entering a server off the list of servers. c5Q c1Quit ccThis option returns you to the INetShell main menu. c6The following is the documentation that comes with AmyIRC: f1c7 AmyIRC.guide author "Michael van Elst" (c) "Copyright © 1994 Michael van Elst" AmyIRC - a small Amiga IRC client for AS225 and AmiTCP The Internet Relay Chat: ------------------------ The Internet Relay Chat IRC is the second largest waste of productivity invented in the computer industry so far (the largest one is the World Wide Web which is sufficiently easy to be used even by computer illiterates}. IRC is also a very successful communication method that connects computers on the world's largest computer network called the Internet. In IRC discussions are organized into channels where people with related interests talk about god and the world (and also about their computers). People on IRC use nicknames to address each other. But in many situations it is good when you also know the real person who stands behind a nickname. Since communication through the IRC system is very fast it can react quickly to current events. In the beginning of the Gulf War people gathered in the "report" channel and exchanged news and reports from participants much faster than the official news agencies could deliver information. IRC commands: ------------ AmyIRC commands work similar to Irc II commands. A command starts with a lead-in character which is currently either a '/' or a '.'. Input lines that do not start with a lead-in character are treated as literal text entries that are sent to the current channel. ADMIN ALIAS AWAY BAN CHOP CTCP DCC INVITE JOIN KICK LIST LUSERS LEAVE MODE ME MSG NAMES NICK NOTICE PART QUERY QUIT QUOTE SHOW TOPIC UNBAN UNCHOP WHO WHOIS /ADMIN server Ask a server who is responsible for it. /ALIAS name value Create a shorthand for another command. The new command '/name' gets replaced by 'value', any parameters of the command are appended. It is not possible to choose an alias name that is identical to a built in command. It is possible to create an alias for an existing alias. /AWAY {notice} Mark yourself as away. People that query you with a WHOIS or that try to send a MSG will receive your notice text. If you use the AWAY command without arguments then the notice is removed. See also: MSG WHOIS /BAN {nick!user@host} Add the specified user to the current channels ban list. The ban entry consists of a nickname nick and an user specification user@host. Both parts can contain asterisks and question marks as wildcard characters. I.e.: nick!*@* bans a specific nick whatever account is used. *!user@host bans a specific account whatever nick is used. *!*@*.edu bans all US universities. Using BAN without parameters displays the channels ban list. This command requires Channel Operator status. See also: UNBAN MODE /CHOP nick Grant the user with a given nick channel operator status. To grant channel operator status you need to be channel operator yourself. See also: UNCHOP MODE /CTCP nick command {arguments} Send a command to the user with the given nick through the Client-To-Client-Protocol. What commands are possible depend on the client used. Most clients accept: VERSION send back a text describing what client is used. USERINFO some information about nick. FINGER the output of the finger command on nick's site. PING the network response time to nick. AmyIRC currently just responds to the VERSION command. /DCC ??? DCC establishes a direct client-to-client connection which can be used for private talks or data transfers that do not pass the IRC servers network. Currently AmyIRC does not support DCC. /INVITE {#channel} nick Tell the user nick that he may join your current channel or the channel given as an argument. This is needed for channels set to "invite-only" with MODE +i. You need to be channel operator to INVITE someone to an invite-only channel. See also: MODE /JOIN #channel {key} Enter a channel. You can enter up to 10 channels concurrently by sending several JOIN commands. There is the notion of a "current channel" which is the one you are talking to. Public messages are send to this channel and messages coming from other channels are prefixed by the channel name. I.e.: Hello world is a public message on the current channel <#foo:nick> Hello world is a public message on channel #foo If you JOIN a channel that you are already on then this channel becomes the current channel. Joining a channel may require you to use a key word if the channel uses MODE +k. See also: PART MODE /KICK {#channel} nick Remove the user nick from the current channel or the channel given as an argument. You need to be channel operator for that channel to remove an user. See also: BAN /LIST {channel#} List the number of users and topic of the current channel or the channel passed as an argument. The channel argument can contain wildcard characters, then any channel with a matching name will be listed. If the list is too long then your IRC server may reject you. See also: NAMES WHO TOPIC /LUSERS {server} Query your server or the given server for some statistics about the IRC network. /MODE nick [+|-]modechars {arguments} /MODE #channel [+|-]modechars {arguments} Alters all the settings in a session. You can change channel specific options and those for the user nick. Options are enabled with a + and disabled with a - in front of the mode character. Here is a list of all modes. Changing the channel mode requires channel operator privilege. nick [+|-] make yourself invisible to WHO and NAMES except for users that are on your channel(s). nick [+|-]o pass make yourself IRC operator. nick [+|-]s tell the server that you want to receive administrative messages. nick [+|-]w tell the server that you want to receive WALLOPS messages. #channel [+|-]b nick ban a user from a channel. #channel [+|-]i make the channel invite-only #channel [+|-]k key set the channel key, only people with a correct key may enter the channel. #channel [+|-]l limit limit the number of users on a channel. #channel [+|-]m make the channel moderated, just channel operators and other privileged users (+v) may send public messages to a channel. #channel [+|-]n disallow public messages to the channel from people on the outside. #channel [+|-]o nick make user {nick} a channel operator. #channel [+|-]p make a channel invisible to LIST and NAMES. You can still query it with WHO if you know the exact channel name. #channel [+|-]s make a channel completely secret. It will not appear on any list or query. #channel [+|-]t disallow normal users to change the channel topic. Only channel operators may do that. #channel [+|-]v nick Grant user {nick} to speak into a moderated channel (+m). See also: WHO NAMES BAN CHOP INVITE JOIN /ME action You can send special action messages to your current channel. These are actually public messages with some control characters that are interpreted by newer IRC clients. It is generally difficult to express emotions in written messages, using the ME command helps around this problem by using non-direct speech. An action appears on the channel like: #channel=> nick does this and that See also: MSG QUERY /MSG #channel message /MSG nick message Public messages can be read by anyone on the current channel. With MSG you can send messages to an arbitrary channel unless that channel explicitely forbids messages from the outside. When you specify a {nick} as the recipient then the message is just send to the specific user. You can use a comma-separated list of {nick}s. In that case AmyIRC will repeat the message for each user on the list. See also: QUERY ME MODE NOTICE /NAMES {#channel} NAMES lists all users on some channel by their nickname. You can use wildcard characters so that all users on all matching {channel}s are listed. If the list is too long then your IRC server may reject you. See also: LIST WHO TOPIC /NICK nick Change your "nickname" to nick. If that nickname is used by someone else you get an error message and your nickname remains the same. /NOTICE #channel message /NOTICE nick message About the same as the MSG command except that the recipient(s) can distinguish between the two methods. This was introduced to avoid infinite message loops when two or more Irc II scripts respond to each other. By convention (and public punishment) you are obliged to use NOTICE for any automated response generated by a script and to ignore any NOTICEs sent to your script. AmyIRC does not yet support scripts. See also: MSG /PART {#channel} /LEAVE {#channel} Leave the current channel or the channel given as an argument. If you have JOINed other channels then one of these channels becomes the new current channel. PART and LEAVE are synonyms for some historical reason. See also: JOIN LIST /QUERY nick /QUERY #channel /QUERY Redirect all your public messages to the given nick or channel. This comes handy when you want to temporarily talk to another user without typing lots of MSG commands. QUERY without an argument removes the redirection and public messages are sent to the current channel again (if there is any). See also: MSG /QUIT {message} Exit from the IRC session. This informs the server that you are about to close your network connection. The optional message is sent to the channel instead of the default message (Leaving). AmyIRC will wait for the final server response and then exit. /QUOTE text The text will be send literally to the server. With QUOTE it is possible to use server commands that are not implemented or accessible from a client. I.e.: /QUOTE PONG some.server.name tells the server that your session is still alive. /SHOW something Display the information gathered so far for something. Currently the only useful entity is "state" which shows information about your session. /TOPIC {#channel} {topic} Set the topic for the current channel or the channel passed as an argument. If you do not specify a topic then the current topic of the channel is displayed. See also: NAMES WHO LIST /UNBAN nick!user@host Remove the specific user from the current channels ban list. The ban entry consists of a nickname nick and an user specification user@host. You need to pass the exact ban entry that is in the channels ban list. You cannot use wildcards to remove multiple entries. This command requires channel operator status. See also: BAN MODE /UNCHOP nick Deny channel operator status to the user with a given nick text. To deny channel operator status you need to be channel operator yourself. See also: CHOP MODE /WHO nick /WHO {#channel} Show information about the user nick or all users on a given channel. Both specifications can use wildcard characters to match multiple nicks or channels. Using WHO with no argument lists all users from the current channel. See also: WHOIS LIST NAMES /WHOIS nick Query information about a specific nick. Using WHOIS is the only method to query users that made themselves invisible with the MODE command. However, you need to know their exact nick as WHOIS will not accept wildcards. See also: WHO MODE CREDITS: AmyIRC was created by Markus Illenseer ("ill") Initial main loop, user interface, resource tracking Matthias Scheler ("tron") Networking code Michael van Elst ("mlelstv") Shell interface, console, networking, SASification S. P. Zeidler ("stargazer") Command parser, state machines, commands code Special thanks to Henning Schmiedehausen ("barnard") for the "socket.library", all people from the AmiTCP-Group, and Oleg Rovner ("oleg") and Bernhard Millemann ("ZZA") for proof-reading this guide. Amiguide conversion to text by Paul Leclair for TKA BBS. u1cfOTHER COMMANDS AVAILABLE AT THIS PROMPTu0:c7 ARCHIE CONFIG DIR FTP HELP MAIN NOTE QUIT REDRAW TALK TELNET PING VIEW