IRC
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) is a form of instant communication over the Internet. It is used for GnuCash to enable group (many-to-many) communication in a discussion forum, called channel. IRC in itself additionally also allows one-to-one communication.
Contents
Prerequisite
IRC Client
At first you need a program which supports the IRC protocol. Many IRC and multi-protocoll clients exist. Probably one is already on your computer or smartphone. If you find one neither on your computer nor on your installation media, see the following lists:
- Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients
- Comparison of instant messaging clients
- Comparison of mobile Internet Relay Chat clients
Setttings
At least one version of Mozilla Thunderbird has by default strange settings, again and again reconnecting after a few minutes. So please adjust the settings and feel free to report the adjustments here.
- Non ASCII characters
- To get the right presentation of non ASCII characters like umlauts or accents, you should set the encoding of your client to UTF-8 instead of e.g. Latin/Hybrid. Otherwise the log files might look ugly.
Usage
For historical reasons there are several IRC networks. The official GnuCash channel is on the GimpNet. Its server address is irc.gimp.org with the alias irc.gnome.org as it it used by many GTK+ based appplications. It does not matter which of them you choose in the following commands.
In an normal chat window, commands to your client or the server are prefixed by / (Slash) and commands to our gncbot by @ (At). Other text is sent to the channel.
Join
Any IRC application first needs to connect to an IRC server. The discussion forum for GnuCash is hosted on the following server and has the following channel name:
- server
- irc.gnome.org
- channel
- #gnucash
In many IRC applications you will be asked to specify the server to connect to. Choose irc.gnome.org in that dialog. After that, your IRC application might have a button labeled "Join Channel", in which you can specify to join the #gnucash channel.
Alternatively, you can perform these two steps by entering the following commands at the command prompt of an IRC application:/server [irc.gnome.org]
/join #gnucash
If your computer had a correct setup of MIME types and applications, all you would have to do is click on: irc://irc.gnome.org/gnucash. Now you can 'listen' to the channel.
Sorry, but because of spam attacks we had to restrict the rights. To get a voice on the channel you need to use a registered nickname.
Register a Nick
This has to be done only once:/server irc.gnome.org
#if not already set in your client:
/nick <your desired nickname>
# if you get a warning like 'This nickname is registered and protected...' choose another name.
/msg NickServ register <password> <email>
Identify
On the start of each later session you will have to identify:/server irc.gnome.org
/msg nickserv identify [<nick>] <password>
/join #gnucash
The nick in the identfy command is only needed, if the registered nick different from the current nick.
Quit IRC
To quit IRC, just execute:/quit
- Note for information
- Unless you have used Chat programs before it is not very simple or intuitive to use them. I have tried a number of the programs mentioned above and the only one that worked and was relatively easy to use was Mibbit. Once downloaded you click on the chat now button and you get the home screen, you then need to click on server (because the irc.gnome.org server is not on the list) and enter, irc.gnome.org, then choose a nickname to use (this can probably be anything), then enter, #gnucash, in the channel box and then click connect and wait. You should then be connected and can type your question / comment in the box at the bottom and it should appear on the main screen when you press enter, and then wait for an answer. Hope this is helpful.
- User:Chrisardy 2014-04-17
Public Logging
The discussions in the GnuCash irc channel are logged on a public web page:
If you want to say something that shouldn't be logged, prepend your text by the prefix [off] which should stand for "off-the-record". Lines that begin with [off] will not show up on the web page logs.
The timestamps in the log pages are given in EST (UTC-5).
How to speak up in the channel
When you join the GnuCash IRC channel, you should speak up. If you have a question, please ask it right away.
But then you should wait. Don't expect an answer right away. Sometimes you'll get an answer within seconds. Other times you might have to wait several hours until one of the core developers wakes up. Please be kind, and please wait in the channel.
Note that many of the active participants in that channel are active only during US daylight time, corresponding to timezones EST (UTC-5), CST (UTC-6), PST (UTC-8). Other participants are active only during Europe daylight time, GMT (UTC+0) and CET (UTC+1).
Use pastebin for longer text and imagebin for screenshots
Sometimes you will be asked to show your console output or a trace file. Please do not use copy&paste in the chat window for this longer texts. Instead call a pastebin like https://pastebin.ca or https://pastebin.com in your web browser, paste the text in the offered input window and push Submit. Then copy the returned link into your chat client to provide it to your chat partners.
If you wish to share a screenshot, use a service like https://imagebin.ca.
Further Reading
You can find much information around IRC at irchelp.org.
NickServ Help
/server irc.gnome.org
/msg NickServ help
NickServ allows you to register a nickname and prevent others from using it. The following commands allow for registration and maintenance of nicknames; to use them, type /msg NickServ command. For more information on a specific command, type
/msg NickServ HELP command.
CONFIRM Confirm a passcode
GROUP Join a group
HELP Displays this list and give information about commands
IDENTIFY Identify yourself with your password
INFO Displays information about a given nickname
RECOVER Regains control of your nick
REGISTER Register a nickname
RESETPASS Helps you reset lost passwords
STATUS Returns the owner status of the given nickname
Accounts that are not used anymore are subject to the automatic expiration, i.e. they will be deleted after 600 days if not used./msg NickServ help register
Syntax: REGISTER password email
Registers your nickname in the NickServ database. Once your nick is registered, you can use the SET and ACCESS commands to configure your nick's settings as you like them. Make sure you remember the password you use when registering - you'll need it to make changes to your nick later. (Note that case matters! ANOPE, Anope, and anope are all different passwords!)
Guidelines on choosing passwords:
Passwords should not be easily guessable. For example, using your real name as a password is a bad idea. Using your nickname as a password is a much worse idea ;) and, in fact, NickServ will not allow it. Also, short passwords are vulnerable to trial-and-error searches, so you should choose a password at least 5 characters long.
Finally, the space character cannot be used in passwords.
This command also creates a new group for your nickname, that will allow you to register other nicks later sharing the same configuration, the same set of memos and the same channel privileges.
