Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a special chat client that lets
people through their computers with others in channels that have
a basic topic of discussion or are special interest groups. Many
channels are simply dedicated to small talk or chat. And then
there are those that can be used to get help on finding places of
interest on the Internet, getting technical assistance with
software problems, etc. You would be surprised at the number of
people you can find on IRC that basically donate their time to
help others.
IRC is basically divided into 2 large networks and many smaller
networks. The two most popular networks are known as EFNet and
Webmaster . Both of these network systems have servers located
throughout the world in various countries, maintaining hundreds
to thousands of channels, and several thousand users at any given
time.
You login to an IRC network using an IRC server host and a
nickname. This nickname is the name by which people on the
network will refer to you. The PIRCH connection dialog box
contains a number of server names for you to choose from and
allows a place to enter your preferred nickname (and an alternate
nickname in the event you first choice has already been taken by
someone else), or for whatever reason you get what we call
'moofied' when the server for whatever reason, seems to kick us
off for a time being, your second nickname can then be used to re-connect.
Once you have entered
you will know it as the screen will say your connected, to see a
list of rooms just type in the command bar /list or go to the
top of your screen ( toolbar) choose Channel
then
list channel, a list will appear on
the right of your screen.
Once you have connected you can then join a channel that looks
interesting to you. When you join a channel, you will see a list
of nicknames... these are the people who are already in the
channel. Once you have entered... you can join in on the
discussion or chat.
Channels are generally under the control of channel operators.
Operators are experienced IRC users and their nicknames will be
preceded by an @ symbol in the names list. If you have questions
regarding the channel, you can usually direct them to the channel’s
operator(s).
How you behave on a channel depends on the type of channel you
have joined. Many channels, like those dedicated to new users or
a younger audiences prohibit profanity. It’s up to you to
find out what a given channel’s rules are and to follow
those rules. If you do not... the channel’s operators have
the power and ability to kick you out of the channel, and even
prevent you from ever entering the channel again, some like to
list the rules, some don't, so do ask for the rules of the
channels.
Many channels are controlled by special programs called bots (short
for robots). The bots have the same powers as channel operators.
These bots will show up on your channel names list just like any
other IRC user. On the Undernet network, many channels are
controlled by one of two bots that go by the names of X and W
NOTE: In nevadagold, you will know a bot when you see one, most
of the names of the bots either end in the word Bot or begin with
Bot. If you see these user names, you can be assured they are
bots and there really is no point in attempting to talk to them.
Like I tried when I was new. . . They are not good
conversationalists.
CONNECTING TO IRC:
The Connection Dialog Box allows you to select the desired IRC
server and setup basic user information about yourself before
logging in.
SELECTING A NICK NAME:
There are also two fields allowing you to enter the nickname you
want to use. PIRCH will always attempt to log into IRC using the
name you provide in the Nick Name field, however, if PIRCH is
unable to login with this name, generally because it is already
being used by someone else on the network, it will use the
alternate nickname. In the event both your primary and alternate
nicknames are already being used by other people, PIRCH will
display a dialog box prompting you to enter another choice. Once
you are logged into IRC, you can still change your nickname using
the /nick command, like this for example: /nick nick1 or choose /nick
nick2. Some channels require you to do this if your going to be away from your computer or be right back, (do ask or watch to see
if others in that channel are doing this) if so it's required of
you to type in /nick nick-BRB , this shows you'll Be Right Back, if your going to be away from the keyboard it may be required of you to type in /nick nick-AFK , showing your away from the keyboard. (in my room I am not that fussy, some are though) It's best to find out the rules of each channel as each
has their own, as well as the chat server rules do apply at all
times.
SELECTING A SERVER:
Click on the drop down list and select, or type in the name of
the server you want to connect to. You can also edit the main
server list by clicking on the Edit Servers button. All server
names must be in the format of server.name:port, for example us.undernet.org:6667
where us.undernet.org is the name of the server and 6667 is the
number of the port to connect to. (Most IRC servers use port 6667
or IRC connections). To get to nevadagold.net, you will see that
you have to type in www.nevadagold.net:6667
here is a picture of what you see when you select the login icon on the top left of your screen
NOTE: It is not required
that you use a password, nor save your Profile unless others are
using Pirch on the same computer.
PIRCH allows you to also specify a network ID in label following
the server name. At this time, this ID label is purely
informational for the user.
Real Name & E-mail Address
Enter any name and E-mail address in the fields provided ( this
does not have to be your real name and E-mail address). Your E-mail
address ident (the part before the @ symbol) will be used to log
into the IRC server.
Initial User Mode
Select the desired user modes. See the /MODE command for more
information on individual modes and what they do. When you log
into IRC, PIRCH will automatically Change your user mode to the
selected preferences.
LOADING & SAVING
PROFILES:
PIRCH allows you to have multiple profiles, which contain the
user’s preferences such as font settings, and other user
settings. If there is more than one person who will use PIRCH in
your household, you can each have your own profiles. Also, if you
switch frequently between IRC networks such as EfNet and
Webmaster, you may want to setup an individual profile for each
network.
To load a new profile, click on the Load Profile button and
select the desired profile name from the file list. All PIRCH
profiles end with the extension .ini. All changes you make to the
user options will apply to this profile, and are automatically
saved for you.
EDITING THE SERVER LIST:
To permanently add or remove server names from the list, click on
the Edit Servers button
Once you have entered the desired connection information, click
on the Connect button. This action will display the server/status
window for the connection and show the connection progress. As
PIRCH logs you into IRC, the server will display the MOTD (Message
of the Day) file.
DCC GET:
Thought I would tell you about this
the first time I was in Pirch this box popped up on my screen, being new
I thought this was someone trying to send me a virus or something.
In Pirch you have the ability to hear and play midis and wave sounds,
many times people will play them with their popups, if your pirch don't
have that paticular wave, your pirch will then ask for it, you don't see
this on your screen, but it does come to them on others screens you asking
for this wave for your files. Chatters then out of the goodness of their
hearts send you the wave you asked for, so that the next time they play it
you can hear it too, you cannot hear a sound wave unless it's in your media file. This command functionality is handled automatically within PIRCH.
When another user attempts to send you a file using the /DCC SEND command,
PIRCH will automatically display a dialog prompting you to accept
or reject the file, eliminating the usefulness of this command.
This will download into your pirch folder, depending on where you
choose in your Pref's. Notice the name of the file that your
accepting, your going to need to remember that name to find it
either in your "download" or "sounds" files.
Once you accept this
file, another dialog box will come up, showing you the results of
the download. This will show you the name of the song and where
it's downloading to, as well as how big it is, at this time you
can also cancel the download if you wish by clicking on the
cancel button. Note: A good thing to do is check it first for any
viruses, you just never know, people wouldn't do this to you on
purpose generally, but at times they may not even know they are
doing it, do check first before using any thing that someone
sends you on DCC send. I have never received a virus from accepting
wave files, and I accepted alot, but you should always be on the safe
side.
The /DCC TSEND command is used to transfer files through a DCC
connection using the TDCC protocol to another user on IRC. The
TDCC protocol is generally faster and the standard DCC protocol
since it need not wait on acknowledgements before sending
subsequent packets. Not all clients implement the TDCC protocol,
in which case you have to use the standard /DCC SEND command if
the person your are sending to does not have TDCC capability. In
addition to the /DCC TSEND command, you may use PIRCH’s DCC
Sender dialog or the Drag-N-Drop DCC Sender. An easier way to do
this is to highlight the nick of the person your wanting to send
a wave to, right click select DCC then send a dialog box will
come up, you select what it is your sending from the drop down
menu for example C:/ Pirch98/sounds, pick the wave your sending,
double click on it, now it should be on the right window, only
that song, be careful you dont' send the hole sounds files like I
did once, just make sure that one song is in the window, and the
nick of the person your sending it to, double check at all times.
check the box where it says send fast, and click send.
PRIVATE MESSAGES:
When your wanting to
talk to someone privately it's good manners to ask the person in
the room first if you can talk to them privately. Nick may I
private message you? When they accept, you double click on the
nick to send a private message. If there is a person your wanting
to talk to in private in another room and you know it's ok to go
ahead with it, you can type in /msg nick then type in your
message. Note: how your message comes up on the screen in the
room your in, this is not visible to others only the person your
talking to, you know this by seeing that in the front of that
message is the word NOTE cool-BRB: *MomBot*
how are you? it will be in a certain
color, as well as having the * on each side of the nick name.
HIGHLIGHTING:
When your in a room with
many chatters it's sometimes hard to keep up to know when someone
is talking to you, a cool feature with pirch is you can highlight
your nick so that it changes color, then when you see this color
come up, you know someone has been talking to you, this way you
can pay closer attention when the room is moving fast. To use
this feature click on 'Pref's' then Highlight tab, click the add
button, and type in all the nicks you want to be highlighted, you
can use this feature for a nick you generally talk to as well so
you can always see what they say. Clicking on the 'Beep on
Highlighted Message will send a sound to you when someone has
typed in the nick you added into this box Note: this works only
when you have sound with your desktop costomization on your
computer. Once you have your nicks typed in click on O.K. to save
it.
NOTIFY:
Pirch can let you know
when you connect if your friends are in the server you connect to.
To use this feature go to your Pref's again, choose the tab
'Notify,' once again click 'add' type in all the nicks you want
pirch to notify you, and again click on O.K to save. These nicks
will be listed in the server window when you connect. It can also
list in another color as a NOTE to let you know when your in a room when they
come on-line, if this works for you great, sometimes this does
not work for me, just a pirch thing. Everything else in the
Pref's is up to you as to how you want to set it.
TABKEY:
This is what most people
that have pirch seem to love the best, with out this feature
which sometimes messes up for me I am lost for typing nicks. LOL
Pirch spoils a person. What this feature does is lets you type in
a nick to the exact as someone has it, ( their computer will not
highlight or beep if the nick is not exact) say there is a nick
your wanting to type out that goes something like this: ^DaŽLeNe*^this is
such a pain . . . LOL or any other something like this. All you
do in this case is type in the first letter of the nick like so ^ then hit the tab
key.. and it types it all out for you :) many times there is more
then one nick that starts like this, so you type in ^d and hit the
tabkey. (no need to capitalize either tabkey will do it for you) Isn't that neat? I like that feature, sometimes this will not work for me, then I find that I have to go out of pirch and re-boot, come in again, and it works, so remember if this don't
work for you, just re-boot and re-connect.
(NOTE: If your ^DaŽLeNe*^ forgive me...LOL, I didn't know, really! it's just a fluke, I made it up from the top of my head, I am not saying your a pain, just saying your nick is..LOL)
TO REGISTER YOUR NICK IN
NEVADAGOLD:
Registying your nick in
nevadagold, gives you the ability to be the only one with that
nick, so no one can go in the and pretend to be you and cause you
some problems. It also gives you the abilty to be able to make
your own room (channel) without registering a nick you can't
make a room. To do this you enter commands for the server this
has to be done while you are using the nick your wanting to
register, as well as a password and an e-mail address, remember
this can be fake if you chose. Do it like so: /msg nickserv register passsword nevadagold@nevadagold.com , lets say your
registring your nick as 'nick1' and your password is 'christmas' then this is how you type it: /msg nickserv
register christmas nevadagold@nevadagld.com Remember that your password is 'christmas' write this down cause your going to
need it when you come into nevadagold again. The next time you
come in type in: /msg nickserv
identify christmas and your set, the
nick is yours and your ready to chat. Another thing is the kill,
when someone uses your nick when it's registerd it does a count
down for them, giving them the option to change it soon or the
server will change their nick for them. A kill will make sure
this countdown is fast...lol.. to do this kill you type set kill
on/off this feature turns it on or off, type it in like this: /msg nickserv set kill on when this has taken effect you know it cause it
shows you on your screen as a note in the color you chose in your
desktop for your notices. Note: this is for nevadagold only, the
other servers you would have to ask them, every one is a little
different, cause I chat at nevadgold, it's their commands I am
getting to know.
WELL NOW THAT YOUR
CONNECTED AND IN A ROOM OF YOUR CHOICE, LETS HAVE SOME FUN!
MEDIA PLAYER:
If you've download
^gal's toybox and her media waves she has to offer you or another
say pik4 to go with your Pirch, you should have some songs in
your media player. To hear these just click the media icon, choose 'all files' from the drop
down list, on the right side you will see a list of waves, choose
one, in this case I chose 'all_that.wav' highlight it then click the 'play locally' or to
the room you should have heard your sound, (everyone in the room
as long as they have that wave can hear what you just played when
you chose 'play to #a-moms-and-dads-chat' ) if you didn't there is someone on-line I am
sure that would be willing to help you figure out where your
sound needs to come from, and get that set up for you. These
waves can be used in your popups or aliases when you make your
own popups, this I will explain to you later, or connect to
reno's or ^gal's site, this will help you out better then I can,
they have great help for beginners, and explain well, I learned
from them.
ALIASES:
Is a place to store
popups, with your toybox, you will have a nice list of them
already made for you, if you just have Pirch alone, you would
need to make some of your own to store in here. As you can see
from the picture, I have a popup called 'Blonde' to play
that to the room, you just type in /blonde
then it will come up in color on the
chat room. Note: this is something I thought I had to do for the
longest time..lol... you do not need to have the aliases box open
to play them. Notice how it shows the popup on the right with no
color, looks like a bunch of mumble jumble when your new, this is
the coding you use to make the popup, BFC means B=bold, F-fixed,
C-is the color. Same way to play anything else in here, you just
type in /brickshort or /bug . . this is just the way I name them,
you can use any name you want thats easy for you to remember.
B = Bold.
U = Underlined text
F = Fixed
S = Symbols
K = Color(comes up in aliases as C)
To get this just type in /colorbar, these are
the colors that can be used in Pirch to make popups ( popups
aliases, same thing to me, I call them all popups).
LETS START TO MAKE A
POPUP:
First you need to know
just a few things before you begin. First lets make some colored
text. Go to your command bar, this is where you type to the room
and send, now do this 'hold down
your key called crtl then hit the k key,' that is chosing the color, it makes a sort of
looks like a square is the best way I can explain it... LOL, now
chose your color that you see in the color bar above, lets pick blue which is the
color number 12, now right beside that number type in your message
you want to say, no spaces. Type in HELLO
ALL!. Ok, lets see what we have on
the command line.
There you have it, that
sort of square LOL, and the number 12HELLO ALL! , now play this
to the room by hiting the enter key.
There it is just how it
should look, Note: the background is gray, thats the color I
chose for my Pirch desktop. We will get to that later. To make
this text bold, you just type it as so, same thing hold down the crtl key and type in
b then k,
you will then have two cute little squares before that message
and color..LOL. I suggest to you now to go to either ^gal's site
to learn how to make popups in the aliases.. cause this is really
a long process to go through, ^gal specializes in this area, she
taught me, if your needing any help, she is in nevadagold.net, or
reno's site, he has alot of help for doing your events, another
thing that is quite complicating to explain, as well as some more
aliases help it's all there on the site to learn it. I will just
teach you the basics here. Lets make a heart, this is fun. Hold
down your ctrl and hit s then b then
k S=symbols, b=bold, k=color, red
hearts are nice lets do it, red is
the number 4 , so now you have three
cute little squares on your command bar. (make sure these are
started at the very left of your command bar, or will not work
right), then hold down your Alt key thats by the space bar on the left, with the
numbers on the right of the keyboard, type in 0169 this will not
look like 0169 and is ok, cause it will work when you play it,
will look like this instead Š.
By hitting the enter key this
is what you get below.
You want to make alot of
hearts beside each other, then you would have to just keep typing in
alt+0169 then let go, then type it in as many times as you want, just remember to let go of alt first, then re type in 0169 If you type in the sbk again, you will turn off the symbols, you need symbols to make the hearts.
Another thing if your wanting to put words beside the hearts you would have to turn off the symbol first, then to make a heart on the other side of the words, you need to turn it on again. Here is an example: ctl+sbk4 alt+01690169ctl+sk12THIS MAKES TWO HEARTS ON THE LEFT, THEN TWO ON THE RIGHT sk4alt+01690169 NOTE: see how I did it? it will look like two hearts on the left side, with blue typing message, then two on the right, notice how I turned off symbol=S before the typing message, then turned it on again before the hearts on the right. Notice also how I didn't type in B=bold again, as that will make the typing message not bold and I wanted it bold, bold is good to leave in the starting of all popups, if you want it bold all the way along the popup, if you don't and you think the hearts look best in bold and the text looks best without it, then all you do is type in ctl+B again before the text.. but remember to type it in again for the hearts to be bold on the right side to make the popup even.
Ok, that was fun, now lets do something just a tad different.. lets learn about stripes, as we all know stripes comes in all sizes, so this is a good lesson when your making a popup, cause this is going to teach you how to have spaces, or solid colors, ok? ok.. lets go
We learned so far how to make hearts and hearts with text, so far we only used one color, thats the color with the background of grey which is my desktop background color in Pirch. Now we are going to learn how to do more colors as well as a solid color...choosing a color and typing it in twice will make a solid color, when you do this you put a coma inbetween the color codes. Example: If your wanting a solid color of red, that means a background color, and a text color of red, you would type it in like so ctl+k4,4
Now like I said before, there is many sizes of stripes, saying this I mean when you use different keys on the keyboard, it is different sizes also, like p is wider then say i for example right? ok,ok just agree, thats all you have to do! LOL, so seen as a p really is wider then a i, it then makes the stripes wider then say if you used an i.
Let me show you the difference, type this in the pirch command bar ctl+k12,12pctl+8,8pctl+4,4pctl+9,9p thats useing the p and the same colors seperated by a comma, that will give you this:
Now look at the results when you send it to the room:
Nice even little stripes, pretty cool!.. Ok, now type in this ctl+k12,12ictl+8,8ictl+4,4ictl+9,9i Exact same thing as above only we used an 'i' instead of a 'p' this is what it looks like in the command bar.
Ok now once again, send it to the room, and take a look:
WOW!! That made a BIG difference, as we knew, p is wider then the i, but in pirch it really magnifies it alot! These stripes are really small.
That was fun! Now lets go a few more steps on the same stripes so that it looks like we are getting somewhere with this popup making business. Lets make some stripes with text inbetween, this is where it's going to teach you about spaces as well as solids ect;
Now do this ctl+k12,12pctl+k8,8pctl+k4,4pctl+9,9pctl+k12,0Hello there all you nice people!ctl+k9,9pctl+k4,4pctl+k8,8pctl+12,12p
This is using the p again so that the stripes are nice and thick, then also we are going to put a blue text on a white background for a nice change. When you do the text area, it's always the first number that is the text and the second number is the background color your wanting, which once again, looks like this in the command bar.
And then how it looks when you send it
Well ya know, thats not that bad, but I sort of think that it would look a little better if there was black stripes outlinning the other stripes ... ya know, to make it sort of stand out a bit.. lets do it!
This would be how you would type it out, using the p again with the stripe, but this time adding the period/dot to make real narrow lines of black.
And again the way it looks with the black inbetween, thats a little better don't you think?
Ok now finnish it off.
Ok call me fussy if you want, but one more thing is bothering me, if you look at it closely, see how the message is to close to the stripes? I don't really like that, I want people to be able to read what I have to say, so by typing in a little extra we can accomlish this (this time I will just type in k instead of ctl+k) k12,12pk1,1.k8,8pk1,1.k4,4pk1,1.9,9p0,0pk12,0Hello all you nice people!k0,0pk1,1.k9,9pk1,1.k4,4pk8,8pk1,1.k12,12pk1,1. This gives a space on each side of the message and this is done by making another un-noticeable stripe of white, because the background is white, you do not notice that it's making another stripe. I also placed a little extra in on ya..LOL I put in a b on the starting to make it compleate with bold.
Here is the compleated results.
You and I are a teem, I feel we did a terrific job at this popup, I am very impressed, so NOW would be a time to save it in the aliases, so it will be there when you are wanting to play it to other nice people like yourself. Go to Aliases, click on 'add' you will see it there, name the popup, then click the checkmark.. NOTE: Always click that checkmark to close aliases, get in the habit of doing that, or your aliases may some day disappear. then to play to room, just type /thename. Good for you, your now well on your way, the sky is the limit with popups, and everyone is unique.
CUSTOMIZE PIRCH DESKTOP:
On the top you will see
the icon called 'Options' click on that and pick 'colors', you can
make your screen any color you want ( note: I found the best
color for my screen to see the true colors of popups is grey) but
some have mentioned they like white best, yet to me that seems to
wash out the colors of the popups, it's your chose here. To chose
to change it, highlight background color from the left list,
right away there is a FG that goes on a color, this is showing you the
color you have on the background sceen now, chose your colors
till you find whats best for you, white is also so hard on the
eyes I found. As you can see from highlighting anything else in
there is for notices, parts and so forth to make it what ever
color you wish it to be, play around in here. Now chose 'Desktop options' right
now just starting off with Pirch, you have this interesting but
boring white background, it sort of looks like wrinkled wall
paper, yes that one, when you first come in, as soon as you open
up pirch you see it, this can be changed to any picture you want
there. To do this it's sort of like customizing your computer
desktop.. Where it says 'Wallpaper' hit the drop down key, this will bring up a
dialog box you chose the picture, pictures for pirch should be in
either your downloads in Pirch files, or just in pirch98 folder,
these will be listed as .bmp's
Here you can see I have
chosen my background and it's called
ptb_colr.bmp, it is showing me a
picture on the right of what it will look like, you can chose the
Layout as
being either, Tiled, or centered. You should have many other
pictures to choose from, try your own picture even, as long as
it's in .bmp format it should work.
NEVADAGOLD HELPERS:
When your on-line in
nevadagold, and there is some commands your having trouble with
remembering ect: just type in /help op and type in what your
needing help with like so: /HELPOPS<MESSAGE> your needing help to make a room of your own,
type in: /helpop please help me to make a room, someone on-line
will come to you to help you right away.
THE WHO IS COMMAND:
How to tell if someone
is on-line other then the notify feature, this way you can find
out the room they are in, type in /whois
nickname here.
SOMETHING YOU WANT TO
SEE HERE?:
I am open to what you
need to know, if you would like to see something here that your
wanting to know about Pirch, please enter into my guestbook,
there is two guestbooks on my site, one is on the 'My Popups' page,
the other is on the page called 'About
Me' In the comments area tell me
what your wanting to see on this site, and I will do my BEST to
do it for you. You also know that I chat in nevadagold.net, so
when I am on-line come to me, I am easy to get along with (really
. . . LOL ) just come to me and tell me you seen my site, and
HELP me with something coolbreeze! LOL, I would be glad to help
you. I am on-line usually in either my room #a-moms-and-dads-chat
or in #nevadagrand.
Now that you know a bit, how about some free popups? go to the next page for that, some I made myself like the mood'0'meter, hearts, some one liners like m is for mothers not maid, also some of the friends are the special blends, some christian popups, others I just copied.. called stealing in pirch, but it's not really stealing, cause everyone is helpful on pirch, and wanting to share their popups with you.
NOTE: If you liked this page, and want to see more help with Pirch, then e-mail me, or place that you wish more help with pirch in my guestbook.
