IRC mIRC chat client

Thorn's mIRC Page

Welcome to Thorns Mirc page.

About IRC

About IRC... Internet Relay Chat. IRC. Is a chat forum made up of Clients and Networks of Servers. Clients are the programs which you run on your computer which allow you to interface with the IRC Servers. Networks are composed of multiple servers which are connected to each other. The Servers accept data from all the clients and other servers within the network and relays this information to all connected clients and servers. Since the servers share their information with all connected clients and servers... all the channels and people will be the same no matter which server you connect to within a network. Networks however do not share information. The people and channels are different between Networks even if they have the same name.

What makes IRC cool?

Since there are multiple servers you can always connect to another server if one server stops working. Same people and channels.

IRC is FAST... IRC is Text based. There are no pictures to make you wait while your trying to chat.

IRC lets you create and control access to your own chat room (chat rooms are called channels in IRC ). What does that mean? If an abusive person comes into your chat room they either behave or you can kick them out.. and bann them from coming back.

You can play sounds in irc. The tecnique used does not slow down the chat!!!

you can have colored text in IRC

You can send and recieve files directly to and from your friends... and since it is direct and does not go thru the server the chat is not slowed down!!!

there are thousands of channels (chat rooms) so you have a pretty good chance of finding a subject you are interested in. This includes many help channels on many different subjects

you can also send and recieve private messages

you can be in multiple channels at the same time

The mIRC client program is programmable... you dont need to program it but you can ... this allows you to customize your chat program.

OK!!! So your sold on irc... Well where to get it??? Just click on this button and you will go to the download page

What is a CLIENT?

A client is a program that runs on your computer which allows you to connect to an IRC server and chat in an IRC network. Some common clients are mIRC and Pirch for PC's, and Homer and Ircle for Mac's...

About NET's and SERVERS:

Networks (nets) are made up of many servers.Each server in a network shares its information
(channels and people) with the other servers in that network, they are "mirror sites."

It doesn't matter which server you are connected to within a Net, you will see the same people and channels as all the other people connected to that Net.Networks are different, they do not share their information with other networks. When you are connected to GalaxyNet you will only see the servers and people currently connected to GalaxyNet, not the servers or people currently connected to IceNet or EICN. You may see the same channel names on IceNet or EICN, but they are not the same channels.

About CHANNEL OPERATORS (OPS) or (CHOPS):

If you have been in an irc channel you may have seen some of the nicknames listed have a @ symbol. IRC Channel Operators are identified by the @ symbol in front of their nick. Operators have extra IRC commands available to them. Operators are a good thing, they help to maintain IRC as a fun place to chat, but!!!... you don't need operator commands to enjoy IRC!!. Some of these commands are /kick and /ban. More about them later

To become an operator you must be "opped," or made an operator, by an existing operator. Normally to be "opped" you must be known and trusted by the existing channel operators, and usually there must be a need for additional operators. You can also get operator status by starting a new channel. In newly created channels, the first one in the channel also know as its creator or owner, is given the operator status. It is considered rude to "beg" for ops... please dont. :) For the reason that if everyone who asked for ops got ops... the "abusers" would be given ops too. This is why only people who are known and trusted should be given ops.about KICKS and BANS

To op someone type /mode #channelname +o nick To Deop type /mode #channelname -o nick .. or just highlight the nick in the nickname list and then right click in the nick list and use the nickname list popups to do the opping / deopping.. (is is listed under control i think..)

About Kicks and Bans

Channels are similar to people's homes, and the operators are like the people who live there. As in your home, you don't need a reason to kick someone out or ban them from your channel. If this happens to you, you can /msg (message) the op who banned you and very politely ask why you were banned and if you can re-enter. If they say no, or have you on ignore, it would be best to just find another channel to chat in. If you have done nothing wrong and find you are banned, it could be that you were merely in the range of IP's (Internet Providers) that were banned and the ban was not directed at you personally. (more about IP's later). Only a channel op can remove the ban, normally the one who origianlly banned you. Kicks and Bans, when used right, are a good thing. They exist to protect users from abusers.

If you have to kick the command is /kick #chan nick reason ...if you have to ban the command is /mode #chan +b nick 3 .. or /ban #chan nick 3 ... to unban /mode #chan -b nick 3...

Tipps on How not to get banned

First and formost.. dont abuse others... What could be considered abuse??
FLOODING.. idea's and thoughts are exchanged in a text format on your screen... ideally each user or participant in the conversation would be tossing in their two cents and everyone would have about the same screen time.. a flooder or when someone floods.. they send a huge amount of information to the screen in a short time... there may be cases when this is in everyones best interest... but usually it is considered abuse.. How to tell.. Ask in the channel if it is ok to post before you do it... things that flood include posting text pic's
PROFANITY this may be acceptable in a few channels but in most it is abusive behaviour.. especially in channels where the general population has access... swearing in front of children is not considered cool...

It is considered bad form to private chat someone without asking them if it is ok in the open channel first... there are always exceptions to this but... if you dont know someone you should consider asking first..
repeating... unlike the spoken word.. if someone dosnt hear u the first time they can re read what u wrote... excessive repeating will get ya kicked almost anywhere...
op begging.. again nothing personal.. but the ops would be irresponsible to op someone they dont know.. pls dont ask them to be irresponsible.. you can get kicked for this harassment
sounds and colors.. depending on the channel these may interfere with the theme of the channel.. so ask if it is ok or watch to see if others are doing it first before u do
yelling.. all CAPS IS CONSIDERED YELLING and is frowned apon... you should not use caps unless u mean to yell ... then it should be something like FIRE!!! CALL 911!!! etc...

What is a BOT??

A Bot (robot) is an IRC client which has been programmed to respond to commands and/or events. There are different types of bots; Help bots, like Q or IRChelp. They help with channel business, registration of nicks, keeping track of the channel operators and bans. Or answer questions via the /msg Q Help commands. Bar bots, which areused in some channels to fetch drinks, food etc from the "bar." Protection bots help protect channels. These are not really needed as q is all you need. Bots are not people. They only respond to certain commands or keywords. Bots take up space on the server that real people could use. They are not allowed on some servers, make sure you read the "motd" (message of the day) when you log in to a server, or type /motd to check on the rules about bots!

What is Script?

Script is a mini-program a user writes to run "inside" their IRC client. Such as one to automatically greet people when they enter a channel.

About IP numbers:

Each computer on the internet has its own unique address in two forms. One form is number-based for the computers and looks like

207.116.43.62

The second form is text-based (host.domain) and is for the people it looks like

62.new-york-012.ny.dial-access.att.net

If you notice each has groupings of numbers or text. They are the same address, just different forms. In order for your computer to use this address it must be in number form. There are Domain Name Servers (DNS) which do the conversion for your computer. Sometimes when you try to connect to a computer you may get the meessage "cannot resolve local host." It is possible that the DNS is down.

The IP text-form and number-form are reversed in their order. In the number-form, the most significant number comes first. In the text-form, the most significant text is last of the four groupings.

There are two types of IP numbers-- Static or Dynamic. Static IP's are always the same and never change. Dynamic IP's are more common. Your local Internet Service Provider (ISP), also known as your dialup service, are the ones who assign you your IP number. In the case of dynamic IP numbers it is usually taken from a pool of available numbers each time you dial in. It will seldom be the same nubmer twice. This way it takes fewer numbers to serve a large number of users, as most people are not logged in 24 hours a day.

This means people's IP numbers will change!!! Usually just the last group in the number-form IP, or the first group in the IP in text-form.(depends on how big the pool of numbers is that the provider can draw from.) It is why wild cards "*" must be used in bans and why when a ban is set hundreds or thousands of potential users are banned at the same time.. It is also why you should not ban lightly!!! Ever been banned?? How did YOU feel??

To get a host,domain from ip number type /dns host.domain ( /dns 62.new-york-012.ny.dial-access.att.net ) this will give you the ip number ( 207.116.43.62 ) or to get the host.domain from ip number type /dns ipnumber ( /dns 207.116.43.62 ) which will give you 62.new-york-012.ny.dial-access.att.net in your status window...

What part of ip can change what should you wildcard?

1-128 ................... class A 128.xxx.xxx.xxx
128.1-191.254 ........... class B 129.222.xxx.xxx
192.1.1 - 223.254.254 ... class C 192.254.254.xxx

note: the xxx can change...

About HOSTMASKS:

The Hostmask is made up of user ID and IP number (in either form) It is formatted; userID@IPnumber and looks like

[email protected]

It uniquely identifies your computer on IRC. As previously discussed, it can change, this is normal. The user ID is the part in front of the @ in your hostmask. Later we will find that hostmasks play an important role on IRC, esp where the /ban and /ignore commands are concerned.

About COMMANDS:

Commands always start with a / followed by the command itself, as in /msg the message command. (sends a private message to a nick) Another useful command is the /join #channame command. (causes you to join the specified #channel) Another way to join a chan is to use the /raw command, then double click on the channel name while it is highlighted in the /raw list. A variation of the /raw command is: raw list ># where # is the minimum number of people present in the channels you want to see listed, the lower the number, the longer the list will take. This is a good way to find a good place to chat, the more the merrier!

Channel names start with a # . Spacing is very important. Commands are not case sensitive.

I found some friends how do I find them again???

MOST important: Remember what net you are on!

* This is GalaxyNet *

You can put your friends in your notify list by typing /notify nick. Then IRC will tell you when your friend is logged into your IRC network automatically!!! Once you have been notified that your friend is online, you can type /uwho nick which will open a dialog box and give you the following information:
(Or type /whois nick and get just the information.)

thorn is [email protected] * rbc
thorn on @#GalaxySchool @#mIRChelp @#mirc @#irchelp
thorn using charlotte.nc.us.galaxynet.org Info Avenue's GalaxyNet Server
thorn has been idle 54 seconds, signed on Wed Apr 09 12:36:39
End of /WHOIS list.

The first line should look familar-- it is the hostmask!
The second line shows what channels thorn is currently chatting in, and if he has ops in those channels.
The third line will tell u what server thorn is connected to.
The forth line shows how long since the last time thorn posted text to the active channel.

Please note: secret channels will not be shown on the list of channels the user is currently chatting in.

With the /notify and /whois command you should be able to find your friends if you know what net they are on...

How do I get rid of someone who is bothering me?

The ignore command will make the person go away... type /ignore nick 3 and they should not bother you again.

Hmmmm...what does that 3 mean???
The 3 saves you a lot of typeing .. it tells your client what kind of mask configuratino to use on the hostmask used in the ban or ignore. here are the different masks associated with each number:

0: [email protected]
1: ![email protected]
2: !@host.domain
3: !user@.domain
4: !@.domain
5: [email protected]
6: nick![email protected]
7: nick!@host.domain
8: nick!user@.domain
9: nick!@*.domain

These are the much easier to use than typeing in entire host masks.. for bans and ignores

about DCC

Hey!! Ever have a DCC problem where you could not initiate a chat?? but others could chat you?? Well the way dcc works.... your computer calls the other computer.. to do this it uses the other computers ip number (a unique addy on the internet ... kinda like a phone number) which it gets from the irc server... so you need the irc server to connect with dcc... then your computer contacts the other computer... and waits for the other computer to reply before establishing the connection... Well the other computer to reply needs your computers IP number!!! This was provided by your computer when it called the other computer... It is that IP number being wrong that causes most dcc problems. rememeber how ip numbers come from a pool of numbers... and they change almost every time u connect?? .... well if your mirc has the wrong ip number tyou can still call the other computer but when it attempts to respond.... it does so to the wrong ip number!!! ... which results in dcc never getting established and times out... SO!!! How do you fix this... Well .. it is easy...

first u must disconnect from the server..
then click on file....
click on setup....
click on local info.....
make sure on connect always get box is checked...
clear out the host and ip boxes...
then make sure at bottom normal method is selected...
then reconnect to the irc server and test...

since dcc chat and dcc send establish the link the same way.. if dcc chat works so should dcc send.. also if one dont work the other wont either for this problem. This should fix 90% of the broken dcc's..... if it did not fix your problem... then do exactly the same thing but use server method instead of normal method...

Hey My Dcc Send works but it is slooow or it dosnt work and i tried the above steps... Informaiton is sent from your computer in small bursts of information called packets... these packets are encoded to detect errors caused by noise in transmission.. if a packet comes in and fails a validity check it is canned and reloaded... what does this mean??? means that if you have a noisy line or bad connection your dcc will be slow... what can u do? Packet size... the bigger the packet the greater the chance there will be an error in it... so for noiser connections try lowering the packet size.. it could in c r e a s your transmission rate... in fact i keep mine at the minimum all the time...

How to Copy/Cut and Paste...

to copy press mouse button and drag over desired text. if highlight goes away when you let go of button it is copied..if highlight remains Hit CTRL C to copy. (To cut hit CTRL X ) To paste move cursor to new location and hit CTRL V

The URL Catcher

The url catcher if turned on and set up right will "catch" every url posted in the channel and save it in a window you can call up.. they by typeing /url the window pops up.. you double click on a url in this window and YOUR BROWSER AUTOMATTICALLY OPENS.. AND TAKES YOU TO THAT URL ... Cool Huh!!! .. to set it up click on file... setup... url catcher... make sure it is on.. and also make sure that double click will view the url... Mirc is Cool..

about Colors

Colors are easy :) to make a color:

press and hold down ctrl key
Press the k key
Release both

Now that just told your mirc that you want to do a color next thing to do is to tell it what color and if you want a background color also

Type in 4 The 4 represents the color you want the text to be
to have a colored background type in a comma and a second number after the first ie: 4,12
Then type in your text.... and hit enter... easy!!

NOTE: colors can be added to popups and script just when you type in the script to /say add the color like you just finished doing at the desired spots and when u do the popup it will show the colors!!

What is a popup and how do i make one??

a popup is a menu that pops up when you right click in different areas of your mirc... the popup section of your tools in mirc is where you can program popups... this is a cool feature which allows u to cusomize your mirc to you... What can u use popups for??? well i use them to help me type less... i help ppl in help channels... and instead of typing how to do something over and over to different people i just make a popup.. then if someone asks a common question i just right click and select the popup i want to play... Popups are cool... here is how to write one

a popup to say various greetings and another to run a program:

(working example shown)

About me
.intro:/say Hi!!! $me here.. I am 38 years old single male with two kids living in the boston area...
.interests:/say $me likes to IRC, play cards, play games, camp, fish, waterskii and visit new places...
.job:/say $me is employed as a hamburger flipper... cause that is what i want to do...
Programs
.notepad:/run notepad.exe
.corel draw:/run c:\windows\ corel.exe

(you may have to put the path in to use the run command successfully)

Now when you right click in the area where you put your popup this will be part of the menu options you see that pops up

about me
Programs

if you then click on about me you will see...

intro
interests
job

then if you click on job you will see this appear in the channel

Thorn is employed as a hamburger flipper... cause that is what i want to do...

did you notice what part the . played in the script??? The . made the line a sub menu of the first line without the . that is above it.... you can even do .. to make a sub sub menu or even ...sub sub sub menu

You can use popups to launch any mirc command.. so your pretty much limited by only your imagination as to what a popup can do... like turning on and off various portions of your script..

Nickname popups... if you highlight a nick you can use the $$1 to have your script say their nick... like this...

hi!:/say $me says hi!! to $$1

Where do you go from here???? Look at your popups... you will find lots of various irc commmands used in your popups... hey there is one for kick and another for ban... see how they did it??? well u should be able to write your own now :)

If you right click in the channel... the nicknames list.. the command line... a query window... you will see that different menu's pop up.. .you can write different popups for all these area's or even copy the same ones to each area :)

Alias Section

The alias section is another awsome feature of mirc... This is where you can make your own irc commands... What you are actually doing is making a command that will execute one or more default irc command.. or even a command that you have just created!!

Lets create an alias to allow us to play sounds easier...

the easiest way to create a new alias is with the alias command. This command is only available to mirc 5.0+ users... others will have to edit the alias file from tools/alias

/alias s /sound $$1.wav | /say want it?.. type ! $+ $me $$1.wav

without the /alias command you need to click on tools/alias and copy this to the bottom of the alias file:

/s /sound $$1.wav | /say want it?.. type ! $+ $me $$1.wav

the /s is the alias or command you are creating
the /sound is the mirc command that will execute when your run the /s command it will play a sound ising the info which follows the command
the | seperates different commands.. in this case i am using the /sound command and the /say command... both launched by my new alias... spacing is important here...
See that $+ ??? the "$+" is used to connect things together... i wanted ! well if i used !thorn then changed my nick it would be wrong... so i used $me which will show my nick but had to somehow put a ! in front of it... doing !$me would give an error.. wont work.. so i used ! $+ $me .. that $me is an identifier... more about those later..
WHAT DID THIS DO????..... well it is a lot easier to type /s 911 than it is to type /sound 911.wav .... and then typeing if you want this sound type !thorn 911.wav ... alias commands are shortcuts to help you to type less :) the perfect thing to have an alias for is somthing that you type often or do often that is time consuming.. may take longer to write an ailas than to do what you want ... the first time.. but if it is something you will do more than once you should consider an alias.

Alias Section... Programming function Keys

To program a function key is simple...

/f4 /run notepad.exe
/sf5 /s woohoo
/cf6 /say I have to run!! Goodbye everyone!!! .. $me waves goodbye

As you can see you can program your function keys to do just about anything... and they are extrememly convienient... things you do most often should be programmed into these keys

HEY!!!! what is with the /sf5 and /cf6.. .how come they are not /f5 and /f6??? well You can program not only f4 but shift f4 and ctrl f4... YOU CANNOT PROGRAM ALT F keys... they are taken...

HEY!!!! What is with the /s woohoo ...!!! the sound command is /sound woohoo.wav !!! .. well a neat thing about the alias section is you can use previously defined aliases just like any other mirc command... rememeber we defined the /s alias already.. :) IRC IS COOL!!!

The alias section is also where you can make things called identifiers... remember the $me no matter what nick you are using if you use $me in your script your script will always say the nick you are using at the time... this is great.. now you dont have to go in and rewrite your script every time u change nicks... well identifiers do that for you... more about them later...

REMOTE Section

The remote section in your mIRC client is what alows you to respond automattically to commands or events given or triggered by others... you can make your script react automattically to commands or events!!! With Vers 5+ the EVENTS, COMMANDS and RAW sections of the remote were combined into one section... So where u used to see Events.ini file you may just see Scripts.ini instead... you can also load multiple scripts.. Lets Make some script for the remote section that will work automattically... A revolving door ban or drive by ban... this will ban ppl from the channel who enter and leave in less than five seconds.. here is the way i wrote it..

#doorban on
on 1:join:#:/set %db $nick | .timer55 1 10 /set %db 0
on 1:part:#:./ban #xalterzone %db 3 /notice $me driveby %db was banned
#doorban end

First there is something really cool here... see the first and last line?? #doorban and #doorban end ???? those are called group thingys... What do they do??? well they allow you to turn on and off parts of your script... there may be days when you dont want the door ban on... in which case you would type /disable #doorban and then #doorban on would change to #doorban off and that part of your script would be ignored until it reached #doorban end... neat.. on and off switches for part of your script.. you can use this to turn on and off things like swear kicks... and server deops and things like that that can get u in trouble if left on all the time... well how do we turn it back on??? with the /enable in fact lets write some popups to turn on and off the doorban script...

click on tools
click on popups
click on view
ensure channel popups are selected we will put the on off for revolving door ban there...
add to bottom of script or where ever you want it to appear in the channel popups...

DOORBAN
.on:/enable #doorban
.off:/disable #doorban

(irc is cool.. did I mention that already??)

ok now we have an on off switch for the door ban script... lets look at the door ban script...
the remote is going to monitor what is going on in the channel.. it will look for things called events... to see a list of these events type "/help on" in your mirc. This will popup the help and show you the events... for the door ban we used just the join and part events...which means that our script will look for joins and parts.. and may react automaticcally in the way we tell it to if other conditons are met... What are these other conditions??? lets look at the script line again...

on 1:join:#:

Well that number 1... what does that mean... it is the level assigned to the command... for this line to be triggered the person must have level 1 or higher in your userlist.. default levels can be set to other than one but usually default is one.. so if you hve not given someone a level they have level 1... so this command can be triggered by anyone...YIKES.. I DONT WANT TO BAN MY FRIENDS... ok well then lets change it a bit...

on +1:join:#:

See the difference.. the + sign.. that means that ONLY level 1 users will trigger the script... ppl with higher levels will not trigger the script... NOW THIS STUFF IS IMPORTANT.. as we will see later when we try to program a basic bot...it is these levels that allow your script to react differently for the same event (one way for friend another for an anon person and even another way for a hated enemy(yikes))

The # is the channel that the event has to occur on .. so to sum it up

IF there is a join (on join) and
IF the person who joined is level 1 ONLY (+1)
IF they joined (#) any channel

then the command that follows will be executed...

on 1:join:#:/set %db $nick | .timer55 1 10 /set %db 0

Wow somthing new... %db.. the % symbol... A VARIABLE.... The VARIABLE allows you to store information in your script... in the case of %db in the drive by script it will store the nick of ppl who join... (for ten seconds)again what do variables do for us???? THEY KEEP US FROM HAVING TO REWRITE THE SCRIPT FOR EVERY SINGLE CHANGE WHICH WE WOULD HAVE TO DO IF WE USED THE ACTUAL NUMBERS... vairables are cool :)

Next thing we see in the line is $nick... $nick is an ....... ??? ....... IDENTIFIER.... it holds something that can change all the time... in this case it stores the nick of the person who triggered the event... if tom joined the channnel... then $nick would = tom... again.. the identifiers keep you from having to enter specific data... the identifier will contain the latest data...

the difference between an identifier and a variable... is the identifier will always contain one thing.. such as time or a nick or the $me will always have your current nick... while the variable can contain anything... anything you put there...

Look at our line again... see the /set command??? that is where we loaded the variable with the $nick or we made variable %db store the persons nick who triggered the event ($nick)..... SO now we know what the /SET command does :)

so again on level join #chan: /do these commands | /and these commands | /and these commands

the | seperates two different irc commands on the same line... dont forget the space before and after the |.... spaces will mess u up.. be carefull with them...

timer55 1 10 /set %db 0

Lets see what this does for us!!..... The timer command is going to create a delay before the command after it is executed... In the case of the door ban... we store the nick of the person who joined... for 10 seconds... (the timer command gives us this 10 seconds). if the person parts in less than 10 seconds they will be banned because we ban %db ... if the person stays longer than 10 seconds the timer will set %db to 0 so we will ban "0" instead of the person... irc is cool... crude i know.. kinda like this whole lame page... :)