Using the Channel List window
When you have successfully connected to a server you can request that the server
send you a list of all the available channels.
To request a channel list use the List Channels… menu item under the File
menu. This will open a dialog where you can tell Snak what criteria to use in
the request.
The List Channels dialog allows you to specify what you want to see in the Channel
List in terms of minimum and maximum number of members and words to include or
exclude from the channel name.
In the above example you are looking for channels with names that contain "mp3"
and has a population of 25 or more.
When you press OK Snak will send the list command to the server which will then
return the channels that match the criteria you entered. At that point the Channel
List window will appear and begin to fill up with the matching channels. Since
there may be many, many channels it can take a while before the server is done.
Most large networks contain thousands of channels that are very small or only
contain a single person. As a beginner you are not advised to visit a small channel
like that unless you know who the other member of the channel is. Stick to large
channels until you are comfortable with the process.
To join a channel from the Channel List you can select it and press the Join button
or double click on the channel name.
In this picture Snak is still receiving channels from the server, as indicated
by the spinning arrows in the upper right corner of the window. Once the entire
list is received, Snak will sort the window.
If you want to see a new channel list with different criteria you can press the
Refresh button that will bring up the List Channels… dialog again.
Most channels in the list starts with the # character but some starts with the
& character. This indicates that the channel is local – accessible only
to users connected to your server.
If you are puzzled by channels called #[$%%SJ@ or #[#!!@#@%^ or something similar
they are not nonsense channels. People with many different alphabets use IRC and
these strings of characters have meaning in Cantonese or one of the many other
script systems in use on this Earth. The dominant population of IRC changes in
a daily cycle from European to American to Australian to Asian and back to European,
as the planet rotates majestically on its axis.
Snak will remember the list of channels and you can close and reopen the Channel
List window later from the Windows menu.
Using the Channel List window
