3 <h3>To new Irssi users (not to new IRC users ..)</h3>
5 <p>Copyright (c) 2000-2002 by Timo Sirainen</p>
8 <p>Index with some FAQ questions that are answered in the chapter:</p>
11 <li><a href="#c1">For all the lazy people</a></li>
13 <li>This window management is just weird, I want it exactly like ircII</li>
15 <li><a href="#c2">Basic user interface usage</a>
17 <li>Split windows work in weird way</li>
19 <li><a href="#c3">Server and channel automation</a>
21 <li>How do I automatically connect to servers at startup?</li>
22 <li>How do I automatically join to channels at startup?</li>
24 <li><a href="#c4">Setting up windows and automatically restoring them
26 <li><a href="#c5">Status and msgs windows & message levels</a>
28 <li>I want /WHOIS to print reply to current window</li>
29 <li>I want all messages to go to one window, not create new windows</li>
31 <li><a href="#c6">How support for multiple servers works in irssi</a>
33 <li>I connected to some server that doesn't respond and now irssi
34 keeps trying to reconnect to it again and again, how can I stop
36 <li>I want to have own status and/or msgs window for each servers</li>
38 <li><a href="#c7">/LASTLOG and jumping around in scrollback</a>
40 <li>How can I save all texts in a window to file?</li>
42 <li><a href="#c8">Logging</a></li>
43 <li><a href="#c9">Changing keyboard bindings</a>
45 <li>How do I make F1 key do something?</li>
47 <li><a href="#c10">Proxies and IRC bouncers</a>
49 <li>What's this irssi-proxy?</li>
51 <li><a href="#c11">Irssi's settings</a></li>
52 <li><a href="#c12">Statusbar</a>
54 <li>I loaded a statusbar script but it's not visible anywhere!</li>
58 <h3><a id="c1">1. For all the lazy people</a></h3>
60 <p>These settings should give you pretty good defaults (the ones I use):</p>
62 <p>If colors don't work, and you know you're not going to use some
63 weird non-VT compatible terminal (you most probably aren't), just
67 /SET term_force_colors ON
70 <p>I don't like automatic query windows, I don't like status window, I do
71 like msgs window where all messages go:</p>
74 /SET autocreate_own_query OFF
75 /SET autocreate_query_level DCCMSGS
76 /SET use_status_window OFF
77 /SET use_msgs_window ON
80 <p>Disable automatic window closing when /PARTing channel or /UNQUERYing
84 /SET autoclose_windows OFF
85 /SET reuse_unused_windows ON
88 <p>Here's the settings that make irssi work exactly like ircII in window
89 management (send me a note if you can think of more):</p>
92 /SET autocreate_own_query OFF
93 /SET autocreate_query_level NONE
94 /SET use_status_window OFF
95 /SET use_msgs_window OFF
96 /SET reuse_unused_windows ON
97 /SET windows_auto_renumber OFF
99 /SET autostick_split_windows OFF
100 /SET autoclose_windows OFF
101 /SET print_active_channel ON
104 <p>And example how to add servers:</p>
106 <p>(openprojects network, identify with nickserv and wait for 2 seconds before
107 joining channels)</p>
110 /IRCNET ADD -autosendcmd "/^msg nickserv ident pass;wait -opn 2000" opn
113 <p>Then add some servers to different networks (ircnet is already set up
114 for them), irc.kpnqwest.fi is used by default for IRCNet but if it fails,
115 irc.funet.fi is tried next:</p>
118 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet irc.kpnqwest.fi 6667
119 /SERVER ADD -ircnet ircnet irc.funet.fi 6667
120 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet efnet efnet.cs.hut.fi 6667
123 <p>Automatically join to channels after connected to server, send op request
124 to bot after joined to efnet/#irssi:</p>
127 /CHANNEL ADD -auto #irssi ircnet
128 /CHANNEL ADD -auto -bots *!*bot@host.org -botcmd "/^msg $0 op pass"
132 If you want lines containing your nick to hilight:
138 <h3><a id="c2">2. Basic user interface usage</a></h3>
140 <p>Windows can be scrolled up/down with PgUp and PgDown keys. If they don't
141 work for you, use Meta-p and Meta-n keys. For jumping to beginning or end of
142 the buffer, use /SB HOME and /SB END commands.</p>
144 <p>By default, irssi uses "hidden windows" for everything. Hidden
145 window is created every time you /JOIN a channel or /QUERY someone.
146 There's several ways you can change between these windows:</p>
149 Meta-1, Meta-2, .. Meta-0 - Jump directly between windows 1-10
150 Meta-q .. Meta-o - Jump directly between windows 11-19
151 /WINDOW <number> - Jump to any window with specified number
152 Ctrl-P, Ctrl-N - Jump to previous / next window
155 <p>Clearly the easiest way is to use Meta-number keys. And what is the Meta
156 key? For some terminals, it's the same as ALT. If you have Windows keyboard,
157 it's probably the left Windows key. If they don't work directly, you'll need
158 to set a few X resources (NOTE: these work with both xterm and rxvt):</p>
161 XTerm*eightBitInput: false
162 XTerm*metaSendsEscape: true
165 <p>With rxvt, you can also specify which key acts as Meta key. So if you
166 want to use ALT instead of Windows key for it, use:</p>
172 <p>You could do this by changing the X key mappings:</p>
175 xmodmap -e "keysym Alt_L = Meta_L Alt_L"
178 <p>And how exactly do you set these X resources? For Debian, there's
179 /etc/X11/Xresources/xterm file where you can put them and it's read
180 automatically when X starts. ~/.Xresources and ~/.Xdefaults files might also
181 work. If you can't get anything else to work, just copy&paste those lines to
182 ~/.Xresources and directly call "xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources" in some xterm.
183 The resources affect only the new xterms you start, not existing ones.</p>
185 <p>Many windows SSH clients also don't allow usage of ALT. One excellent
186 client that does allow is putty, you can download it from
187 <a href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/">
188 http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/</a>.</p>
190 <p>Irssi also supports split windows, they've had some problems in past
191 but I think they should work pretty well now :) Here's some commands
195 /WINDOW NEW - Create new split window
196 /WINDOW NEW HIDE - Create new hidden window
197 /WINDOW CLOSE - Close split or hidden window
199 /WINDOW HIDE [<number>|<name>] - Make the split window hidden window
200 /WINDOW SHOW <number>|<name> - Make the hidden window a split window
202 /WINDOW SHRINK [<lines>] - Shrink the split window
203 /WINDOW GROW [<lines>] - Grow the split window
204 /WINDOW BALANCE - Balance the sizes of all split windows
207 <p>By default, irssi uses "sticky windowing" for split windows. This means
208 that windows created inside one split window cannot be moved to another
209 split window without some effort. For example you could have following
213 Split window 1: win#1 - Status window, win#2 - Messages window
214 Split window 2: win#3 - ircnet/#channel1, win#4 - ircnet/#channel2
215 Split window 3: win#5 - efnet/#channel1, win#6 - efnet/#channel2
218 <p>When you are in win#1 and press ALT-6, irssi jumps to split window
219 #3 and moves the efnet/#channel2 the active window.</p>
221 <p>With non-sticky windowing the windows don't have any relationship with
222 split windows, pressing ALT-6 in win#1 moves win#6 to split window 1
223 and sets it active, except if win#6 was already visible in some other
224 split window irssi just changes to that split window. This it the way
225 windows work with ircii, if you prefer it you can set it with</p>
228 /SET autostick_split_windows OFF
231 <p>Each window can have multiple channels, queries and other "window
232 items" inside them. If you don't like windows at all, you disable
233 automatic creating of them with</p>
236 /SET autocreate_windows OFF
239 <p>And if you keep all channels in one window, you most probably want
240 the channel name printed in each line:</p>
243 /SET print_active_channel ON
246 <p>If you want to group only some channels or queries in one window,
250 /JOIN -window #channel
254 <h3><a id="c3">3. Server and channel automation</a></h3>
256 <p>Irssi's multiple IRC network support is IMHO very good - at least
257 compared to other clients :) Even if you're only in one IRC network you
258 should group all your servers to be in the same IRC network as this
259 helps with reconnecting if your primary server breaks and is probably
260 useful in some other ways too :) For information how to actually use
261 irssi correctly with multiple servers see the chapter 6.</p>
263 <p>First you need to have your IRC network set, use /IRCNET command to
264 see if it's already there. If it isn't, use /IRCNET ADD yourircnet. To
265 make Irssi work properly with different IRC networks, you might need to
266 give some special settings to /IRCNET ADD, see manual.txt for more
267 information about them. Irssi defaults to IRCNet's behaviour.</p>
269 <p>After that you need to add your servers. For example:</p>
272 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet irc.kpnqwest.fi 6667
273 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet worknet irc.mycompany.com 6667 password
276 <p>The -auto option specifies that this server is automatically connected
277 at startup. You don't need to make more than one server with -auto
278 option to one IRC network, other servers are automatically connected in
279 same network if the -auto server fails.</p>
281 <p>And finally channels:</p>
284 /CHANNEL ADD -auto -bots *!*bot@host.org -botcmd "/^msg $0 op pass"
286 /CHANNEL ADD -auto #secret ircnet password
289 <p>-bots and -botcmd should be the only ones needing a bit of
290 explaining. They're used to send commands automatically to bot when
291 channel is joined, usually to get ops automatically. You can specify
292 multiple bot masks with -bots option separated with spaces (and
293 remember to quote the string then). The $0 in -botcmd specifies the
294 first found bot in the list. If you don't need the bot masks (ie. the
295 bot is always with the same nick, like chanserv) you can give only the
296 -botcmd option and the command is always sent.</p>
299 <h3><a id="c4">4. Setting up windows and automatically restoring them at startup</a></h3>
301 <p>First connect to all the servers, join the channels and create the
302 queries you want. If you want to move the windows or channels around
306 /WINDOW MOVE LEFT/RIGHT/number - move window elsewhere
307 /WINDOW ITEM MOVE <number>|<name> - move channel/query to another window
310 <p>When everything looks the way you like, use /LAYOUT SAVE command
311 (and /SAVE, if you don't have autosaving enabled) and when you start
312 irssi next time, irssi remembers the positions of the channels, queries
313 and everything. This "remembering" doesn't mean that simply using
314 /LAYOUT SAVE would automatically make irssi reconnect to all servers
315 and join all channels, you'll need the /SERVER ADD -auto and /CHANNEL
316 ADD -auto commands to do that.</p>
318 <p>If you want to change the layout, you just rearrange the layout like
319 you want it and use /LAYOUT SAVE again. If you want to remove the
320 layout for some reason, use /LAYOUT RESET.</p>
323 <h3><a id="c5">5. Status and msgs windows & message levels</a></h3>
325 <p>By default, all the "extra messages" go to status window. This means
326 pretty much all messages that don't clearly belong to some channel or
327 query. Some people like it, some don't. If you want to remove it, use</p>
330 /SET use_status_window OFF
333 <p>This doesn't have any effect until you restart irssi. If you want to
334 remove it immediately, just /WINDOW CLOSE it.</p>
336 <p>Another common window is "messages window", where all private
337 messages go. By default it's disabled and query windows are created
338 instead. To make all private messages go to msgs window, say:</p>
341 /SET use_msgs_window ON
342 /SET autocreate_query_level DCCMSGS (or if you don't want queries to
343 dcc chats either, say NONE)
346 <p>use_msgs_window either doesn't have any effect until restarting
347 irssi. To create it immediately say:</p>
350 /WINDOW NEW HIDE - create the window
351 /WINDOW NAME (msgs) - name it to "(msgs)"
352 /WINDOW LEVEL MSGS - make all private messages go to this window
353 /WINDOW MOVE 1 - move it to first window
356 <p>Note that neither use_msgs_window nor use_status_window have any
357 effect at all if /LAYOUT SAVE has been used.</p>
359 <p>This brings us to message levels.. What are they? All messages that
360 irssi prints have one or more "message levels". Most common are PUBLIC
361 for public messages in channels, MSGS for private messages and CRAP for
362 all sorts of messages with no real classification. You can get a whole
363 list of levels with</p>
369 <p>Status window has message level "ALL -MSGS", meaning that all messages,
370 except private messages, without more specific place go to status
371 window. The -MSGS is there so it doesn't conflict with messages
375 <h3><a id="c6">6. How support for multiple servers works in irssi</a></h3>
377 <p>ircii and several other clients support multiple servers by placing
378 the connection into some window. IRSSI DOES NOT. There is no required
379 relationship between window and server. You can connect to 10 servers
380 and manage them all in just one window, or join channel in each one of
381 them to one sigle window if you really want to. That being said, here's
382 how you do connect to new server without closing the old connection:</p>
385 /CONNECT irc.server.org
388 <p>Instead of the /SERVER which disconnects the existing connection. To
389 see list of all active connections, use /SERVER without any parameters.
390 You should see a list of something like:</p>
393 -!- IRCNet: irc.song.fi:6667 (IRCNet)
394 -!- OPN: tolkien.openprojects.net:6667 (OPN)
395 -!- RECON-1: 192.168.0.1:6667 () (02:59 left before reconnecting)
398 <p>Here you see that we're connected to IRCNet and OPN networks. The
399 the IRCNet at the beginning is called the "server tag" while the
400 (IRCnet) at the end shows the IRC network. Server tag specifies unique
401 tag to refer to the server, usually it's the same as the IRC network.
402 When the IRC network isn't known it's some part of the server name.
403 When there's multiple connections to same IRC network or server, irssi
404 adds a number after the tag so there could be ircnet, ircnet2, ircnet3
407 <p>Server tags beginning with RECON- mean server reconnections. Above we
408 see that connection to server at 192.168.0.1 wasn't successful and
409 irssi will try to connect it again in 3 minutes.</p>
411 <p>To disconnect one of the servers, or to stop irssi from
412 reconnecting, use</p>
415 /DISCONNECT ircnet - disconnect server with tag "ircnet"
416 /DISCONNECT recon-1 - stop trying to reconnect to RECON-1 server
417 /RMRECONNS - stop all server reconnections
419 /RECONNECT recon-1 - immediately try reconnecting back to RECON-1
420 /RECONNECT ALL - immediately try reconnecting back to all
421 servers in reconnection queue
424 <p>Now that you're connected to all your servers, you'll have to know how
425 to specify which one of them you want to use. One way is to have an
426 empty window, like status or msgs window. In it, you can specify which
427 server to set active with</p>
430 /WINDOW SERVER tag - set server "tag" active
431 Ctrl-X - set the next server in list active
434 <p>When the server is active, you can use it normally. When there's
435 multiple connected servers, irssi adds [servertag] prefix to all
436 messages in non-channel/query messages so you'll know where it came
439 <p>Several commands also accept -servertag option to specify which server
443 /MSG -tag nick message
448 <p>/MSG tab completion also automatically adds the -tag option when
449 nick isn't in active server.</p>
451 <p>Window's server can be made sticky. When sticky, it will never
452 automatically change to anything else, and if server gets disconnected, the
453 window won't have any active server. When the server gets connected again,
454 it is automatically set active in the window. To set the window's server
458 /WINDOW SERVER -sticky tag
461 <p>This is useful if you wish to have multiple status or msgs windows, one
462 for each server. Here's how to do them (repeat for each server)</p>
466 /WINDOW NAME (status)
467 /WINDOW LEVEL ALL -MSGS
468 /WINDOW SERVER -sticky ircnet
473 /WINDOW SERVER -sticky ircnet
476 <h3><a id="c7">7. /LASTLOG and jumping around in scrollback</a></h3>
478 <p>/LASTLOG command can be used for searching texts in scrollback
479 buffer. Simplest usages are</p>
482 /LASTLOG word - print all lines with "word" in them
483 /LASTLOG word 10 - print last 10 occurances of "word"
484 /LASTLOG -topics - print all topic changes
487 <p>If there's more than 1000 lines to be printed, irssi thinks that you
488 probably made some mistake and won't print them without -force option.
489 If you want to save the full lastlog to file, use</p>
492 /LASTLOG -file ~/irc.log
495 <p>With -file option you don't need -force even if there's more than 1000
496 lines. /LASTLOG has a lot of other options too, see /HELP lastlog for
499 <p>Once you've found the lines you were interested in, you might want
500 to check the discussion around them. Irssi has /SCROLLBACK (or alias
501 /SB) command for jumping around in scrollback buffer. Since /LASTLOG
502 prints the timestamp when the message was originally printed, you can
503 use /SB GOTO hh:mm to jump directly there. To get back to the bottom of
504 scrollback, use /SB END command.</p>
507 <h3><a id="c8">8. Logging</a></h3>
509 <p>Irssi can automatically log important messages when you're set away
510 (/AWAY reason). When you set yourself unaway (/AWAY), the new messages
511 in away log are printed to screen. You can configure it with:</p>
514 /SET awaylog_level MSGS HILIGHT - Specifies what messages to log
515 /SET awaylog_file ~/.irssi/away.log - Specifies the file to use
518 <p>Easiest way to start logging with Irssi is to use autologging. With it
519 Irssi logs all channels and private messages to specified directory.
520 You can turn it on with</p>
526 <p>By default it logs pretty much everything execept CTCPS or CRAP
527 (/WHOIS requests, etc). You can specify the logging level yourself with</p>
530 /SET autolog_level ALL -CRAP -CLIENTCRAP -CTCPS (this is the default)
533 <p>By default irssi logs to ~/irclogs/<servertag>/<target>.log.
534 You can change this with</p>
537 /SET autolog_path ~/irclogs/$tag/$0.log (this is the default)
540 <p>The path is automatically created if it doesn't exist. $0 specifies
541 the target (channel/nick). You can make irssi automatically rotate the
542 logs by adding date/time formats to the file name. The formats are in
543 "man strftime" format. For example</p>
546 /SET autolog_path ~/irclogs/%Y/$tag/$0.%m-%d.log
549 <p>For logging only some specific channels or nicks, see /HELP log</p>
552 <h3><a id="c9">9. Changing keyboard bindings</a></h3>
554 <p>You can change any keyboard binding that terminal lets irssi know
555 about. It doesn't let irssi know everything, so for example
556 shift-backspace can't be bound unless you modify xterm resources
559 <p>/HELP bind tells pretty much everything there is to know about
560 keyboard bindings. However, there's the problem of how to bind some
561 non-standard keys. They might differ a bit with each terminal, so
562 you'll need to find out what exactly the keypress produces. Easiest
563 way to check that would be to see what it prints in "cat". Here's
564 an example for pressing F1 key:</p>
571 <p>So in irssi you would use /BIND ^[OP /ECHO F1 pressed. If you use
572 multiple terminals which have different bindings for the key, it would
573 be better to use eg.:</p>
578 /BIND F1 /ECHO F1 pressed.
581 <h3><a id="c10">10. Proxies and IRC bouncers</a></h3>
583 <p>Irssi supports connecting to IRC servers via a proxy. All server
584 connections are then made through it, and if you've set up everything
585 properly, you don't need to do any /QUOTE SERVER commands manually.</p>
587 <p>Here's an example: You have your bouncer (lets say, BNC or BNC-like)
588 listening in irc.bouncer.org port 5000. You want to use it to connect
589 to servers irc.dalnet and irc.efnet.org. First you'd need to setup the
594 /SET proxy_address irc.bouncer.org
597 /SET proxy_password YOUR_BNC_PASSWORD_HERE
598 /SET -clear proxy_string
599 /SET proxy_string_after conn %s %d
602 <p>Then you'll need to add the server connections. These are done
603 exactly as if you'd want to connect directly to them. Nothing special
607 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet dalnet irc.dal.net
608 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet efnet irc.efnet.org
611 <p>With the proxy /SETs however, irssi now connects to those servers
612 through your BNC. All server connections are made through them so you
613 can just forget that your bouncer even exists.</p>
615 <p>If you don't want to use the proxy for some reason, there's -noproxy
616 option which you can give to /SERVER and /SERVER ADD commands.</p>
618 <p><strong>Proxy specific settings:</strong></p>
620 <p>All proxies have these settings in common:</p>
624 /SET proxy_address <Proxy host address>
625 /SET proxy_port <Proxy port>
628 <p><strong>HTTP proxy</strong></p>
630 <p>Use these settings with HTTP proxies:</p>
633 /SET -clear proxy_password
634 /EVAL SET proxy_string CONNECT %s:%d\n\n
637 <p><strong>BNC</strong></p>
640 /SET proxy_password your_pass
641 /SET -clear proxy_string
642 /SET proxy_string_after conn %s %d
645 <p><strong>dircproxy</strong></p>
647 <p>dircproxy separates the server connections by passwords. So, if you
648 for example have ircnet connection with password ircpass and
649 openprojects connection with opnpass, you would do something like
653 /SET -clear proxy_password
654 /SET -clear proxy_string
656 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet fake.ircnet 6667 ircpass
657 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet opn fake.opn 6667 opnpass
660 <p>The server name and port you give isn't used anywhere, so you can
661 put anything you want in there.</p>
663 <p><strong>psyBNC</strong></p>
665 <p>psyBNC has internal support for multiple servers. However, it could
666 be a bit annoying to use, and some people just use different users for
667 connecting to different servers. You can manage this in a bit same way
668 as with dircproxy, by creating fake connections:</p>
671 /SET -clear proxy_password
672 /SET -clear proxy_string
674 /IRCNET ADD -user ircnetuser ircnet
675 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet fake.ircnet 6667 ircpass
676 /IRCNET ADD -user opnuser opn
677 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet opn fake.opn 6667 opnpass
680 <p>So, you'll specify the usernames with /IRCNET ADD command, and the
681 user's password with /SERVER ADD.</p>
683 <p><strong>Irssi proxy</strong></p>
685 <p>Irssi contains it's own proxy which you can build giving
686 <strong>--with-proxy</strong> option to configure. You'll still need to run
687 irssi in a screen to use it though.</p>
689 <p>Irssi proxy is a bit different than most proxies, normally proxies
690 create a new connection to IRC server when you connect to it, but
691 <strong>irssi proxy shares your existing IRC connection(s) to multiple
692 clients</strong>.</p>
694 <p>Irssi proxy supports sharing multiple server connections in different
695 ports, like you can share ircnet in port 2777 and efnet in port 2778.</p>
697 <p>Usage in proxy side:</p>
701 /SET irssiproxy_password <password>
702 /SET irssiproxy_ports <ircnet>=<port> ... (eg. ircnet=2777 efnet=2778)
705 <p><strong>NOTE</strong>: you <strong>MUST</strong> add all the servers you
706 are using to server and ircnet lists with /SERVER ADD and /IRCNET ADD.
707 ..Except if you really don't want to for some reason, and you only use
708 one server connection, you may simply set:</p>
711 /SET irssiproxy_ports *=2777
714 <p>Usage in client side:</p>
716 <p>Just connect to the irssi proxy like it is a normal server with password
717 specified in /SET irssiproxy_password. For example:</p>
720 /SERVER ADD -ircnet ircnet my.irssi-proxy.org 2777 secret
721 /SERVER ADD -ircnet efnet my.irssi-proxy.org 2778 secret
724 <p>Irssi proxy works fine with other IRC clients as well.</p>
726 <p><strong>SOCKS</strong></p>
728 Irssi can be compiled with socks support (<strong>--with-socks</strong>
729 option to configure), but I don't really know how it works, if at all. /SET
730 proxy settings don't have anything to do with socks however.
732 <p><strong>Others</strong></p>
734 <p>IRC bouncers usually work like IRC servers, and want a password. You can
738 /SET proxy_password <password>
741 <p>Irssi's defaults for connect strings are</p>
744 /SET proxy_string CONNECT %s %d
745 /SET proxy_string_after
748 <p>The proxy_string is sent before NICK/USER commands, the
749 proxy_string_after is sent after them. %s and %d can be used with both
752 <h3><a id="c11">11. Irssi's settings</a></h3>
754 <p>You probably don't like Irssi's default settings. I don't like them.
755 But I'm still convinced that they're pretty good defaults. Here's some
756 of them you might want to change (the default value is shown):</p>
758 <p><strong>Queries</strong></p>
761 <dt>/SET autocreate_own_query ON</dt>
762 <dd>Should new query window be created when you send message to someone
765 <dt>/SET autocreate_query_level MSGS</dt>
766 <dd>New query window should be created when receiving messages with
767 this level. MSGS, DCCMSGS and NOTICES levels work currently. You can
768 disable this with /SET -clear autocrate_query_level.</dd>
770 <dt>/SET autoclose_query 0</dt>
771 <dd>Query windows can be automatically closed after certain time of
772 inactivity. Queries with unread messages aren't closed and active
773 window is neither never closed. The value is given in seconds.</dd>
776 <p><strong>Windows</strong></p>
779 <dt>/SET use_msgs_window OFF</dt>
780 <dd>Create messages window at startup. All private messages go to this
781 window. This only makes sense if you've disabled automatic query
782 windows. Message window can also be created manually with /WINDOW LEVEL
783 MSGS, /WINDOW NAME (msgs).</dd>
785 <dt>/SET use_status_window ON</dt>
786 <dd>Create status window at startup. All messages that don't really
787 have better place go here, like all /WHOIS replies etc. Status window
788 can also be created manually with /WINDOW LEVEL ALL -MSGS, /WINDOW NAME
791 <dt>/SET autocreate_windows ON</dt>
792 <dd>Should we create new windows for new window items or just place
793 everything in one window</dd>
795 <dt>/SET autoclose_windows ON</dt>
796 <dd>Should window be automatically closed when the last item in them is
797 removed (ie. /PART, /UNQUERY).</dd>
799 <dt>/SET reuse_unused_windows OFF</dt>
800 <dd>When finding where to place new window item (channel, query) Irssi
801 first tries to use already existing empty windows. If this is set ON,
802 new window will always be created for all window items. This setting is
803 ignored if autoclose_windows is set ON.</dd>
805 <dt>/SET window_auto_change OFF</dt>
806 <dd>Should Irssi automatically change to automatically created windows
807 - usually queries when someone sends you a message. To prevent
808 accidentally sending text meant to some other channel/nick, Irssi
809 clears the input buffer when changing the window. The text is still in
810 scrollback buffer, you can get it back with pressing arrow up key.</dd>
812 <dt>/SET print_active_channel OFF</dt>
813 <dd>When you keep more than one channel in same window, Irssi prints
814 the messages coming to active channel as "<nick> text"
815 and other channels as "<nick:channel> text". If this
816 setting is set ON, the messages to active channels are also printed in
819 <dt>/SET window_history OFF</dt>
820 <dd>Should command history be kept separate for each window.</dd>
824 <p><strong>User information</strong></p>
828 <dd>Your nick name</dd>
830 <dt>/SET alternate_nick</dt>
831 <dd>Your alternate nick.</dd>
833 <dt>/SET user_name</dt>
834 <dd>Your username, if you have ident enabled this doesn't affect
837 <dt>/SET real_name</dt>
838 <dd>Your real name.</dd>
842 <p><strong>Server information</strong></p>
845 <dt>/SET skip_motd OFF</dt>
846 <dd>Should we hide server's MOTD (Message Of The Day).</dd>
848 <dt>/SET server_reconnect_time 300</dt>
849 <dd>Seconds to wait before connecting to same server again. Don't set
850 this too low since it usually doesn't help at all - if the host is
851 down, the few extra minutes of waiting won't hurt much.</dd>
853 <dt>/SET lag_max_before_disconnect 300</dt>
854 <dd>Maximum server lag in seconds before disconnecting and trying to
855 reconnect. This happens mostly only when network breaks between you and
860 <p><strong>Appearance</strong></p>
863 <dt>/SET timestamps ON</dt>
864 <dd>Show timestamps before each message.</dd>
866 <dt>/SET hide_text_style OFF</dt>
867 <dd>Hide all bolds, underlines, MIRC colors, etc.</dd>
869 <dt>/SET show_nickmode ON</dt>
870 <dd>Show the nick's mode before nick in channels, ie. ops have
871 <@nick>, voices <+nick> and others < nick></dd>
873 <dt>/SET show_nickmode_empty ON</dt>
874 <dd>If the nick doesn't have a mode, use one space. ie. ON:
875 < nick>, OFF: <nick></dd>
877 <dt>/SET show_quit_once OFF</dt>
878 <dd>Show quit message only once in some of the channel windows the
879 nick was in instead of in all windows.</dd>
881 <dt>/SET lag_min_show 100</dt>
882 <dd>Show the server lag in status bar if it's bigger than this, the
883 unit is 1/100 of seconds (ie. the default value of 100 = 1 second).</dd>
885 <dt>/SET indent 10</dt>
886 <dd>When lines are longer than screen width they have to be split to
887 multiple lines. This specifies how much space to put at the beginning
888 of the line before the text begins. This can be overridden in text
889 formats with %| format.</dd>
891 <dt>/SET activity_hide_targets</dt>
892 <dd>If you don't want to see window activity in some certain channels
893 or queries, list them here. For example "#boringchannel =bot1 =bot2".
894 If any highlighted text or message for you appears in that window, this
895 setting is ignored and the activity is shown.</dd>
898 <p><strong>Nick completion</strong></p>
901 <dt>/SET completion_auto OFF</dt>
902 <dd>Automatically complete the nick if line begins with start of nick
903 and the completion character. Learn to use the tab-completion instead,
904 it's a lot better ;)</dd>
906 <dt>/SET completion_char :</dt>
907 <dd>Completion character to use.</dd>
910 <h3><a id="c12">12. Statusbar</a></h3>
912 <p><strong>/STATUSBAR</strong> displays a list of statusbars:</p>
915 Name Type Placement Position Visible
916 window window bottom 0 always
917 window_inact window bottom 1 inactive
918 prompt root bottom 100 always
919 topic root top 1 always
922 <p><strong>/STATUSBAR <name></strong> prints the statusbar
923 settings and it's items. <strong>/STATUSBAR <name>
924 ENABLE|DISABLE</strong> enables/disables the statusbar.
925 <strong>/STATUSBAR <name> RESET</strong> resets the statusbar to
926 it's default settings, or if the statusbar was created by you, it will be
929 <p>Type can be window or root, meaning if the statusbar should be
930 created for each split window, or just once. Placement can be top or
931 bottom. Position is a number, the higher the value the lower in screen
932 it is. Visible can be always, active or inactive. Active/inactive is
933 useful only with split windows, one split window is active and the rest
934 are inactive. These settings can be changed with:</p>
937 <li>STATUSBAR <name> TYPE window|root</li>
938 <li>STATUSBAR <name> PLACEMENT top|bottom</li>
939 <li>STATUSBAR <name> POSITION <num></li>
940 <li>STATUSBAR <name> VISIBLE always|active|inactive</li>
943 <p>When loading a new statusbar scripts, you'll need to also specify
944 where you want to show it. Statusbar items can be modified with:</p>
947 <li>10:52 STATUSBAR <name> ADD [-before | -after <item>] [-priority #] [-alignment left|right] <item></li>
948 <li>10:52 STATUSBAR <name> REMOVE <item></li>
951 <p>The item name with statusbar scripts is usually same as the script's
952 name. Script's documentation should tell if this isn't the case. So, to
953 add mail.pl before the window activity item (see the list with
954 /STATUSBAR window), use: <strong>/STATUSBAR window ADD -before act