GPSTk IRC

You can find today's logs at http://koala.ilog.fr/twikiirc/bin/irclogger_log/gpstk

GPSTkIRC Abstract

IRC is a text-based conference calling, precursor to instant messaging, online publishing, conference room, etc., which is complementary to other communications systems. This includes non-realtime systems like wiki, email, and usenet. IRC is used for planning, discussing, chatting, support, and socialisation with fellow developers and users.

We welcome anyone to drop by the #gpstk IRC channel with questions.

Hopefully a greater number of GPSTk community members will spend some time on IRC. This will help further establish the utility of #gpstk for those that drop by. It's also fun. Show your support by idling in the #gpstk IRC channel, and chat away as much as you feel like.

IRC is an unmoderated forum supporting free speech. Most users of IRC dislike those who openly behave in an offensive manner; however, bear in mind that one person's definition of offensive may not be the same as another.

For total IRC newbies

What is IRC, some pages with basic IRC commands, some basic jargon and full list 2 of IRC acronyms.

For folks active on IRC

There is a lot of traffic. The noise level can be high at times, but there are also a lot of good discussions going on. Please help in bringing the pearls back to gpstk.org to the benefit of the larger community. If you find that content discussed is of interest to the project and the community, it would be helpful if you create a or append to an existing BrainstormingIdea. If it is a support question you could submit a complete AskedQuestions Q&A.

GPSTk Chat

Join us on #gpstk IRC channel.

Logs

Today's log: http://koala.ilog.fr/twikiirc/bin/irclogger_log/gpstk?date=2008-09-08

To get an idea of what IRC is like, or to catch up on discussions you have missed, check the IRC logs for #gpstk. ColasNahaboo^?'s bot logs the channel and archives it with nice HTML rendering in virtually real time; additionally, old TWikiBot^? logs have been assimilated into the archives. Some stats on the use of the channel are also gathered there.

IRC Statistics

#gpstk IRC statistics generated by PISG

Frequent chatters

Quite a few people regularly hang out in the channel. Please don't be discouraged if you visit #gpstk and nobody is talking. Hang out and say something. People do read and reply to what is said even if it's many hours later when they look at their IRC client again.

How to connect to IRC

Connecting from a web browser

Some modern browsers (e.g. Opera, Mozilla Suite^?) natively support the irc protocol and come with an IRC chat client included; try clicking on irc://irc.freenode.net/twiki to join the #gpstk channel on IRC. If that didn't work, check the following methods.

Connecting through web based IRC client

There are web to IRC gateways that let you access IRC from a web browser. Use the http://koala.ilog.fr/twikiirc/cgiirc/irc.cgi Web / IRC gateway (Currently removed due to abuse!). Just change the random Nickname to your WikiName and begin to chat!

Connecting from an IRC client

To connect, launch an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) client (http://www.irc.org/links.html contains a list of IRC clients). Connect to a freenode.net server (freenode.net will work fine; or, choose a server for your country). Additional information can be found at the http://freenode.net site. Use the command /join #gpstk to join the channel.

Trillian

In Trillian right click the middle connection circle representing IRC, select connection manager. You will then see the following:

Now add FreeNode^? to your server list. Select freenode.net from the server list, or type it directly into the group box; keep the default port as shown above.

Once you've typed this first page, click the 'Perform buffer' tab and select the 'On connection, perform this commands'. In the box type:

   /nick WikiName; /join #gpstk

Hit connect and you are done.

• Trillian is slick and intuitive. The only issue I had was their "hide" button (the green one which looks like mininize). It hides message window from both desktop and taskbar, and there is no obvious way to get it back. Here is the trick: click on trillian icon on taskbar - you'll get your contact list. On the right side there is dark area - hidden drawer (if you hover mouse, tooltip will say it). Click on it and it will open the drawer with all your hidden message windows. You can make drawer wider by dragging on the edge, although there are no affordances which might suggest that; leave it open.

GAIM

When you start GAIM for the first time you should see an Accounts button. Click it. Create a new account for freenode; protocol IRC, Screenname your wikiname, Server irc.freenode.net (if you are in Europe use irc.eu.freenode.net), everything else default. Then click on the "online" checkbox in the Accounts window. Wait patiently, and you should eventually see a Contact List window, and a ChanServ window. In the the lower window in ChanServ, type /join #gpstk. Bring the #gpstkwindow to the front, and chat away!

Other IRC Clients

I welcome folks to edit this page with specifics for additional IRC clients.

General instructions for new people, should work on any IRC client - commands start with /, anything else goes to the channel (chat room):

• Type /nick WikiName?
• Type /join #gpstk
• Say hello!

Cross-platform:

• ChatZilla^? is included in Mozilla^? and is very easy to install and get going with
  • Also available as an extension for Firefox^? - install from addons.mozilla.org or Chatzilla homepage.

• XChat - multiplatform (Linux, Windows, OS X): a good choice on Linux. Versions 1.x works well on windows (v2.x crashes a lot)

Unix/Linux:

• Google:Kopete
• irssi (text-mode client)
• Konversation (KDE client)

Windows:

• mIRC - old standby, shareware - Google:mIRC
• Visual IRC 2: The best one I saw for novices on windows: http://www.visualirc.net/
• Hydra IRC http://www.hydrairc.com/ is a new, user-friendly, and powerful client

PalmOS^?:

• upIRC - recommended, shareware but demo is very usable: http://www.smittyware.com/palm/upirc/. Works well on Treo 600s

MacOS^?:

• Fire (MacOS^?)
• Conversation - "The Easy IRC Client for MacOS^? X" - Probably most easy-to-setup and user-friendly irc client for MacOS^?. Recommended.

Discussion

The logging mechanism is using: http://colas.nahaboo.net/software/irclogger/

-- AdminRickMach - 17 Dec 2006