accidental IRC - A native command line IRC client.

[twobob]

I'm gonna rework this to be an extension.

but for right now you just get the binary.

All credits for this go to neutrak. he wrote it. in entirety.

will update this will the thing RSN

Compiled for: ALL KINDLES.


MAN:

ACCIRC

Section: User Commands (1)
Updated: 24 Feb 2013
Index
NAME

accirc - The accidental ncurses irc client
SYNOPSIS

accirc [ --help | --version ]
DESCRIPTION

accirc starts ncurses; functionality is available from there; config is read from ~/.config/accirc/config.rc ; logs are stored in ~/.local/share/accirc/logs/

(Which is /var/tmp/ by default)

Options

--help
tells you to read this man page
--version
outputs the version of this software, in the form <major int>.<minor int>; major counts redesigns, minor counts updates; for both, even numbers are stable, odd numbers are unstable/testing

Commands

\
escapes the first character of the input string (in case you want a literal : or /)

:
sends raw data to the current server (if there is one)

/connect host port
connects to an irc server at <host> on port <port>

/exit [ message ]
sends a QUIT to every irc server you're connected to

/cli_escape new
changes the client command escape character to <new>, if possible

/ser_escape new
changes the server raw data escape character to <new>, if possible

/reconnect
reconnect to the currently selected server if connection is lost for any reason

/no_reconnect
don't reconnect to the currently selected server

/log
keep logs for the currently selected server (this is the default)

/no_log
don't keep logs for the currently selected server

/sl
sets active server one left of current server

/sr
sets active server one right of current server

/cl
sets active channel one left of current channel

/cr
sets active channel one right of current channel

/me
sends CTCP ACTION message

/r
replies (by privmsg) to the last user we recieved a PM from on the currently selected server; if we have never gotten a PM, the default nick to reply to is the null string ""; parsing in some server implementations may treat this strangely, but it's out of my hands, the client will act as intended and send a "privmsg nick :msg" to the server

/sleep seconds
sleeps a given number of seconds

/usleep microseconds
sleeps a given number of microseconds

/comment
ignore this line, a comment (for an rc file)

/autojoin channel
join this channel on the current server as soon as we can (for an rc file)

/autoident password
auth for this nick on the current server as soon as we can (for an rc file)

/fallback_nick nick
set this as the backup nick if the nick specified is taken; if this nick is also taken _ is appended until one is unclaimed or we run out of characters allowed in the nick (for an rc file)

/rejoin_on_kick
for channels on current server, rejoin when kicked

/no_rejoin_on_kick
for channels on current server, don't rejoin when kicked

Key Bindings

f1 or alt+left
channel left (see /cl)

f2 or alt+right
channel right (see /cr)

f3 or alt+up
server left (see /sl)

f4 or alt+down
server right (see /sr)

f5 or alt+tab
literal tab character (f5 left for backwards compatibility, alt+tab is recommended)

f6
0x01 character, since screen intercepts literal ^A (for manually sending CTCP messages other than ACTION); displays as a bold \ in input area

f7
0x03 character for sending MIRC colors (MIRC color support is still experimental, and requires compilation with -D MIRC_COLOR); displays as a bold in input area

<tab>
complete a nickname based on nicks in current channel

PgUp
scroll up one line in the channel scrollback, if possible

PgDn
scroll down one line in the channel scrollback, if possible

Up
scroll up one line in the input history, if possible

Down
scroll down one line in the input history, if possible

FILES

~/.config/accirc/config.rc
The startup file to run

~/.local/share/accirc/logs/
The location of all logs from all servers

~/.local/share/accirc/error_log.txt
A log of any errors that couldn't be output through ncurses

EXAMPLE RC FILE

~/.config/accirc/config.rc
/connect daemonic.foonetic.net 6667
:nick accirc_user

:user 1 2 3 4

/autojoin #faid3.0

/fallback_nick accirc_user

/rejoin_on_kick

BUGS

MIRC colors don't work under screen; auto-reconnecting on drop is unreliable; flicker occurs frequently, since the clock updates every second (this is less noticable in screen or tmux for some reason)


WWW
http://somegenericsite.dyndns.org/index.php?p=code

CHANGELOG: V2

writes to stderr rather than physical file for errors...

V4... SSL support! sweeeeet.

The attached binary here will run on the kindle3 too

[twobob]

I'm pushing up the extension now.

Okay I put it HERE for the Touch and Paperwhite

REQUIRES KTERM.

[stepk]

Thanks. It sounds cool, although I don't really see myself typing that much on the K5 touch keyboard, with its unconventional layout and low speed. Oops, sorry for going OT, twobob. This new extension's cool.

[twobob]

meh. I tend to agree but this is a real lifeline in certain situations. monitoring the chat when you just can't be at a pc.

with a breakout keyboard when that becomes a reality this might become even better.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by stepk

Thanks. It sounds cool, although I don't really see myself typing that much on the K5 touch keyboard, with its unconventional layout and low speed. Oops, sorry for going OT, twobob. This new extension's cool.

That hardly matters does it?
Since you are a very rare user of the kindle-dev irc channel.

The typing speed requirement of an IRC channel you are not logged into is very low.

[stepk]

Originally Posted by twobob

meh. I tend to agree but this is a real lifeline in certain situations. monitoring the chat when you just can't be at a pc.

I hadn't thought of that! A friend of mine could use accidental in that exact way. He has a need. I'll mention this thread to him.

[knc1]

Originally Posted by stepk

I hadn't thought of that! A friend of mine could use accidental in that exact way. He has a need. I'll mention this thread to him.

Yeah, monitor the chat channel your kids are in the habit of using.

I'll tag this one as "Parental Spyware"

[twobob]

Heh... I keep bobbing my head in while I am off busy ATM. It's good for that.

[stepk]

Originally Posted by twobob

Heh... I keep bobbing my head in while I am off busy ATM. It's good for that.

Nice seeing your head even if not for long. Keep coming.

[atordo]

The good: it works.

The bad: typing on a Kindle.

The ugly: all standard IRC commands are missing (such as join, part... even "quit" is replaced by "exit"). You must pass literal commands to the server.

I know the ugly part has nothing to do with this specific build for Kindle, but it has been the most frustrating part when trying it.

Still, it can be useful to monitor a channel.

[twobob]

it's open source.

Can be amended : )

I use it for just what you say.

[neutrak]

Yeah, so...

This was made entirely for my own personal use and as such you may find it not quite like other clients; it's not meant to be.

That said, I will explain the design decisions I made that you have pointed out.

I find the difference between server and client commands an important distinction, almost no other irc client writers do.

JOIN, PART, and QUIT are server commands, as such they are sent literally to the server and the client does no interpretation whatsoever on them.

exit is /not/ quit, it does not replace quit at all. exit is used because it sends a quit to EVERY server you are connected to then exits the program, a server-command quit goes just to the active server (and will indeed drop this connection, if reconnect is false). This is done so that you can be connected to multiple servers and connect/disconnect independently for each.

I will however always take input in order to make more people happy so long as it doesn't compromise my design principles. I plan to do some significant refactoring then release version 0.4 in the next few months (no definite schedule though).

I can add a client-command /quit with the behavior of /exit; due to the escape being different I don't think it'll be ambiguous whether it's going to the client or server. I see no reason that /join and /part need to be client-side commands at all, and the addition of them would really be pretty useless, since they would have exactly the same behavior as :join and art now.

I also plan to make time formats configurable; I realize not everyone reads UNIX time...

[atordo]

neutrak: Thanks for commenting on your design decisions on accidental IRC. I stand corrected that exit and quit are indeed different commands.

About the "useless" commands, well it's just that after years of using them in every other client I found myself consulting the IRC RFC to know their server equivalents, and you know, old farts don't like to learn new things

Perhaps you could just implement the "alias" command, so those used to the slash commands could just add something like this in their config file:

/alias j :JOIN
/alias part :PART

And so on... but it's your program and your decision.

And yes, a human readable time would be a nice addition. Also, an option to not display color codes would make some channels more readable.

Thanks for your program anyhow, it's an amusing addition to the Kindle.

On a slightly related note, after updating kterm I'm unable to find the menu to switch UTF (most Spanish servers still use ISO-8859-1). Is somebody kind enough to tell me how to access the menu? (it was ALT-3 in prior versions, IIRC).

[neutrak]

Great idea; alias added as a TODO; look for it in v0.4

If I'm gonna do alias in that manner I may as well just let quit be an alias to /exit; I'll be sure to put these config lines in the reference config in the man page for new users.

My kindle device doesn't have kterm so I can't tell you anything about that, sorry.

[atordo]

Glad you find my proposal worthy

About the kterm issue, found the menu but the UTF option is gone. Anyway, it's not the topic of this thread and it's probably answered somewhere is this very forum.