SmIRC 0.70
Connecting to the IRC network
The first step is to connect to an IRC network. Selecting 'Connect to server'
from the 'IRC' menu in a channel window opens the following dialog.
NOTE: because SmIRC's appearance can be customized in its the resource file,
your mileage may vary, and this illustration may be very different from what
you may see.
The server parameters are on the right. The list on the left is a saved list
of connections whose parameters have been previously saved. Clicking on the
list sets up the parameters of the saved connection. SmIRC comes with a short
list of servers. You can add your own to the list. Just put something into
'Connection:' that's not used already, fill in the rest of the stuff, and
click 'Ok' to connect to the server. All the connection parameters will be
saved under the name entered in the 'Connection' field.
Sorry, there is no 'DELETE CONNECTION' button, just yet. To get rid of a
predefined connection, just edit the $HOME/.smirc/config file.
The parameters are as follows:
-
Connection - The name of this connection. This is optional, but if
you put something here, all the parameters will be saved under this name, and
can be recalled later. Leaving this field blank will not save the connection
parameters. To change the parameters of an existing - predefined - connection,
click on the connection name in the list, and make the required changes. When
'Ok' is clicked, the new values will overwrite the previous ones for this
connection.
-
Server - The name of the server.
-
Port - The port number for the connection. This can
be specified as "xxxx-yyyy", where xxxx and yyyy
specify a port range inclusively. SmIRC will pick a port number between the
first one, and the last one, at random, for each connection attempt. This is
very useful with servers that accept connection on a range of ports. You can
also specify multiple port ranges, separated by commas, for example:
6660-6669,7000,7777-7779. Each time you attempt to connect to the server,
SmIRC will choose a random port number from one of these ranges.
-
Nick - The nickname you will use on IRC.
-
Alt nick - If the nickname is already used by somebody else, this
field will specify an alternate nickname to use, in this case. If this one is
also used, you will see a "Nickname in use" error message, when you try to
connect. Enter a "/NICK newnick" command, where newnick is
another nickname, to complete the connection process (and hope it is not used
as well).
-
Password - In certain rare instances, you may be required to provide
a password. Do it here. The password will not be shown on the screen. Also,
the password is not saved in the predefined connection list. You will have to
enter the password each time.
-
Real name - Just a short description who you are. This description
will come up for anyone who does a /WHOIS command on your
nickname.
After filling in all this information, click the CONNECT button.
Click CANCEL, instead, to close the dialog window without attempting
a connection.
Connecting to a server may take a little while. It is very possible that the
server may be busy. If you used a predefined connection for a server that
listens on multiple ports, and you saved the port range, just trying that
connection again should try a different port on the same server.
Connection is a two-step process. First, the actual network connection must be
established to the server. Then, the connection must be registered. This means
allocating, and reserving, the nickname to be used for the IRC session.
Messages will appear along the way. You can also use the title bar of the
server window, as guidance. Normally, it shows the copyright message, but
after a connection is established, and registered, the title bar is changed to
read "nickname on server" where nickname is the nickname
currently used. If the nickname is changed, the title bar will be updated.
If the connection, and registration, successfully completes, this generally
brings about a lot of output from the IRC server - message of the day, welcome
message, and other stuff of this nature. If the connection or registration
failed, an error message of some sort goes up, and you can try again.