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></li>
48 <li><a href="#c11">Irssi's settings</a></li>
49 <li><a href="#c12">Statusbar</a>
51 <li>I loaded a statusbar script but it's not visible anywhere!</li>
55 <h3><a id="c1">1. For all the lazy people</a></h3>
57 <p>These settings should give you pretty good defaults (the ones I use):</p>
59 <p>If colors don't work, and you know you're not going to use some
60 weird non-VT compatible terminal (you most probably aren't), just
64 /SET term_force_colors ON
67 <p>I don't like automatic query windows, I don't like status window, I do
68 like msgs window where all messages go:</p>
71 /SET autocreate_own_query OFF
72 /SET autocreate_query_level DCCMSGS
73 /SET use_status_window OFF
74 /SET use_msgs_window ON
77 <p>Disable automatic window closing when /PARTing channel or /UNQUERYing
81 /SET autoclose_windows OFF
82 /SET reuse_unused_windows ON
85 <p>Here's the settings that make irssi work exactly like ircII in window
86 management (send me a note if you can think of more):</p>
89 /SET autocreate_own_query OFF
90 /SET autocreate_query_level NONE
91 /SET use_status_window OFF
92 /SET use_msgs_window OFF
93 /SET reuse_unused_windows ON
94 /SET windows_auto_renumber OFF
96 /SET autostick_split_windows OFF
97 /SET autoclose_windows OFF
98 /SET print_active_channel ON
101 <p>And example how to add servers:</p>
103 <p>(openprojects network, identify with nickserv and wait for 2 seconds before
104 joining channels)</p>
107 /IRCNET ADD -autosendcmd "/^msg nickserv ident pass;wait -opn 2000" opn
110 <p>Then add some servers to different networks (ircnet is already set up
111 for them), irc.kpnqwest.fi is used by default for IRCNet but if it fails,
112 irc.funet.fi is tried next:</p>
115 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet irc.kpnqwest.fi 6667
116 /SERVER ADD -ircnet ircnet irc.funet.fi 6667
117 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet efnet efnet.cs.hut.fi 6667
120 <p>Automatically join to channels after connected to server, send op request
121 to bot after joined to efnet/#irssi:</p>
124 /CHANNEL ADD -auto #irssi ircnet
125 /CHANNEL ADD -auto -bots *!*bot@host.org -botcmd "/^msg $0 op pass"
129 If you want lines containing your nick to hilight:
135 <h3><a id="c2">2. Basic user interface usage</a></h3>
137 <p>Windows can be scrolled up/down with PgUp and PgDown keys. If they don't
138 work for you, use Meta-p and Meta-n keys. For jumping to beginning or end of
139 the buffer, use /SB HOME and /SB END commands.</p>
141 <p>By default, irssi uses "hidden windows" for everything. Hidden
142 window is created every time you /JOIN a channel or /QUERY someone.
143 There's several ways you can change between these windows:</p>
146 Meta-1, Meta-2, .. Meta-0 - Jump directly between windows 1-10
147 Meta-q .. Meta-o - Jump directly between windows 11-19
148 /WINDOW <number> - Jump to any window with specified number
149 Ctrl-P, Ctrl-N - Jump to previous / next window
152 <p>Clearly the easiest way is to use Meta-number keys. And what is the Meta
153 key? For some terminals, it's the same as ALT. If you have Windows keyboard,
154 it's probably the left Windows key. If they don't work directly, you'll need
155 to set a few X resources (NOTE: these work with both xterm and rxvt):</p>
158 XTerm*eightBitInput: false
159 XTerm*metaSendsEscape: true
162 <p>With rxvt, you can also specify which key acts as Meta key. So if you
163 want to use ALT instead of Windows key for it, use:</p>
169 <p>You could do this by changing the X key mappings:</p>
172 xmodmap -e "keysym Alt_L = Meta_L Alt_L"
175 <p>And how exactly do you set these X resources? For Debian, there's
176 /etc/X11/Xresources/xterm file where you can put them and it's read
177 automatically when X starts. ~/.Xresources and ~/.Xdefaults files might also
178 work. If you can't get anything else to work, just copy&paste those lines to
179 ~/.Xresources and directly call "xrdb -merge ~/.Xresources" in some xterm.
180 The resources affect only the new xterms you start, not existing ones.</p>
182 <p>Many windows SSH clients also don't allow usage of ALT. One excellent
183 client that does allow is putty, you can download it from
184 <a href="http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/">
185 http://www.chiark.greenend.org.uk/~sgtatham/putty/</a>.</p>
187 <p>Irssi also supports split windows, they've had some problems in past
188 but I think they should work pretty well now :) Here's some commands
192 /WINDOW NEW - Create new split window
193 /WINDOW NEW HIDE - Create new hidden window
194 /WINDOW CLOSE - Close split or hidden window
196 /WINDOW HIDE [<number>|<name>] - Make the split window hidden window
197 /WINDOW SHOW <number>|<name> - Make the hidden window a split window
199 /WINDOW SHRINK [<lines>] - Shrink the split window
200 /WINDOW GROW [<lines>] - Grow the split window
201 /WINDOW BALANCE - Balance the sizes of all split windows
204 <p>By default, irssi uses "sticky windowing" for split windows. This means
205 that windows created inside one split window cannot be moved to another
206 split window without some effort. For example you could have following
210 Split window 1: win#1 - Status window, win#2 - Messages window
211 Split window 2: win#3 - ircnet/#channel1, win#4 - ircnet/#channel2
212 Split window 3: win#5 - efnet/#channel1, win#6 - efnet/#channel2
215 <p>When you are in win#1 and press ALT-6, irssi jumps to split window
216 #3 and moves the efnet/#channel2 the active window.</p>
218 <p>With non-sticky windowing the windows don't have any relationship with
219 split windows, pressing ALT-6 in win#1 moves win#6 to split window 1
220 and sets it active, except if win#6 was already visible in some other
221 split window irssi just changes to that split window. This it the way
222 windows work with ircii, if you prefer it you can set it with</p>
225 /SET autostick_split_windows OFF
228 <p>Each window can have multiple channels, queries and other "window
229 items" inside them. If you don't like windows at all, you disable
230 automatic creating of them with</p>
233 /SET autocreate_windows OFF
236 <p>And if you keep all channels in one window, you most probably want
237 the channel name printed in each line:</p>
240 /SET print_active_channel ON
243 <p>If you want to group only some channels or queries in one window,
247 /JOIN -window #channel
251 <h3><a id="c3">3. Server and channel automation</a></h3>
253 <p>Irssi's multiple IRC network support is IMHO very good - at least
254 compared to other clients :) Even if you're only in one IRC network you
255 should group all your servers to be in the same IRC network as this
256 helps with reconnecting if your primary server breaks and is probably
257 useful in some other ways too :) For information how to actually use
258 irssi correctly with multiple servers see the chapter 6.</p>
260 <p>First you need to have your IRC network set, use /IRCNET command to
261 see if it's already there. If it isn't, use /IRCNET ADD yourircnet. To
262 make Irssi work properly with different IRC networks, you might need to
263 give some special settings to /IRCNET ADD, see manual.txt for more
264 information about them. Irssi defaults to IRCNet's behaviour.</p>
266 <p>After that you need to add your servers. For example:</p>
269 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet irc.kpnqwest.fi 6667
270 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet worknet irc.mycompany.com 6667 password
273 <p>The -auto option specifies that this server is automatically connected
274 at startup. You don't need to make more than one server with -auto
275 option to one IRC network, other servers are automatically connected in
276 same network if the -auto server fails.</p>
278 <p>And finally channels:</p>
281 /CHANNEL ADD -auto -bots *!*bot@host.org -botcmd "/^msg $0 op pass"
283 /CHANNEL ADD -auto #secret ircnet password
286 <p>-bots and -botcmd should be the only ones needing a bit of
287 explaining. They're used to send commands automatically to bot when
288 channel is joined, usually to get ops automatically. You can specify
289 multiple bot masks with -bots option separated with spaces (and
290 remember to quote the string then). The $0 in -botcmd specifies the
291 first found bot in the list. If you don't need the bot masks (ie. the
292 bot is always with the same nick, like chanserv) you can give only the
293 -botcmd option and the command is always sent.</p>
296 <h3><a id="c4">4. Setting up windows and automatically restoring them at startup</a></h3>
298 <p>First connect to all the servers, join the channels and create the
299 queries you want. If you want to move the windows or channels around
303 /WINDOW MOVE LEFT/RIGHT/number - move window elsewhere
304 /WINDOW ITEM MOVE <number>|<name> - move channel/query to another window
307 <p>When everything looks the way you like, use /LAYOUT SAVE command
308 (and /SAVE, if you don't have autosaving enabled) and when you start
309 irssi next time, irssi remembers the positions of the channels, queries
310 and everything. This "remembering" doesn't mean that simply using
311 /LAYOUT SAVE would automatically make irssi reconnect to all servers
312 and join all channels, you'll need the /SERVER ADD -auto and /CHANNEL
313 ADD -auto commands to do that.</p>
315 <p>If you want to change the layout, you just rearrange the layout like
316 you want it and use /LAYOUT SAVE again. If you want to remove the
317 layout for some reason, use /LAYOUT RESET.</p>
320 <h3><a id="c5">5. Status and msgs windows & message levels</a></h3>
322 <p>By default, all the "extra messages" go to status window. This means
323 pretty much all messages that don't clearly belong to some channel or
324 query. Some people like it, some don't. If you want to remove it, use</p>
327 /SET use_status_window OFF
330 <p>This doesn't have any effect until you restart irssi. If you want to
331 remove it immediately, just /WINDOW CLOSE it.</p>
333 <p>Another common window is "messages window", where all private
334 messages go. By default it's disabled and query windows are created
335 instead. To make all private messages go to msgs window, say:</p>
338 /SET use_msgs_window ON
339 /SET autocreate_query_level DCCMSGS (or if you don't want queries to
340 dcc chats either, say NONE)
343 <p>use_msgs_window either doesn't have any effect until restarting
344 irssi. To create it immediately say:</p>
347 /WINDOW NEW HIDE - create the window
348 /WINDOW NAME (msgs) - name it to "(msgs)"
349 /WINDOW LEVEL MSGS - make all private messages go to this window
350 /WINDOW MOVE 1 - move it to first window
353 <p>Note that neither use_msgs_window nor use_status_window have any
354 effect at all if /LAYOUT SAVE has been used.</p>
356 <p>This brings us to message levels.. What are they? All messages that
357 irssi prints have one or more "message levels". Most common are PUBLIC
358 for public messages in channels, MSGS for private messages and CRAP for
359 all sorts of messages with no real classification. You can get a whole
360 list of levels with</p>
366 <p>Status window has message level "ALL -MSGS", meaning that all messages,
367 except private messages, without more specific place go to status
368 window. The -MSGS is there so it doesn't conflict with messages
372 <h3><a id="c6">6. How support for multiple servers works in irssi</a></h3>
374 <p>ircii and several other clients support multiple servers by placing
375 the connection into some window. IRSSI DOES NOT. There is no required
376 relationship between window and server. You can connect to 10 servers
377 and manage them all in just one window, or join channel in each one of
378 them to one sigle window if you really want to. That being said, here's
379 how you do connect to new server without closing the old connection:</p>
382 /CONNECT irc.server.org
385 <p>Instead of the /SERVER which disconnects the existing connection. To
386 see list of all active connections, use /SERVER without any parameters.
387 You should see a list of something like:</p>
390 -!- IRCNet: irc.song.fi:6667 (IRCNet)
391 -!- OPN: tolkien.openprojects.net:6667 (OPN)
392 -!- RECON-1: 192.168.0.1:6667 () (02:59 left before reconnecting)
395 <p>Here you see that we're connected to IRCNet and OPN networks. The
396 the IRCNet at the beginning is called the "server tag" while the
397 (IRCnet) at the end shows the IRC network. Server tag specifies unique
398 tag to refer to the server, usually it's the same as the IRC network.
399 When the IRC network isn't known it's some part of the server name.
400 When there's multiple connections to same IRC network or server, irssi
401 adds a number after the tag so there could be ircnet, ircnet2, ircnet3
404 <p>Server tags beginning with RECON- mean server reconnections. Above we
405 see that connection to server at 192.168.0.1 wasn't successful and
406 irssi will try to connect it again in 3 minutes.</p>
408 <p>To disconnect one of the servers, or to stop irssi from
409 reconnecting, use</p>
412 /DISCONNECT ircnet - disconnect server with tag "ircnet"
413 /DISCONNECT recon-1 - stop trying to reconnect to RECON-1 server
414 /RMRECONNS - stop all server reconnections
416 /RECONNECT recon-1 - immediately try reconnecting back to RECON-1
417 /RECONNECT ALL - immediately try reconnecting back to all
418 servers in reconnection queue
421 <p>Now that you're connected to all your servers, you'll have to know how
422 to specify which one of them you want to use. One way is to have an
423 empty window, like status or msgs window. In it, you can specify which
424 server to set active with</p>
427 /WINDOW SERVER tag - set server "tag" active
428 Ctrl-X - set the next server in list active
431 <p>When the server is active, you can use it normally. When there's
432 multiple connected servers, irssi adds [servertag] prefix to all
433 messages in non-channel/query messages so you'll know where it came
436 <p>Several commands also accept -servertag option to specify which server
440 /MSG -tag nick message
445 <p>/MSG tab completion also automatically adds the -tag option when
446 nick isn't in active server.</p>
448 <p>Window's server can be made sticky. When sticky, it will never
449 automatically change to anything else, and if server gets disconnected, the
450 window won't have any active server. When the server gets connected again,
451 it is automatically set active in the window. To set the window's server
455 /WINDOW SERVER -sticky tag
458 <p>This is useful if you wish to have multiple status or msgs windows, one
459 for each server. Here's how to do them (repeat for each server)</p>
463 /WINDOW NAME (status)
464 /WINDOW LEVEL ALL -MSGS
465 /WINDOW SERVER -sticky ircnet
470 /WINDOW SERVER -sticky ircnet
473 <h3><a id="c7">7. /LASTLOG and jumping around in scrollback</a></h3>
475 <p>/LASTLOG command can be used for searching texts in scrollback
476 buffer. Simplest usages are</p>
479 /LASTLOG word - print all lines with "word" in them
480 /LASTLOG word 10 - print last 10 occurances of "word"
481 /LASTLOG -topics - print all topic changes
484 <p>If there's more than 1000 lines to be printed, irssi thinks that you
485 probably made some mistake and won't print them without -force option.
486 If you want to save the full lastlog to file, use</p>
489 /LASTLOG -file ~/irc.log
492 <p>With -file option you don't need -force even if there's more than 1000
493 lines. /LASTLOG has a lot of other options too, see /HELP lastlog for
496 <p>Once you've found the lines you were interested in, you might want
497 to check the discussion around them. Irssi has /SCROLLBACK (or alias
498 /SB) command for jumping around in scrollback buffer. Since /LASTLOG
499 prints the timestamp when the message was originally printed, you can
500 use /SB GOTO hh:mm to jump directly there. To get back to the bottom of
501 scrollback, use /SB END command.</p>
504 <h3><a id="c8">8. Logging</a></h3>
506 <p>Irssi can automatically log important messages when you're set away
507 (/AWAY reason). When you set yourself unaway (/AWAY), the new messages
508 in away log are printed to screen. You can configure it with:</p>
511 /SET awaylog_level MSGS HILIGHT - Specifies what messages to log
512 /SET awaylog_file ~/.irssi/away.log - Specifies the file to use
515 <p>Easiest way to start logging with Irssi is to use autologging. With it
516 Irssi logs all channels and private messages to specified directory.
517 You can turn it on with</p>
523 <p>By default it logs pretty much everything execept CTCPS or CRAP
524 (/WHOIS requests, etc). You can specify the logging level yourself with</p>
527 /SET autolog_level ALL -CRAP -CLIENTCRAP -CTCPS (this is the default)
530 <p>By default irssi logs to ~/irclogs/<servertag>/<target>.log.
531 You can change this with</p>
534 /SET autolog_path ~/irclogs/$tag/$0.log (this is the default)
537 <p>The path is automatically created if it doesn't exist. $0 specifies
538 the target (channel/nick). You can make irssi automatically rotate the
539 logs by adding date/time formats to the file name. The formats are in
540 "man strftime" format. For example</p>
543 /SET autolog_path ~/irclogs/%Y/$tag/$0.%m-%d.log
546 <p>For logging only some specific channels or nicks, see /HELP log</p>
549 <h3><a id="c9">9. Changing keyboard bindings</a></h3>
551 <p>You can change any keyboard binding that terminal lets irssi know
552 about. It doesn't let irssi know everything, so for example
553 shift-backspace can't be bound unless you modify xterm resources
556 <p>/HELP bind tells pretty much everything there is to know about
557 keyboard bindings. However, there's the problem of how to bind some
558 non-standard keys. They might differ a bit with each terminal, so
559 you'll need to find out what exactly the keypress produces. Easiest
560 way to check that would be to see what it prints in "cat". Here's
561 an example for pressing F1 key:</p>
568 <p>So in irssi you would use /BIND ^[OP /ECHO F1 pressed. If you use
569 multiple terminals which have different bindings for the key, it would
570 be better to use eg.:</p>
575 /BIND F1 /ECHO F1 pressed.
578 <h3><a id="c10">10. Proxies and IRC bouncers</a></h3>
580 <p>Irssi supports connecting to IRC servers via a proxy. All server
581 connections are then made through it, and if you've set up everything
582 properly, you don't need to do any /QUOTE SERVER commands manually.</p>
584 <p>Here's an example: You have your bouncer (lets say, BNC or BNC-like)
585 listening in irc.bouncer.org port 5000. You want to use it to connect
586 to servers irc.dalnet and irc.efnet.org. First you'd need to setup the
591 /SET proxy_address irc.bouncer.org
594 /SET proxy_password YOUR_BNC_PASSWORD_HERE
595 /SET -clear proxy_string
596 /SET proxy_string_after conn %s %d
599 <p>Then you'll need to add the server connections. These are done
600 exactly as if you'd want to connect directly to them. Nothing special
604 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet dalnet irc.dal.net
605 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet efnet irc.efnet.org
608 <p>With the proxy /SETs however, irssi now connects to those servers
609 through your BNC. All server connections are made through them so you
610 can just forget that your bouncer even exists.</p>
612 <p>If you don't want to use the proxy for some reason, there's -noproxy
613 option which you can give to /SERVER and /SERVER ADD commands.</p>
615 <p><strong>Proxy specific settings:</strong></p>
617 <p>All proxies have these settings in common:</p>
621 /SET proxy_address <Proxy host address>
622 /SET proxy_port <Proxy port>
625 <p><strong>HTTP proxy</strong></p>
627 <p>Use these settings with HTTP proxies:</p>
630 /SET -clear proxy_password
631 /EVAL SET proxy_string CONNECT %s:%d\n\n
634 <p><strong>BNC</strong></p>
637 /SET proxy_password your_pass
638 /SET -clear proxy_string
639 /SET proxy_string_after conn %s %d
642 <p><strong>dircproxy</strong></p>
644 <p>dircproxy separates the server connections by passwords. So, if you
645 for example have ircnet connection with password ircpass and
646 openprojects connection with opnpass, you would do something like
650 /SET -clear proxy_password
651 /SET -clear proxy_string
653 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet fake.ircnet 6667 ircpass
654 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet opn fake.opn 6667 opnpass
657 <p>The server name and port you give isn't used anywhere, so you can
658 put anything you want in there.</p>
660 <p><strong>psyBNC</strong></p>
662 <p>psyBNC has internal support for multiple servers. However, it could
663 be a bit annoying to use, and some people just use different users for
664 connecting to different servers. You can manage this in a bit same way
665 as with dircproxy, by creating fake connections:</p>
668 /SET -clear proxy_password
669 /SET -clear proxy_string
671 /IRCNET ADD -user ircnetuser ircnet
672 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet ircnet fake.ircnet 6667 ircpass
673 /IRCNET ADD -user opnuser opn
674 /SERVER ADD -auto -ircnet opn fake.opn 6667 opnpass
677 <p>So, you'll specify the usernames with /IRCNET ADD command, and the
678 user's password with /SERVER ADD.</p>
680 <p><strong>Irssi proxy</strong></p>
682 <p>Irssi contains it's own proxy which you can build giving
683 <strong>--with-proxy</strong> option to configure. You'll still need to run
684 irssi in a screen to use it though.</p>
686 <p>Irssi proxy is a bit different than most proxies, normally proxies create
687 a new connection to IRC server when you connect to it, but with irssi proxy
688 all the clients use the same IRC server connection (a bit like how screen -x
691 <p>Irssi proxy supports sharing multiple server connections in different
692 ports, like you can share ircnet in port 2777 and efnet in port 2778.</p>
694 <p>Usage in proxy side:</p>
698 /SET irssiproxy_password <password>
699 /SET irssiproxy_ports <ircnet>=<port> ... (eg. ircnet=2777 efnet=2778)
702 <p><strong>NOTE</strong>: you <strong>MUST</strong> add all the servers you
703 are using to server and ircnet lists with /SERVER ADD and /IRCNET ADD.
704 ..Except if you really don't want to for some reason, and you only use
705 one server connection, you may simply set:</p>
708 /SET irssiproxy_ports *=2777
711 <p>Usage in client side:</p>
713 <p>Just connect to the irssi proxy like it is a normal server with password
714 specified in /SET irssiproxy_password. For example:</p>
717 /SERVER ADD -ircnet ircnet my.irssi-proxy.org 2777 secret
718 /SERVER ADD -ircnet efnet my.irssi-proxy.org 2778 secret
721 <p>Irssi proxy works fine with other IRC clients as well.</p>
723 <p><strong>SOCKS</strong></p>
725 Irssi can be compiled with socks support (<strong>--with-socks</strong>
726 option to configure), but I don't really know how it works, if at all. /SET
727 proxy settings don't have anything to do with socks however.
729 <p><strong>Others</strong></p>
731 <p>IRC bouncers usually work like IRC servers, and want a password. You can
735 /SET proxy_password <password>
738 <p>Irssi's defaults for connect strings are</p>
741 /SET proxy_string CONNECT %s %d
742 /SET proxy_string_after
745 <p>The proxy_string is sent before NICK/USER commands, the
746 proxy_string_after is sent after them. %s and %d can be used with both
749 <h3><a id="c11">11. Irssi's settings</a></h3>
751 <p>You probably don't like Irssi's default settings. I don't like them.
752 But I'm still convinced that they're pretty good defaults. Here's some
753 of them you might want to change (the default value is shown):</p>
755 <p><strong>Queries</strong></p>
758 <dt>/SET autocreate_own_query ON</dt>
759 <dd>Should new query window be created when you send message to someone
762 <dt>/SET autocreate_query_level MSGS</dt>
763 <dd>New query window should be created when receiving messages with
764 this level. MSGS, DCCMSGS and NOTICES levels work currently. You can
765 disable this with /SET -clear autocrate_query_level.</dd>
767 <dt>/SET autoclose_query 0</dt>
768 <dd>Query windows can be automatically closed after certain time of
769 inactivity. Queries with unread messages aren't closed and active
770 window is neither never closed. The value is given in seconds.</dd>
773 <p><strong>Windows</strong></p>
776 <dt>/SET use_msgs_window OFF</dt>
777 <dd>Create messages window at startup. All private messages go to this
778 window. This only makes sense if you've disabled automatic query
779 windows. Message window can also be created manually with /WINDOW LEVEL
780 MSGS, /WINDOW NAME (msgs).</dd>
782 <dt>/SET use_status_window ON</dt>
783 <dd>Create status window at startup. All messages that don't really
784 have better place go here, like all /WHOIS replies etc. Status window
785 can also be created manually with /WINDOW LEVEL ALL -MSGS, /WINDOW NAME
788 <dt>/SET autocreate_windows ON</dt>
789 <dd>Should we create new windows for new window items or just place
790 everything in one window</dd>
792 <dt>/SET autoclose_windows ON</dt>
793 <dd>Should window be automatically closed when the last item in them is
794 removed (ie. /PART, /UNQUERY).</dd>
796 <dt>/SET reuse_unused_windows OFF</dt>
797 <dd>When finding where to place new window item (channel, query) Irssi
798 first tries to use already existing empty windows. If this is set ON,
799 new window will always be created for all window items. This setting is
800 ignored if autoclose_windows is set ON.</dd>
802 <dt>/SET window_auto_change OFF</dt>
803 <dd>Should Irssi automatically change to automatically created windows
804 - usually queries when someone sends you a message. To prevent
805 accidentally sending text meant to some other channel/nick, Irssi
806 clears the input buffer when changing the window. The text is still in
807 scrollback buffer, you can get it back with pressing arrow up key.</dd>
809 <dt>/SET print_active_channel OFF</dt>
810 <dd>When you keep more than one channel in same window, Irssi prints
811 the messages coming to active channel as "<nick> text"
812 and other channels as "<nick:channel> text". If this
813 setting is set ON, the messages to active channels are also printed in
816 <dt>/SET window_history OFF</dt>
817 <dd>Should command history be kept separate for each window.</dd>
821 <p><strong>User information</strong></p>
825 <dd>Your nick name</dd>
827 <dt>/SET alternate_nick</dt>
828 <dd>Your alternate nick.</dd>
830 <dt>/SET user_name</dt>
831 <dd>Your username, if you have ident enabled this doesn't affect
834 <dt>/SET real_name</dt>
835 <dd>Your real name.</dd>
839 <p><strong>Server information</strong></p>
842 <dt>/SET skip_motd OFF</dt>
843 <dd>Should we hide server's MOTD (Message Of The Day).</dd>
845 <dt>/SET server_reconnect_time 300</dt>
846 <dd>Seconds to wait before connecting to same server again. Don't set
847 this too low since it usually doesn't help at all - if the host is
848 down, the few extra minutes of waiting won't hurt much.</dd>
850 <dt>/SET lag_max_before_disconnect 300</dt>
851 <dd>Maximum server lag in seconds before disconnecting and trying to
852 reconnect. This happens mostly only when network breaks between you and
857 <p><strong>Appearance</strong></p>
860 <dt>/SET timestamps ON</dt>
861 <dd>Show timestamps before each message.</dd>
863 <dt>/SET hide_text_style OFF</dt>
864 <dd>Hide all bolds, underlines, MIRC colors, etc.</dd>
866 <dt>/SET show_nickmode ON</dt>
867 <dd>Show the nick's mode before nick in channels, ie. ops have
868 <@nick>, voices <+nick> and others < nick></dd>
870 <dt>/SET show_nickmode_empty ON</dt>
871 <dd>If the nick doesn't have a mode, use one space. ie. ON:
872 < nick>, OFF: <nick></dd>
874 <dt>/SET show_quit_once OFF</dt>
875 <dd>Show quit message only once in some of the channel windows the
876 nick was in instead of in all windows.</dd>
878 <dt>/SET lag_min_show 100</dt>
879 <dd>Show the server lag in status bar if it's bigger than this, the
880 unit is 1/100 of seconds (ie. the default value of 100 = 1 second).</dd>
882 <dt>/SET indent 10</dt>
883 <dd>When lines are longer than screen width they have to be split to
884 multiple lines. This specifies how much space to put at the beginning
885 of the line before the text begins. This can be overridden in text
886 formats with %| format.</dd>
888 <dt>/SET activity_hide_targets</dt>
889 <dd>If you don't want to see window activity in some certain channels
890 or queries, list them here. For example "#boringchannel =bot1 =bot2".
891 If any highlighted text or message for you appears in that window, this
892 setting is ignored and the activity is shown.</dd>
895 <p><strong>Nick completion</strong></p>
898 <dt>/SET completion_auto OFF</dt>
899 <dd>Automatically complete the nick if line begins with start of nick
900 and the completion character. Learn to use the tab-completion instead,
901 it's a lot better ;)</dd>
903 <dt>/SET completion_char :</dt>
904 <dd>Completion character to use.</dd>
907 <h3><a id="c12">12. Statusbar</a></h3>
909 <p><strong>/STATUSBAR</strong> displays a list of statusbars:</p>
912 Name Type Placement Position Visible
913 window window bottom 0 always
914 window_inact window bottom 1 inactive
915 prompt root bottom 100 always
916 topic root top 1 always
919 <p><strong>/STATUSBAR <name></strong> prints the statusbar
920 settings and it's items. <strong>/STATUSBAR <name>
921 ENABLE|DISABLE</strong> enables/disables the statusbar.
922 <strong>/STATUSBAR <name> RESET</strong> resets the statusbar to
923 it's default settings, or if the statusbar was created by you, it will be
926 <p>Type can be window or root, meaning if the statusbar should be
927 created for each split window, or just once. Placement can be top or
928 bottom. Position is a number, the higher the value the lower in screen
929 it is. Visible can be always, active or inactive. Active/inactive is
930 useful only with split windows, one split window is active and the rest
931 are inactive. These settings can be changed with:</p>
934 <li>STATUSBAR <name> TYPE window|root</li>
935 <li>STATUSBAR <name> PLACEMENT top|bottom</li>
936 <li>STATUSBAR <name> POSITION <num></li>
937 <li>STATUSBAR <name> VISIBLE always|active|inactive</li>
940 <p>When loading a new statusbar scripts, you'll need to also specify
941 where you want to show it. Statusbar items can be modified with:</p>
944 <li>10:52 STATUSBAR <name> ADD [-before | -after <item>] [-priority #] [-alignment left|right] <item></li>
945 <li>10:52 STATUSBAR <name> REMOVE <item></li>
948 <p>The item name with statusbar scripts is usually same as the script's
949 name. Script's documentation should tell if this isn't the case. So, to
950 add mail.pl before the window activity item (see the list with
951 /STATUSBAR window), use: <strong>/STATUSBAR window ADD -before act