IRC & mIRC Chat info.

Information provided by: Gararion

Introduction Well, seeing as I know quite a bit about mIRC, more then the average user I would say, I thought I would come up with a thread where I could assemble a bunch of tricks and tips for those who use mIRC. If there is anything that you wish me to explain, please feel free to ask me. Either in this thread here or within IRC itself. Notice: The tips provided here will be for the latest build of mIRC. This being mIRC 6.31 General mIRC Tips and Tricks
Highlighting Ever wish that you could be alerted when someone was speaking to you in a channel? Well, with the highlighting feature, this can be done rather easy. Step 1) Go to "Tools" then "Address Book" or press "Alt+B". Step 2) Open up the "Highlighting" tab. (Underlined in red) Step 3) Make sure the box labeled "Enable Highlighting" is checked. (Circled in red) Step 4) Then click on the "Add" button. (Red Arrow) Step 5) Put in words you wish to trigger this sound effect in the "Highlight lines that contain these words". (Blue #1) If this is merely an alert to when someone says your nickname, then put in the various nicknames you use often. Separate multiple names with a ",". ie) Gararion, Gar Step 6) Click on the button that says "No Sound" (Blue #2) and select a sound file stored on your computer. It can be anything, a sound effect or even a song I believe. I use short sound effects myself. Step 7) Set the "Match On" field (Blue #3) to "Message Only". Step 8) Click "OK" You can also use highlights to color code certain peoples messages. If doing this, make sure to set the "Match On" field to "Nickname" and type in the Nickname or Nicknames of the person you are color coding at the time.
Flashing and Beeping Channels IRC a little quiet? Minimizing mIRC while you do other things? Afraid you might miss something someone says? Well, have mIRC start flashing on your status bar or have it beep at you when a new message is sent and it is not your top window. Step 1) Figure out which channel you wish mIRC to alert you of activity. Step 2) Right click on the channel in the channel list. (Red Arrow) Step 3) Select either "Flashingg" or "Beeping" and turn it to "On". While looking at what happens when you pull up the Channel Menu, you will notice a few other useful things. These include Logging and timestamps, as well as other things, though they may be a little more advance. Timestamps places a time code beside each message stating when it was posted. You may find this useful if you haven't been paying much attention and look at the channel and see that John asked you something several hours ago. Logging will be explained later.
Logging Ever wish you could recall something that happened over IRC but don't have a memory worth remembering? Well, once you turn on logging, you can view past chat logs. Step 1) Go to "Tools" then "Options" or press "Alt+O" to view the Options window. Step 2) Open up the "Logging" branch. (Red Arrow) Step 3) Set the "Automatically log" (Red #1) field to "Both" so you log both messages in channels and private messages. Step 4) Set "Reload logs" field to "None" so that it will create a new log file each time you join the channel. Step 5) Choose the folder you wish to mIRC to save the files to. (Red #3) Make a new folder if you wish. Step 6) I suggest that you check the "Date filenames" box (Red #4) so that the file names will be of the date that they were made. Makes it's easier to find things later on. The easiest way of viewing log files in mIRC is using the built in log browser. Step 1) Click on the "Log Files" button. (Blue Arrow) Using this window, you can search through all your log files rather easily. You can delete logs you no longer need or rename those special logs you wish to never misplace.
Nickname Registration IRC uses nicknames. Anyone can use these nicknames at any given time, as long as they are not protected. So how do you protect your nickname? Well, first off you need to find a nickname that is not already registered. Step 1) Find a nickname that isn't registered. Use "/nick [name]" to change your nickname. ie) /nick Gararion Step 2) Once you have a nickname that is not registered, you can register it yourself if you wish to make sure no one else can use it. To do this, simply use the following command: "/nickserv register [password] [email]" The only reason why they ask you for your email is for the purpose of sending you your password if you forget it. If you wish to not include your email, put "NONE" instead of your email. ie) /nickserv register password mail @mail.ca or /nickserv register password NONE Step 3) Now, when ever you connect to IRC, the server will notify you that this nickname belongs to someone else and that if this person is you, then please identify yourself. You do this with the following command: "/nickserv identify [password]" So if using the above example, this would be: /nickserv idenitfy password If not done within a timely manner, the server will believe that you are not the owner and will change your nick to a random nickname, could be a guest#, nonick# or what ever the server uses.