imported irssi.

[silc.git] / apps / irssi / docs / manual.txt

 Irssi 0.8 documentation - http://irssi.org/

 Copyright(c) 2000 Timo Sirainen <tss@iki.fi>


 Index

        0. Generic babbling
        1. Installation
        2. Message levels
        3. Flood protection
        4. Configuration
        5. Servers
        6. Channels
        7. IRC commands and features
        8. Notify list
        9. Text highlighting
        10. Ignoring
        11. Logging

        ( not written yet: )
        12. Aliases
        13. Themes
        14. Last log (currently text version only)
        15. Nick and word completion
        16. Translation tables
        17. Windowing system (text version)
        18. Keyboard (text version)
        19. Perl scripting



 0. Generic babbling

 0.1 History

        Hello. I'm Timo Sirainen aka. cras, and I'm an IRC addict. :)

        I'm actually quite new in IRC, I got my first internet connection
        sometimes around fall 1997 and I started actively IRCing around
        christmas. I used EPIC and BitchX mostly at the start, but soon
        found some nice KDE IRC client which name I can't remember anymore.
        It's author however stopped developing it after I had been using it
        a few months. And since it had bugs and all, I wanted another nice
        GUI IRC client. I didn't find any.

        Since I've always been a coder and do-it-yourself guy (my own
        offline reader and BBS software in the BBS ages), I started my own
        IRC client at spring 1998. I called it yagIRC standing for "Yet
        another GTK IRC client". GTK was in around version 1.0 back then,
        and it had a lot of features/bugs which I found all the time as I
        tried to do some "different" things than other people. These
        sometimes prevented me of doing something some feature I wanted.

        So, in summer 1998 I went to army and I passed development of yagIRC
        to two guys, they did a few new features and released a version or
        two, but finally (in summer 1999?) they put a message to web page
        which told that they finally had stopped developing it entirely,
        also saying that my code was a total mess :) (yes, it was a mess)

        I got out of the army 1.1.1999. I promised to myself that I wouldn't
        do another IRC client, but after trying to use BitchX a while, I
        started dreaming about an IRC client which would have an excellent
        look and feel. After trying various things, I only came up with the
        GNOME panel applet which people still tell me that it's a great
        feature. I was more like thinking some pretty little icons in
        some corner telling me about new messages and other stuff..

        I thought that I would keep Irssi a small project, just doing a few
        little features that *I* wanted, nothing for others. But after few
        versions and few interested people, I started coding it more and
        more generic..

        Finally, after releasing version 0.6.0 (february, 1999) I realized
        that things were getting into a big mess again. I started a rewrite,
        I organized the code into irc-base, irc-extra, user interface and
        GUI directories, created the signalling system for letting them
        communicate themselves easily and released 0.7.0. This was the base
        for the rest of the 0.7.x releases, and it did work pretty well.
        The signalling system was excellent, for example creating text mode
        version was really easy and you didn't need tens of (empty) gui_xxx()
        functions like in the yagIRC days. Maintaining the text and GTK
        versions separately was really easy too.

        About a year later after releasing Irssi 0.7.0, I started having
        dreams about an IRC client that would be extremely modular, like you
        could upgrade the client to newer version ON THE FLY without needing
        to even disconnect from the servers. I started a project codenamed
        i2k, I took the code from Irssi, split it into more directories and
        changed quite a lot of the code to work a bit differently.

        I developed i2k quite a long, until I finally gave up with it since
        it could do only some basic things, and Irssi 0.7 really needed
        maintaining. After a while I got an idea, maybe I could merge the
        code from the i2k to Irssi more easily than rewriting the whole
        client. This was more easier than I thought. It's now been two
        months since I started it, and Irssi 0.8 is looking absolutely
        excellent.

 0.2 Irssi 0.8

        Irssi 0.8 is my fourth try to create the perfect IRC client.
        This time I'm concentrating to the code. I try to avoid kludges, I
        try to make as simple code as I can, and I try to provide enough
        easy to use functions so that extending Irssi is as simple as
        possible. I also try to keep the "bloat" features in scripts or
        modules instead of build-in.

        I think I'm succeeded with these goals pretty well, there's some
        small problems but everything in the big picture looks great.

 0.3 Future

        What about Irssi 1.0, what will it look like?

        I was thinking about the Linux kernel versioning and keeping
        Irssi 0.8 a stable version all the time while developing new
        features only to Irssi 0.9. After 0.9 is finished, it will be
        called 0.10 or 1.0 depending if I think it's ready to be called 1.0.

        1.0's goal is that it has all the possible features anyone will
        ever need. If not build-in, then in scripts or loadable modules.
        Not very small goal :)

 0.4 This documentation

        Strange, I just created the index list and started writing this.
        I've never been too good at documentation and I usually don't like
        writing it, but after coding so much recently and seeing that the
        NEWS file was getting *SO* large, I thought that I had to put all
        these features down somewhere so people (and me!) would find them.


 1. Installation

 1.1 Configuration

        configure script accepts these parameters:

        --enable-ipv6      Enable IPv6 support
        --disable-curses-windows  Don't use curses windows. Use this if
                           screen drawing seems too slow for some reason.
                           This option may not work properly with all
                           curseses (solaris8).
        --enable-memdebug  Enable memory debugging, great for finding
                           memory leaks

        --enable-perl=static  Build Perl support statically to irssi binary
                           (default is to build a module)
        --enable-perl-path=dir  Specify installation dir for Perl libraries
        --disable-perl     Disable Perl support

        --with-socks       Build with socks library
        --with-bot         Build irssi-bot
        --with-proxy       Build irssi-proxy module
        --without-textui   Build without text frontend
        --with-servertest  Build test irc server which you can use to try
                           crash irc clients

        In short:

        ./configure
        make
        make install


 1.2 Command line parameters

        --connect -c <server>   Connect to server at startup
        --port -p <port>         - specify port
        --noconnect -!          Don't autoconnect to any servers at startup
        --nick -n               Specify what nick to use
        --hostname -h           Specify what host name to use


 2. Message levels


        Message levels (or in short, levels) are used almost everywhere.
        They describe what kind of messages we're dealing with. Here's a
        list of them all:

        CRAP            - Can be almost anything
        MSGS            - Private messages
        PUBLIC          - Public messages in channel
        NOTICES         - Notices
        SNOTES          - Server notices
        CTCPS           - CTCP messages
        ACTIONS         - Actions (/me) - usually ORed with PUBLIC or MSGS
        JOINS           - Someone joins a channel
        PARTS           - Someone parts a channel
        QUITS           - Someone quits IRC
        KICKS           - Someone gets kicked from channel
        MODES           - Channel mode is changed
        TOPICS          - Channel topic is changed
        WALLOPS         - Wallop is received
        INVITES         - Invite is received
        NICKS           - Someone changes nick
        DCC             - DCC related messages
        DCCMSGS         - DCC chat messages
        CLIENTNOTICES   - Irssi's notices
        CLIENTERRORS    - Irssi's error messages
        CLIENTCRAP      - Some other messages from Irssi

        And a few special ones that could be included with the
        levels above:

        HILIGHT         - Text is highlighted
        NOHILIGHT       - Don't check highlighting for this message
        NO_ACT          - Don't trigger channel activity when printing
                          this message
        NEVER           - Never ignore or log this message


 3. Flood protection

 3.1 Command flood protection

        Most (all?) IRC servers' flood protection works like this
        (from RFC 1459):

        --------
        * check to see if client's `message timer' is less than
          current time (set to be equal if it is);

        * read any data present from the client;

        * while the timer is less than ten seconds ahead of the current
          time, parse any present messages and penalize the client by
          2 seconds for each message;

        which in essence means that the client may send 1 message every 2
        seconds without being adversely affected.
        --------

        Irssi's flood protection works the same way, except it penalizes
        2.2 seconds by default for each message (helps with some servers).
        You can change it with /SET cmd_queue_speed <milliseconds>. You can
        also change the number of commands before flood protection activates
        (ie. the burst count) with /SET cmd_max_at_once <count>.

        IRC servers also have an input buffer where the client's commands
        are saved before processed. It's size is server specific (can be as
        low as 1k!) If it gets full, the server kicks you out (the
        "Excess flood" quit message). Irssi's flood protecion protects this
        pretty well with small commands, but if you send many big commands
        (like >400 char long messages) fast, you could get easily kicked out.
        Normally this isn't problem, but if you have scripts sending long
        messages, you should remember this. I'm not sure how much you should
        wait between the long messages, but 2 seconds isn't enough.

        This protection is used with all commands sent to server, so you
        don't need to worry about it with your scripts.

 3.2 CTCP flood protection

        Other people can pretty easily flood you with CTCP requests, and
        even if you wouldn't get kicked out from the server, they could
        easily grow your command queue. So, Irssi's CTCP flood protection
        works like this:

        First it checks how big the CTCP reply queue is, if it's longer
        than `max_ctcp_queue', the CTCP is ignored. You can change it with
        /SET max_ctcp_queue <count> (default is 5).

        After this the CTCP reply is placed to server's "idle queue", so
        the reply is sent "when there's extra time", this means that if
        you are busy sending other commands, it might take a while before
        the reply is sent.

 3.3 Detecting floods

        Irssi is all the time automatically checking different flooding,
        when flood is noticed, it sends "flood" signal. This can be easily
        used for example to create a script for kicking channel flooders.
        Autoignore uses this also, see section 10.2.

        Flood is detected when more than `flood_max_msgs' same kind of
        messages arrives in `flood_timecheck' seconds to same target
        (channel or private msg) so it isn't flooding if same user sends a
        message to 10 different channels you are on, but it is flooding if
        10 messages are sent to same channel by the same user.

        Currently only messages, notices and ctcps are checked for
        flooding.

        /SET flood_max_msgs = <count>, default is 4
        /SET flood_timecheck = <seconds>, default is 5 seconds
        If either of these is 0, the flood checking is disabled.


 4. Configuration

 4.1 Configuration files

        The configuration is saved to ~/.irssi/config file. You can edit
        it with text editor if you want, you can also add comments to it
        and they stay there even if /SAVE is used. Comments are the lines
        starting with # character. Any errors in config file are displayed
        at startup.

        Irssi uses it's own config library for handling the config file.
        The format is pretty much the same as in libPropList and should be
        easily understandable.

        You can reload the config file on the fly with /RELOAD command, you
        can also read a different config file with /RELOAD <filename>.

        If you change any settings, they aren't saved to file until you use
        /SAVE. You can save the config file to different place with
        /SAVE <filename>.

 4.2 Settings

        You can view or change the settings with /SET command.

        /SET without any arguments displays all the settings.
        /SET <key> displays settings which key (partly) matches <key>
        /SET <key> <value> sets <key> to <value>

        Boolean settings accepts only values ON, OFF and TOGGLE. You can
        also use /TOGGLE command to change them, so /TOGGLE <key> behaves
        like /SET <key> TOGGLE. /TOGGLE also accepts arguments ON and OFF
        when /TOGGLE behaves exactly like /SET.

        Remember that changes are not saved until you use /SAVE!


 5. Servers

 5.1 Generic

        Irssi is multi-server friendly. You can be connected to multiple
        different servers, or the same server multiple times. Most of the
        settings that let you specify the channel, let you also specify IRC
        network.

        Servers are referenced by a "server tag". If the server is known
        to belong to some IRC network, the tag is the IRC network's name,
        like "ircnet". If the IRC network is unknown, the tag is created
        from the server's name, like irc.funet.fi -> funet. If the tag
        already exists, a number is added to the end of it and raised until
        unused tag is found.

        Quit messages have a small problem if there's already a few
        commands in server's input command queue. If the server's socket is
        disconnected immediately after QUIT message is sent, it is possible
        that the server didn't yet process the quit command and your quit
        message will be "broken pipe" or something similiar. The right thing
        to do is to let the server disconnect you, but what if the
        connection to server is broken and the server never disconnects you?
        I solved the problem by waiting a few seconds to see if the server
        disconnects us. If it didn't, force the disconnect. This explains
        the (a bit annoying) "waiting for servers to close connections"
        message when quiting Irssi. Most IRC clients just ignore this whole
        problem, but I hate it if my quit message isn't displayed right.

 5.2 IRC networks

        Different IRC networks behave a bit differently, and to be as
        efficient as possible, Irssi needs to know a few things about them
        or the safe defaults will be used. The default configuration file
        contains the settings for the biggest IRC networks.

        /IRCNET ADD [-kicks <count>] [-msgs <count>] [-modes <count>]
                    [-whois <count>] [-cmdspeed <ms>] [-cmdmax <count>]
                    [-nick <nick>] [-user <user>] [-realname <name>]
                    [-host <host>] [-autosendcmd <cmd>] <name>

            -kicks: Maximum number of nicks in one /KICK command
            -msgs: Maximum number of nicks in one /MSG command
            -modes: Maximum number of mode changes in one /MODE command
            -whois: Maximum number of nicks in one /WHOIS command
            -cmdspeed: Same as /SET cmd_queue_speed, see section 3.1
            -cmdmax: Same as /SET cmd_max_at_once, see section 3.1
            -nick, -user, -realname: Specify what nick/user/name to use
            -host: Specify what host name to use, if you have multiple
            -autosendcmd: Command to send after connecting to a server

        With -autosendcmd argument you can automatically run any commands
        after connecting to ircnet. This is useful for automatically 
        identifying yourself to NickServ, for example

        /IRCNET ADD -autosendcmd "/msg NickServ identify secret" OPN

        /IRCNET REMOVE <name>

 5.3 Manually connecting and disconnecting

        To connect to a new server, use:
        /CONNECT [-ircnet <ircnet>] [-host <hostname>] <address>|<ircnet>
                 [<port> [<password> [<nick>]]]

        If there's no password, set it to -. You can directly connect to
        IRC server in specified address, or you can connect to some IRC
        network and Irssi will pick the server for you.

        You don't need to specify the IRC network, password, nick, etc. if
        you setup the server using /SERVER ADD (see next section). If the
        settings can't be found there either, Irssi will use the defaults:

        /SET default_nick = <nick>, defaults to user_name
        /SET alternate_nick = <nick>, defaults to <default_nick>_
        /SET user_name = <user>, defaults to your login name
        /SET real_name = <name>, taken from /etc/passwd by default
        /SET hostname = <host>, what host name to use when connecting
        /SET skip_motd ON|OFF|TOGGLE - Don't show server's MOTD

        NOTE: /CONNECT is also a command for IRC operators to connect IRC
        servers to other IRC servers. If you want to use it, use /SCONNECT
        instead.

        You can disconnect from the server with:
        /DISCONNECT *|<tag> [message]

        If message isn't given, Irssi will use the default quit message. You
        can set it with /SET quit_message <message>, default is "leaving".

        /SERVER disconnects the server in active window and connects to new
        one. It will take the same arguments as /CONNECT. If you prefix the
        address with + character, Irssi won't disconnect the active server,
        and it will create a new window where the server is connected
        (ie. /window new hide;/connect address)

        /SERVER without any arguments displays list of connected servers.

 5.4 Server settings

        /SERVER ADD [-auto | -noauto] [-ircnet <ircnet>] [-host <hostname>]
                    [-cmdspeed <ms>] [-cmdmax <count>] [-port <port>]
                    <address> [<port> [<password>]]

            -auto: Automatically connect to server at startup
            -noauto: Don't connect to server at startup (default)
            -ircnet: Specify what IRC network this server belongs to
            -host: Specify what host name to use, if you have multiple
            -cmdspeed: Same as /SET cmd_queue_speed, see section 3.1
            -cmdmax: Same as /SET cmd_max_at_once, see section 3.1
            -port: This is pretty much like the port argument later, except
                   this can be used to modify existing server's port.

        /SERVER REMOVE <address> [<port>]

        /SERVER LIST

        Servers are identified by their name and port. You can have multiple
        entries for the same server name but in different ports. This is
        useful for IRC proxies, in one port you could have IRCNet proxy,
        another port would have EFNet, etc.

        If you wish to change existing server's port to something else, use
        -port command. For example if you had irc.server.org in port 6667
        and you wanted to change it to port 6668, use command:

        /SERVER ADD -port 6668 irc.server.org 6667

        If you want to remove some settings from existing server, for
        example hostname, just give -host "" parameters to it.

        After connected to server, Irssi can automatically change your user
        mode. You can set it with /SET usermode <mode>, default is +i.

 5.5 Automatic reconnecting

        If you get disconnected from server, Irssi will try to reconnect
        back to some of the servers in the same IRC network. To prevent
        flooding the server that doesn't let you in (and avoiding K-lines),
        Irssi won't try to reconnect to the same server more often than
        once in `server_reconnect_time' seconds. You can change it with
        /SET server_reconnect_time <seconds>, default is 5 minutes.

        After reconnected to server, Irssi will re-set your user mode, away
        message and will join you back to the same channels where you were
        before the connection was lost.

        You can see list of the reconnections with /SERVER. The servers
        that have tag as RECON-n are the reconnections. You can remove them
        with /DISCONNECT <tag>, and you can reconnect to them immediately
        with /RECONNECT <n>. /RECONNECT without any arguments will
        disconnect from the active server and reconnect back immediately.

 5.6 Command redirections

        FIXME

 5.7 Server idle command queue

        There's some situations when you want to ask something from the
        server which isn't really important. For example when connected
        to server and you didn't get your nick, Irssi asks with /WHOIS
        who has your nick and displays it. But if you already have a lot of
        commands in buffer, like you just autojoined to many channels,
        you'd rather first let the JOIN commands to be sent to server

        This is where server idle queue gets into picture. Commands in
        idle queue are sent to server when there's nothing else in the
        normal command queue.

        Idle queue works with server redirections, so you can ask something
        from server when it has time and your function is called when the
        reply is received.

 5.8 Net splits

        Irssi keeps track of people who were lost in net splits. You can
        get a list of them with /NETSPLIT command.

        Another use for this is with bots. Channel master can op anyone in
        the channel and the bot happily accepts it. But if the opped user
        is lost behind a net split and in netjoin the server gives ops for
        the user, the bot should decide if the user (who isn't in bot's user
        database) is a malicious attacker who should be deopped, or if
        he/she/it is just some user that already had ops before the net
        split.

        /SET hide_netsplit_quits - If ON, hide all netsplit quit messages
             and display only "Netsplit host1 host2: nicks".

        /SET netsplit_max_nicks - If non-zero, limit the number of nicks
             printed in netsplit message and add "(+<n> more, use /NETSPLIT
             to show all of them)" text.

 5.9 Lag checking

        Irssi will constantly check how big the lag to the server is. It's
        done by sending IRSSILAG CTCP replies to ourself. Using PING command
        for this would seem more reasonable, but there was too many problems
        with it - some servers didn't even know the whole PING command!

        If the lag is too big, Irssi will reconnect to different IRC server.
        This is sometimes useful if the connection has been stuck for 30
        minutes but it still hasn't been closed.

        /SET lag_check_time <seconds> - Specifies how often to check the
             lag. If it is set to 0, the lag detection is disabled. Default
             is 30 seconds.
        /SET lag_max_before_disconnect <seconds> - Specifies how big the lag
             can be before reconnecting to another server. Default is 5
             minutes.
        /SET lag_min_show <100th seconds> - Specifies the minimum lag to
             display in status bar. Default is 1 second.

 5.10 Raw log

        All data that is received or sent to server is kept in a raw log
        buffer for a while. Also event redirections are kept there. This is
        very useful for debugging purposes.

        /RAWLOG SAVE <filename> - Save the current raw log buffer to file
        /RAWLOG OPEN <filename> - Like /RAWLOG SAVE, but keep the log file
                                  open and write all new log to it.
        /RAWLOG CLOSE - Close the open raw log

        /SET rawlog_lines <count> - Specify the number of raw log lines to
                                    keep in memory.


 6. Channels

 6.1 Generic

        There's several types of channels you can join, here's a list of
        the ones that Irssi supports:

        #channel - Normal channels, most commonly used
        +channel - Modeless channels, channel has no modes, no channel
                   operators and no topic. This way no-one is above others
                   and there's no operator-wars etc. But on the other hand,
                   you can't kick any troublemakers..
        &channel - Local channels, these channels aren't distributed outside
                   the IRC server. IRCNet has replaced server notices with
                   several different &channels (&ERRORS, &NOTICES, etc.)
        !channel - New channels, currently supported only by IRCNet. These
                   channels are designed so that they can't be taken over
                   with net splits. /JOIN !channel joins to existing
                   !channel, /JOIN !!channel creates a new channel.

        Most of the commands that take channel name as parameter, can also
        accept * as the channel name, which means the active channel.


 6.2 Joining, parting

        Channels can be joined with /JOIN command. You can join to multiple
        channels with one /JOIN by giving it a comma-separated list of
        channels, like /JOIN #channel1,#channel2. If you don't give the
        channel mode character (#+&!) before the channel name, Irssi
        automatically uses # channels.

        Channel name may contain any characters except SPACE, BELL, NUL,
        CR, LF or comma (','). You can also restrict the channel to only
        certain users by adding the hostmask to the end of the channel
        name separated with a ':' character, like #channel:*!*@*.fi lets
        only people from .fi domain join the channel. This doesn't work with
        all IRC servers and it's pretty difficult to use, since everyone
        will have to always join the #channel:*!*@*.fi channel, #channel or
        #channel:*!*@*.se channels are different channels. Ban exceptions
        (+e) and especially invite lists (+I) replace this functionality
        pretty well, see section 6.5.

        If channel has a password (aka. key), you can join it with
        /JOIN #channel pass, or multiple channels with passwords with

        /JOIN #secret1,#public,#secret2 pass1,x,pass2

        #public didn't have any password, so we used "x" as it's password.
        It doesn't really matter what password you send with channels that
        don't have passwords.

        If you want to join to channel in different server than active one
        in window, you can do it with /JOIN -<server tag> #channel, like
        /JOIN -efnet #irssi.

        You can leave channels with /PART [<channels>] [<part message>].
        For example "/PART byebye all" leaves the active channel with
        "byebye all" message, or /PART #chan1,#chan2 leaves those channels.

        NOTE: Sending JOIN 0 directly to server (/quote join 0) leaves all
        the channels you are joined. There's been some jokes about joining
        for example to #2000,0 where the server actually leaves you from all
        channels. With Irssi this isn't really a problem, since irssi would
        happily join to channels #2000 and #0.

 6.3 Automatic joining

        Irssi can automatically join to specified channels in specified
        IRC networks. It can also automatically send the password when
        manually joining to channel without specifying the password.

        /CHANNEL ADD [-auto | -noauto] [-bots <masks>] [-botcmd <command>]
                 <channel> <ircnet> [<password>]

        With -bots and -botcmd arguments you can automatically send
        commands to someone in channel. This is useful for automatically
        getting ops for channels, for example

        /CHANNEL ADD -auto -bots "*!bot@bothost.org bot*!*@host2.org"
                 -botcmd "msg $0 op mypass" #channel ircnet

        You can also use the -botcmd without -bots argument. The command is
        then sent whenever you join the channel.

        If you want to remove some settings from existing channel record,
        for example bots, just give the -bots "" parameters to it. Password
        can be removed by setting it to - (or actually, "" works too).

        You can remove the channels with
        /CHANNEL REMOVE <channel> <ircnet>

        /CHANNEL LIST displays list of channels with settings.
        /CHANNEL without any arguments displays list of channels you have
        joined. You can also use /CHANNEL to join to channels just as with
        /JOIN, like /CHANNEL #a.

 6.4 After-join automation

        When joined to channel, Irssi asks some information about it.
        After it has got all of it, it prints the "Channel synchronized"
        text. The following information is asked:

        - Channel mode
        - WHO list to get nicks' hosts - useful for /BAN for example
        - Ban list - useful for allowing /UNBAN to use wildcards
        - Exception list, Invite list - these are asked only from servers
          that support +I and +e modes, mostly just IRCNet and some EFNet
          servers. These aren't really needed for anything currenty, except
          /INVITELIST and /BANS uses them to display the lists.

        If you have joined many channels at once, Irssi tries to optimize
        the commands it sends to server. Instead of sending two commands
        to ask two channels' mode, it just sends MODE #a,#b. Same thing with
        WHO list and ban/except/invite lists. Some servers do not support
        this and they reply with different kinds of error messages, Irssi
        tries to deal with them all right and resend the commands again
        separately. However, some strange servers sometimes use some weird
        error replies that Irssi doesn't know about, and the channel never
        gets synchronized. If this happens with some server you know, please
        let the Irssi's author know about it.

 6.5 Channel modes

        Irssi knows these channel modes:

        i - Invite only - People can't join to channel without being
            /INVITEd, or being in invite list (+I, see below).
        m - Moderated - People who don't have voices (+v) can't send
            messages to channel
        p - Private - People who aren't joined to channel can't see it
            for example with /WHOISing people who are in channel.
        s - Secret - Like private, but the channel isn't displayed in
            /LIST's output.
        n - No external msgs - Without this mode, anyone can send messages
            to channel without even being joined.
        t - Topic can be changed only by channel operators.

        k <key> - Channel password (aka. key) - The channel can't be joined
                  without specifying the channel key (see section 6.2).

        l <count> - User limit - No more than <count> people can join to
                    channel. This can be overridden with /INVITE with some
                    servers.

                    This is usually used for protecting channel from join
                    flooding, like some bot allows max. 5 users to join in
                    one minute or so.

        a - Anonymous - No-one's nick name, host or anything else can be
            seen. All messages, joins, parts, modes, etc. are seen as coming
            from nick "anonymous", this could be pretty confusing but nice
            feature if you want total anonymity. This mode can only be set,
            never unset. This mode isn't supported by all servers.

            NOTE: there is/was one bug :) Channel operators can guess if some
            nick might be in the channel and try to kick it. If nick was in
            channel, everyone will see the nick that was kicked.

        r - Re-op - If channel becomes opless for longer than 45 (?) minutes,
            op everyone in the channel. This works only in !channels. This
            mode can only be set, not unset by channel creator.

        b - Set/remove ban. For example MODE #channel +b *!*@*.org bans
            everyone from .org domain.

            If someone from .org domain was already in channel before the
            ban was set, he/she couldn't be able to write any messages to
            channel (doesn't work with all servers).

            Ban can also be overridden with /INVITE, although many stupid
            IRC clients automatically kick the user out because they see
            the ban and think that because of it the user shouldn't be in
            the channel (doesn't work with all servers).

        e - Ban exceptions. You could for example ban everyone from
            *!*@*.org but set ban exception to *!*@*.host.org - works only
            in IRCnet/EFnet servers.

        I - Invite list. If channel is invite only (+i), people in this
            list can join it without being /INVITEd - works only in
            IRCnet/EFnet servers.

            This is excellent for in-country channels that don't want
            foreigners (spammers!) to join the channel, for example setting
            channel's mode to +i and +I *!*@*.fi allows only finnish people
            to join the channel. In addition to this, there's usually a bot
            in the channels and sending /MSG bot invite command to it
            /INVITEs you to the channel.

            The ':' feature in channel modes is quite similiar, see section
            6.2.

        O - Channel owner, the nick who creates a !channel receives this
            mode. It isn't displayed anywhere, you can't pass it to anyone
            else and you can't regain it again. This is needed for setting
            +r mode in channel when it's first created.

        o <nick> - Grant or revoke channel operator status from nick
        v <nick> - Grant or revoke voice status from nick, only people with
                   +v (or +o) can talk to channel when it's moderated (+m).

        You can send multiple mode changes with one mode command:

        /MODE #channel +nto-o+v nick1,nick2,nick3

        This would set channel's mode to +nt, give ops to nick1, take ops
        from nick2 and give voices to nick3.

        You can set only limited number of modes that requires argument in
        one command. In IRCnet it's 3, in EFnet it's 4 and in many others
        it's 6. If it's not known, Irssi defaults to 3. Irssi will also
        automatically split them, so you can use /MODE +oooooo n1,n2,..
        command to op 6 people and Irssi will split it to two commands in
        IRCnet/EFnet.

        Instead of manually setting o, v and b modes you probably want to
        use /OP, /DEOP, /VOICE, /DEVOICE, /BAN and /UNBAN commands.

        /OP, /DEOP, /VOICE and /DEVOICE commands allows wildcards as their
        argument. So /OP ni* will op all non-opped people whose nick start
        with "ni". /DEOP * will deop everyone else except you. /VOICE and
        /DEVOICE work the same way.

 6.6 Bans

        You can give /BAN a list of nicks or whole ban masks. /UNBAN
        accepts wildcards, so if you have ban nick!user@reallylonghost.org,
        you can simply unban it with /UNBAN *really*

        Using /BAN <nicks>, Irssi will automatically create the mask. You
        can change the way it's created with /BANTYPE command:

        /BANTYPE normal|host|domain|custom

        Normal - *!user@*.domain.net
        Host   - *!*@host.domain.net
        Domain - *!*@*.domain.net
        Custom [nick] [user] [host] [domain]
               eg. /bantype custom nick domain - nick!*@*.domain.net
               eg. /bantype custom user host - *!user@host.domain.net

        Irssi has also a couple of commands to help banning people:

        /KICKBAN [<channel>] <nick> <reason> - ban and kick the nick
        /KNOCKOUT [<seconds>] <nick> <reason> - kickban the nick, unban
                  after waiting <seconds>, default is 5 minutes.

 6.7 Massjoins

        Automatic opping the nick right after joined to channel is a pretty
        commonly used. What mostly irritates me with this is that the nick
        may be opped multiple times by different people, or after netsplits
        when the people join back, the server will op them, but still the
        bots op the people again, even if it was just done by the server.

        Irssi has this feature that it sends a "massjoin" signal a while
        after the real join. If someone has already opped the nick, you can
        easily check it in the massjoin signal handler.

        The default is to report maximum of 5 joins in one massjoin signal.
        If the 5 joins don't come in 5 seconds, the signal is sent anyway.
        You can change these with /SET massjoin_max_wait <milliseconds> and
        /SET massjoin_max_joins <count>.


 7. IRC commands and features (FIXME)

 7.x Basic commands

 7.x IRC operator commands

 7.x Away features

 8. Notify list

        Notify list is generally used for knowing when someone you know
        comes to IRC or leaves from IRC. Traditionally notify list can
        handle only a list of nicks, no nick masks etc. I lost interest to
        traditional notify lists long time ago, since the people I know
        are in IRC all the time. So I made a bit more featureful notify
        list:

        /NOTIFY [-list] [-away] [-idle [minutes]] <mask> [ircnet [ircnet...]]

            -away: Notifies about away-status changes
            -idle: Notifies if idle time is first larger than <minutes>
                   (default is hour) and then it drops down.
            -list: Lists the notify list entries with all their settings
            <mask>: Either a simple "nick" or "nick!*@*blah.org". The nick
                    can't contain wildcards, but the user/host can.

        /UNNOTIFY <mask>

        /NOTIFY without any arguments displays if the people in notify
        list are online or offline.


 9. Text highlighting

        Irssi supports highlighting lines that match the specified pattern.
        You can also change the color of the nicks that match specified nick
        mask, so you could for example show your friends' nicks with
        different color.

        /HILIGHT [-mask | -regexp | -word] [-nick] [-color <color>]
                 [-level <level>] [-channels <channels>] <text>

            -mask: Match only for nick, <text> is a nick mask
            -regexp: <text> is a regular expression
            -word: <text> must match to full words
            -nick: Hilight only the nick, not the whole line
            -color: Print the reply with <color> - see below
            -level: Match only for <level> messages, default is
                    publics,msgs,notices,actions
            -channels: Match only in <channels>

        /DEHILIGHT <ref#> | <text>

        /HILIGHT without any arguments displays list of the hilights.

        By default the highlighted line will be printed with white color.
        You can change this with the -color argument. If <color> is a
        number, Irssi will treat it as a MIRC color code. You can also use
        bolds (^B), underlines (^_) etc. as <color> if you like.


 10. Ignoring

 10.1 Manual ignoring

        Irssi's ignoring options should be enough for everyone :)

        /IGNORE [-regexp | -word] [-pattern <pattern>] [-replies] [-except]
                [-channels <channel>] <mask> <levels> <^levels>

            -regexp: <pattern> is a regular expression
            -word: <pattern> must match to full words
            -pattern: <pattern> must match to the message's text
            -replies: Ignore replies to nick in channels. For example
                      "/IGNORE -replies *!*@*.fi PUBLIC" ignores everyone
                      from Finland, but also anyone sending message
                      "tofinnishnick: blahblah".
            -except: *DON'T* ignore
            -channels: Ignore only in channels
            <mask>: Either a nick mask or list of channels
            <levels>: List of levels to ignore
            <^levels>: List of levels to NOT ignore
                       (/ignore -except nick notices = /ignore nick ^notices)

        /UNIGNORE <ref#> | <mask>

        /IGNORE without any arguments displays list of ignores.

        The best match always wins, so you can have:

            /IGNORE * CTCPS
            /IGNORE -except *!*@host.org CTCPS

 10.2 Automatic ignoring

        Irssi can automatically set ignores for people who flood you.
        Currently you can autoignore MSGS, NOTICES, CTCPS and PUBLIC.
        Actions are placed to either MSGS or PUBLIC. See section 3.3 for
        definition of the flood.

        /SET autoignore_time <seconds> specifies how long to ignore the
        user.

        /SET autoignore_levels <levels> specifies what levels to ignore
        automatically, default is to ignore only CTCPS.


 11. Logging

 11.1 Basic logging

        /LOG OPEN [-noopen] [-autoopen] [-targets <targets>]
                  [-window] <filename> [<levels>]

            -noopen: Create the entry to log list, but don't start logging
            -autoopen: Automatically open this log file at startup
            -targets: Log only in specified channels/nicks
            -window: Log the active window
            <filename>: File name where to log, it is parsed with
                        strftime(), so %d=day, etc. see "man strftime" for
                        more info. Irssi will automatically check every hour
                        if log should be rotated.
            <levels>: Defaults to ALL

        /LOG CLOSE <ref#> | <fname> - Close log and remove from log list
        /LOG START <ref#> | <fname> - Start logging to file
        /LOG STOP <ref#> | <fname> - Stop logging to file
        /LOG without any arguments displays the log list

        /SET log_create_mode <mode> - Specifies what file mode to use with
             the created log files. Default is 0644.

        All of these are parsed with strftime():
        /SET log_timestamp <text> - Specifies the time stamp format.
             Default is "%H:%M ".
        /SET log_open_string <text> - Text written to log when it's opened
        /SET log_close_string <text> - Text written to log when it's closed
        /SET log_day_changed <text> - Text written to log when day changes

        NOTE: Log files are locked after opened, so two Irssis can't
        accidentally try to write to the same log file.

        Examples:

        /LOG OPEN -targets cras ~/irclogs/cras.log MSGS
          - Logs all messages from/to nick `cras'

        /LOG OPEN -targets #linux ~/irclogs/linux/linux-%Y-%m-%d
          - Logs all messages in channel #linux. Log is rotated daily, so
            logs in 1. May 2000 goes to file "linux-2000-05-01", when the
            day is changed, Irssi closes the log and starts logging to
            "linux-2000-05-02" etc.

 11.2 Window logging

        /WINDOW LOG ON|OFF|TOGGLE [<filename>]

        Start/stop logging the active window. This works exactly like
        /LOG OPEN -window.

        /WINDOW LOGFILE <filename>

        Sets the default log file to use in the window, it can be
        overridden with specifying the file name in /WINDOW LOG. If no file
        name isn't given, Irssi defaults to ~/irc.log.<windowname> or
        ~/irc.log.Window<ref#> if window doesn't have name.

        Creates the entry to log list, same as /LOG OPEN -window -noopen.
        Also, if /WINDOW LOG ON is used it starts logging to this file.

 11.3 Automatic logging

        This is the logging method that I had been asked to implement for
        ages, and it is really simple to use too. It logs only messages
        that have "targets", ie. private messages and channel specific
        messages (msgs, modes, topics, etc). WHOIS replies and such aren't
        logged. If you with to log them too, use the /LOG command.

        So, when for example a private messages comes to you from "guy"
        nick, Irssi creates a log file ~/irclogs/guy.log for it. After few
        minutes of inactivity, the log file is closed.

        /SET AUTOLOG ON|OFF|TOGGLE - Enable/disable autolog.

        /SET AUTOLOG_LEVEL <level> - Specifies what levels to log, default
        is ALL.

        /SET AUTOLOG_PATH <path> - expandos (see special_vars.txt) can be
        used, $0 is the target. If you are using multiple servers, it makes
        sense to use the server tag as part of the file name, for example
        ~/irclogs/$tag/$0.log (this is the default). The directories are
        created automatically.

 11.4 Awaylog

        Irssi logs specified messages when you're away. After you set
        yourself unaway, Irssi will display all the messages in the awaylog.

        /SET awaylog_level <level> - Default is MSGS HILIGHT
        /SET awaylog_file <filename> - Default is ~/.irssi/away.log

        You can disable this feature by setting awaylog_level to NONE.


.. no, the docs end here, I got bored of writing these after a few days and 
haven't touched these since then.