HydraIRC, like I said before, this is my preferred client of choice.
It’s slightly more pleasant to the eye compared to mIRC in my opinion, I haven’t a clue about mIRC’s scripting so I don’t need it, so, I use hydra.
Currently I’m using v0.3.138, it is the most stable beta so far, that’s why it was approved for the website so it can be downloaded by the masses rather than just me, and others like me who idle, and occasionally help in #hydrairc on EFnet.
OK, I’m guessing you’ve downloaded the installer; you’re not simple so you’re perfectly capable of installing it for yourself.
Now, when you’re all done installing it open it up, you’ll be presented with a pop up saying: “You currently have no identities, would you like to create one now?”
Click “yes” and carry on.
I’m going to explain this using myself as the example for nick’s and so on.
Next, you will be presented with the preference’s screen, click “New”.
Under identity, type something like: Jim, default, or identity 1. It’s completely up to you.
Real name: You could put your real name if you wanted, you could put a little note.
I like to put “Well done, you successfully /whois’d me.”
Username: Just put the nick you decided on, for me it’ll be “Jim”
Nick: This is the IRC nick you’re going to use; currently with the server change I’m using “Jimmothy” this is also where HydraIRC out does mIRC on a feature, in mIRC you have Nick and Alternate Nick, that is only two choices, if they’re both taken for some reason you have to manually decide on a nick. So, with Hyrda you can happily add your nick and as many variations you can think of.
- Jimmothy
- Jimmothy`
- Jimmothy_
- Jimmothy-
- \\Jimmothy
These all work, try them for yourself.
Identd username: I just put my nick or a different older nick, it shows up when someone /whois’ you so it can be helpful to others if you’re having fun playing along with your nick changes (You know it’s gonna happen eventually)
Identd OS: I’m on XP so I type just that, you can leave this blank if you want.
While we’re still on the settings page we might as well set a few other things.
Go to the ‘misc’ option, you don’t need to touch half of these, it’s more a choice thing.
- Identd OS: leave it.
- Identd username: Set it to whatever you set it earlier.
- Time stamp: Leave it.
- Window time stamp. As default it’ll currently show as “[20:00]” I personally like having the seconds showing so change it from ‘[%H:%M]’ to ‘[%H:%M%S]’
- Default identity: Leave it.
- Jump to Nick completion suffix: I like to leave it with, but others like : , - , _ ,| , and ~, it’s completely up to you.
- Booleans, jump all the way down here and have a play, you don’t need to change much, and also, if you don’t feel comfortable just leave it.
- I have ‘minimise to systray’, ‘logging’, and ‘audio mute’ all set to true.
- Fonts: This is completely up to you as always, but I personally like to change the font size from 9 to 8, it just looks neater in my opinion.
Ok, now move on to “Command Profiles”, this is where all the auto joins’s, nick changes, ghost kills, and other useful commands can be made easier.
First, where it says ‘<<>>’ type OnStartup, type it exactly like that, it’s case sensitive. Inside type /server irc.serverhere.com, I need kechara.sorcery.net so I’d type /server kechara.sorcery.net, if you want to join any other servers from start up on the next line type /newserver irc.serverhere.com.
For your next command profile type irc.servernameher.com_OnLoggedIn, same as last time, case sensitive, in need kechara.sorcery.net_OnLoggedIn.
Inside I would type:
/nick Jimmothy
/identify passwordhere
/j #w1khyjinx
/j #worth1000
Other command profiles you may want to add are, nick, afk, ghost, quit, part, etc
Create a profile called nick, inside type:
/nick nickhere
/identify passwordhere
Ghost.
Inside type
/msg nickserv ghost nick passwordhere
/nick yournick
AFK
Inside type
/nick yournick|afk (otherthings you may prefer include: yournick`afk, yournick|away, yournickAFK, etc)
Quit.
Inside type
/quit This is an example of a quit message.
To use any of these you simply type /exec nick, /exec afk. If you typed afk as, AFK, aFk, aFK, it doesn’t matter, to use them in the window you could type it in caps and it wouldn’t be a problem, it’s only the auto joins that need to be case sensitive.
Next you will need to set up some highlights, unlike mIRC each highlight has to be added separately, yeah, it’s a faff but worth it. Go to Notifications, you should be under All Networks/Default, click add and away you go. For me I have the following set:
- Hightlight: ‘Jimmothy’ Flash taskbar, check. BG colour to make it stand out.
- Hightlight: ‘Jimmothy,’ same as above.
- Hightlight: ‘Jimmothy-’ same as above.
- Highlight: ‘Jimmothy:’ same as above.
- Hightlight: ‘Jim’ same as above
Etc…
Buddy groups.
If you’re me you’ve met a series of people on IRC you consider friends, or you just want to be in a user list of your own, damn anti social folk.
Type the name of the group you want to create ‘friends’, ‘<3’,>
Also with your buddy list you can switch back over to highlights, and change the drop down to say the name of your new buddy list instead of ‘All Network/Defaults’ now you can add highlights with the peoples nick and a simple bit or extra text and you can have your friends talking in separate colours, I love this feature, it makes life easier, good way to separate your friends from the peasants.
To set this up simply go over to highlights, add the following, you’ll need a new highlight per nick:
- Highlight: (.)*nickhere(.)* set the FG colour to a colour of your choice and check ‘highlight whole line’
OK, now you’re done in preferences, sorry if that took a while, there isn’t much left to do and you’ll be ready to own IRC on a regular basis.
Click OK and it’ll bring up the welcome screen, like it says, press ctrl+S.
Here I’ll show you how to add a server, you may need this in future, and since kechara isn’t in by default I’ll use it as an example.
It’s obvious but click ‘Add Network’ enter Sorcery.NET and click OK, now click ‘Add Server’
- Description: Kechara
- Address/Port kechara.sorcery.net
- Network: Sorcery.NET
Simple enough. Also add cookie just in case.
- Description: Cookie
- Address/Port cookie.sorcery.net
- Network: Sorcery.NET
And now I’m pretty sure that is all you need to know, for some reason I feel like listing a few simple IRC commands, so I will.
- /nick nickhere
- /identify password
- /msg nickserv ghost nick password
- /ns info nickhere
- /whois nickhere
- /whowas nickhere
- /ctcp nickhere time
- /ctcp nickhere ping
- /ctcp nickhere version
- /quit Quit text
- /part Part text
- /uptime
- /sysinfo
- /topic topic here
- /mode #channelhere +v nickhere
- /mode #channelhere +o nickhere
- /mode #channelhere –v nickhere
- /mode #channelhere –o nickhere
That is all :)