AmyIRC - a small Amiga IRC client for AS225 and AmiTCP
The Internet Relay Chat:
------------------------
The Internet Relay Chat
IRC is the second largest waste of productivity invented in the computer
industry so far (the largest one is the World Wide Web which is sufficiently
easy to be used even by computer illiterates}.
IRC is also a very successful communication method that connects computers
on the world's largest computer network called the Internet. In IRC
discussions are organized into channels where people with related interests
talk about god and the world (and also about their computers).
People on IRC use nicknames to address each other. But in many situations
it is good when you also know the real person who stands behind a nickname.
Since communication through the IRC system is very fast it can react quickly
to current events. In the beginning of the Gulf War people gathered in the
"report" channel and exchanged news and reports from participants much faster
than the official news agencies could deliver information.
IRC commands:
------------
AmyIRC commands work similar to Irc II commands. A command starts with
a lead-in character which is currently either a '/' or a '.'. Input lines
that do not start with a lead-in character are treated as literal text
entries that are sent to the current channel.
ADMIN ALIAS AWAY BAN CHOP CTCP DCC INVITE
JOIN KICK LIST LUSERS LEAVE MODE ME MSG
NAMES NICK NOTICE PART QUERY QUIT QUOTE SHOW
TOPIC UNBAN UNCHOP WHO WHOIS
/ADMIN server
Ask a server who is responsible for it.
/ALIAS name value
Create a shorthand for another command. The new command '/name' gets
replaced by 'value', any parameters of the command are appended.
It is not possible to choose an alias name that is identical to a
built in command. It is possible to create an alias for an existing
alias.
/AWAY {notice}
Mark yourself as away. People that query you with a WHOIS or that
try to send a MSG will receive your notice text.
If you use the AWAY command without arguments then the notice is
removed.
See also:
MSG WHOIS
/BAN {nick!user@host}
Add the specified user to the current channels ban list. The ban entry
consists of a nickname nick and an user specification user@host.
Both parts can contain asterisks and question marks as wildcard
characters. I.e.:
nick!*@* bans a specific nick whatever account is used.
*!user@host bans a specific account whatever nick is used.
*!*@*.edu bans all US universities.
Using BAN without parameters displays the channels ban list.
This command requires Channel Operator status.
See also:
UNBAN MODE
/CHOP nick
Grant the user with a given nick channel operator status.
To grant channel operator status you need to be channel operator
yourself.
See also:
UNCHOP MODE
/CTCP nick command {arguments}
Send a command to the user with the given nick through the
Client-To-Client-Protocol.
What commands are possible depend on the client used. Most
clients accept:
VERSION send back a text describing what client is used.
USERINFO some information about nick.
FINGER the output of the finger command on nick's site.
PING the network response time to nick.
AmyIRC currently just responds to the VERSION command.
/DCC ???
DCC establishes a direct client-to-client connection which can be
used for private talks or data transfers that do not pass the IRC
servers network.
Currently AmyIRC does not support DCC.
/INVITE {#channel} nick
Tell the user nick that he may join your current channel or the
channel given as an argument. This is needed for channels set to
"invite-only" with MODE +i.
You need to be channel operator to INVITE someone to an invite-only
channel.
See also:
MODE
/JOIN #channel {key}
Enter a channel. You can enter up to 10 channels concurrently by
sending several JOIN commands.
There is the notion of a "current channel" which is the one you are talking to. Public messages are send to this channel and messages coming from other channels are prefixed by the channel name.
I.e.:
<nick> Hello world is a public message on the current
channel
<#foo:nick> Hello world is a public message on channel #foo
If you JOIN a channel that you are already on then this channel
becomes the current channel.
Joining a channel may require you to use a key word if the channel
uses MODE +k.
See also:
PART MODE
/KICK {#channel} nick
Remove the user nick from the current channel or the channel given
as an argument.
You need to be channel operator for that channel to remove an user.
See also:
BAN
/LIST {channel#}
List the number of users and topic of the current channel or the
channel passed as an argument.
The channel argument can contain wildcard characters, then any channel with a matching name will be listed.
If the list is too long then your IRC server may reject you.
See also:
NAMES WHO TOPIC
/LUSERS {server}
Query your server or the given server for some statistics about
the IRC network.
/MODE nick [+|-]modechars {arguments}
/MODE #channel [+|-]modechars {arguments}
Alters all the settings in a session. You can change channel specific
options and those for the user nick. Options are enabled with a + and
disabled with a - in front of the mode character. Here is a list of all modes. Changing the channel mode requires channel operator
privilege.
nick [+|-] make yourself invisible to WHO and NAMES
except for users that are on your
channel(s).
nick [+|-]o pass make yourself IRC operator.
nick [+|-]s tell the server that you want to receive
administrative messages.
nick [+|-]w tell the server that you want to receive
WALLOPS messages.
#channel [+|-]b nick ban a user from a channel.
#channel [+|-]i make the channel invite-only
#channel [+|-]k key set the channel key, only people with a
correct key may enter the channel.
#channel [+|-]l limit limit the number of users on a channel.
#channel [+|-]m make the channel moderated, just channel
operators and other privileged users (+v)
may send public messages to a channel.
#channel [+|-]n disallow public messages to the channel from people on the outside.
#channel [+|-]o nick make user {nick} a channel operator.
#channel [+|-]p make a channel invisible to LIST and
NAMES. You can still query it with
WHO if you know the exact channel name.
#channel [+|-]s make a channel completely secret. It will
not appear on any list or query.
#channel [+|-]t disallow normal users to change the channel
topic. Only channel operators may do that.
#channel [+|-]v nick Grant user {nick} to speak into a moderated
channel (+m).
See also:
WHO NAMES BAN CHOP INVITE JOIN
/ME action
You can send special action messages to your current channel. These are
actually public messages with some control characters that are interpreted
by newer IRC clients.
It is generally difficult to express emotions in written messages, using
the ME command helps around this problem by using non-direct speech.
An action appears on the channel like:
#channel=> nick does this and that
See also:
MSG QUERY
/MSG #channel message
/MSG nick message
Public messages can be read by anyone on the current channel. With MSG you
can send messages to an arbitrary channel unless that channel explicitely
forbids messages from the outside.
When you specify a {nick} as the recipient then the message is just
send to the specific user. You can use a comma-separated list of
{nick}s. In that case AmyIRC will repeat the message for each user
on the list.
See also:
QUERY ME MODE NOTICE
/NAMES {#channel}
NAMES lists all users on some channel by their nickname.
You can use wildcard characters so that all users on all matching {channel}s
are listed. If the list is too long then your IRC server may reject you.
See also:
LIST WHO TOPIC
/NICK nick
Change your "nickname" to nick. If that nickname is used by someone else
you get an error message and your nickname remains the same.
/NOTICE #channel message
/NOTICE nick message
About the same as the MSG command except that the recipient(s) can
distinguish between the two methods.
This was introduced to avoid infinite message loops when two or more
Irc II scripts respond to each other. By convention (and public
punishment) you are obliged to use NOTICE for any automated response
generated by a script and to ignore any NOTICEs sent to your script.
AmyIRC does not yet support scripts.
See also:
MSG
/PART {#channel}
/LEAVE {#channel}
Leave the current channel or the channel given as an argument. If you have
JOINed other channels then one of these channels becomes the new current
channel.
PART and LEAVE are synonyms for some historical reason.
See also:
JOIN LIST
/QUERY nick
/QUERY #channel
/QUERY
Redirect all your public messages to the given nick or channel. This comes
handy when you want to temporarily talk to another user without typing
lots of MSG commands.
QUERY without an argument removes the redirection and public messages are
sent to the current channel again (if there is any).
See also:
MSG
/QUIT {message}
Exit from the IRC session. This informs the server that you are about
to close your network connection. The optional message is sent to the
channel instead of the default message (Leaving).
AmyIRC will wait for the final server response and then exit.
/QUOTE text
The text will be send literally to the server. With QUOTE it is possible
to use server commands that are not implemented or accessible from a client.
I.e.:
/QUOTE PONG some.server.name
tells the server that your session is still alive.
/SHOW something
Display the information gathered so far for something. Currently
the only useful entity is "state" which shows information about
your session.
/TOPIC {#channel} {topic}
Set the topic for the current channel or the channel passed as an argument.
If you do not specify a topic then the current topic of the channel is displayed.
See also:
NAMES WHO LIST
/UNBAN nick!user@host
Remove the specific user from the current channels ban list. The ban entry
consists of a nickname nick and an user specification user@host.
You need to pass the exact ban entry that is in the channels ban list. You
cannot use wildcards to remove multiple entries.
This command requires channel operator status.
See also:
BAN MODE
/UNCHOP nick
Deny channel operator status to the user with a given nick text.
To deny channel operator status you need to be channel operator yourself.
See also:
CHOP MODE
/WHO nick
/WHO {#channel}
Show information about the user nick or all users on a given channel.
Both specifications can use wildcard characters to match multiple nicks
or channels. Using WHO with no argument lists all users from the
current channel.
See also:
WHOIS LIST NAMES
/WHOIS nick
Query information about a specific nick. Using WHOIS is the only
method to query users that made themselves invisible with the MODE command.
However, you need to know their exact nick as WHOIS will not accept wildcards.
See also:
WHO MODE
CREDITS:
AmyIRC was created by
Markus Illenseer ("ill")
Initial main loop, user interface, resource tracking