IRC is one of the most popular and influential forms of communication on the Internet. Basically it is comprised of different
chat rooms on different servers. The chat rooms are mainly set by context to many different subjects from Vim (text
editor), Theology, Philosophy, Mathematics, to Mac OSX, and on and on. IRC is great for getting people who are
knowledgeable in different things to get together and share information.
First you need a client to join the server and it’s respective rooms, today there are both Internet and local
options. One of the best out there on any platform is Colloquy. Colloquy is IRC done in the Mac style, it
looks good, is Cocoa, is scriptable, and also has unique things like Smart Transcripts.
Colloquy is open source and is available for free at http://colloquy.info/.
To get chatting:
- Install and open Colloquy
- Do Command-1
- Click on New (with the thunderbolt above it)
- Choose a nickname, leave the Server Protocol alone, and put in a server’s address (I recommend
irc.freenode.net) - When you’re connected to the server do Command-J and if you know of a room you want to go to put that
in (all rooms have at least one # sign in front of them). If you don’t know of any click on the arrow
pointing down and all of the rooms available to that particular server will be listed. If you’re looking
for some specific topic just put it in the “Filter Rooms” search box - Double-click on the room and have fun
Once you have a favorite room you can tell Colloquy to automatically go to it on startup by following these steps:
- Command-1
- Right-Click (for right handers) on the server and choose Get Info
- Go to the Automatic Tab
- Make sure you have “connect on launch” checked
- Under Join Rooms click on the + sign and add in the rooms you want to join when you open Colloquy
Some of the IRC rooms that I’m frequently in are in the irc.freenode.net server in the #vim, #html, #css,
#macdev, #macosx, ##textmate, #bash, and #linux rooms.
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