With all the activity happening in the shoutbox, and my previous experience with IRC, I decided to setup one such IRC for SEN.
What is IRC?It stands for Internet Relay Chat. This basically means chat happens in real time on your computer, it doesn't need to refresh itself to check for new messages or anything of the sort.
Why IRC?It's more flexible and easier to use than a shout box, for one. It also has dozens more features, and can exist independently from your web browser in it's own self-contained, light-weight program.
If you're already familiar with IRC then here is what you need to connect:
Server: Rizon
Channel: #StarEdit
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Don't know what you're doing? Relax, there are several ways to connect to an IRC chatroom, either through your web browser or through an independent program. I'll walk through both of these options here.
IRC Basics
IRC isn't p2p; instead, users connect to a server. This server then hosts individual channels that users may join. This means, naturally, that it is impossible to join a channel on another server if there is no connection to that server. So the first step is to connect to the server, THEN connect to the channels.
There are a variety of servers available. Among the more prominent are
Rizon,
freenode, and
efnetThere are as many different channels as you would like in every server. They come in the format #<name>; for example, #SEN would be a channel.
Connecting through a Web BrowserMost prominent servers have web pages that allow you to directly connect with channels on their server. These can be found on their websites, usually under a "chat" link. While easy to use and requiring no time to set up, it doesn't typically allow for more advanced features like p2p file sharing.
Connecting through an IRC ClientThere are clients that have some very nifty features, and they can be lightweight or more feature packed.
Here is a list. I recommend the more mainstream and popular clients like ChatZilla, mibbit, and mIRC.
Rizon Specific Info -- Incomplete
Option #1Connecting through your web browser.
This is the easiest of the two routes, but is only mildly better than any other web browser chat.
1) Go to
http://rizon.net/chat and enter a name.
2) Type in #StarEdit for the channel, and select whatever nick you want. Then click Connect.
That's it, you're connected! Easy, huh?
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Option #2Connecting to IRC through Miranda IRC.
This is the more extensive of the two options, but is better of the two for obvious reasons. I chose Miranda because it's light-weight and simple, and while it lacks features other IRC programs have, it's stable and leagues better than the above option.
Download it here:
http://www.miranda-im.org/!! WARNING !! If you lose the program by exiting out, don't open it again! It's already open and sitting in your bottom right hand corner. Just click it and you'll have your window open to work with.
1) When you finish setup you'll have to fill out some stuff. Fill it in as shone (or use any name really) and click create.
2) Now another box will pop up, click the green plus.
3) Another box asking you to fill out stuff. Just fill it out as shone and don't worry about it too much. We're just setting up an account (not a user account).
4) Great! Now click on our newly made account and go to the server drop menu and select Rizon: Random Server.
5) Awesome, now it's time for our user name (called a nick). Fill out whatever name you want to use there. Your alternate nick is just a backup name to use just in case your nick is already taken in a particular room (that's right, no worrying about other people having signed up your name already). Then press ok.
6) Now your box will close, but remember it's in the lower right hand corner. So click on it to bring up the client. Then click on the crown type thing → SEN → Quick Connect (not join channel yet).
7) FIll out the box that comes up as shone, except select Rizon as your server and click connect; you're almost there!
8) Finally, go back to the previous menu and click Join Channel. Type in #StarEdit and click ok.
9) Congrats! You're now in the chatroom =D
Post has been edited 2 time(s), last time on Aug 3 2012, 10:03 pm by Sacrieur.
None.