IRC Client recommendations

[nsafreak]

Just looking for a good IRC client with decent scripting capabilities. Preferrably free so that rules mIRC out of the race.

 

[Nocturnal]

I use IRCN.

 

[tuteja1986]

Dragon Script v4.0 by Shadow that what i am using

 

[nsafreak]

Ummm I'm looking for something independent of mIRC not something that I install on top of it.

 

[Nothinman]

irssi

 

[xtknight]

XChat
bitchx

 

[episodic]

Xchat for Windows - google SilverX build for the free version. Some guy is charging for it. . .

The silverx version is free and excellent! All opensource.

 

[nsafreak]

Originally posted by: episodic
Xchat for Windows - google SilverX build for the free version. Some guy is charging for it. . .

The silverx version is free and excellent! All opensource.

I googled it and found a bunch of mentions but no actual downloads. You wouldn't happen to have a link would you?

Edit: Nvm, found it at http://www.silverex.org

 

[episodic]

http://www.silverex.org/download/

 

[skace]

That's funny, you are looking for a good IRC client with heavy scripting and you ruled mIRC out at the start despite the fact that all it has for "Shareware" is an about screen that pops up sometimes and can be gotten rid of for like 15 dollars.

 

[episodic]

Originally posted by: skace
That's funny, you are looking for a good IRC client with heavy scripting and you ruled mIRC out at the start despite the fact that all it has for "Shareware" is an about screen that pops up sometimes and can be gotten rid of for like 15 dollars.

Heavy scripting can be done in XChat in Ruby or ActiveTCL or ActivePython or Active Perl. . .

That is MUCH more powerful than mirc's scripting engine.

 

[Nothinman]

That's funny, you are looking for a good IRC client with heavy scripting and you ruled mIRC out at the start despite the fact that all it has for "Shareware" is an about screen that pops up sometimes and can be gotten rid of for like 15 dollars.

The shareware part should be considered second, mIRC should be ruled out primary for the fact that it's utter crap.

 

[Elcs]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

That's funny, you are looking for a good IRC client with heavy scripting and you ruled mIRC out at the start despite the fact that all it has for "Shareware" is an about screen that pops up sometimes and can be gotten rid of for like 15 dollars.

The shareware part should be considered second, mIRC should be ruled out primary for the fact that it's utter crap.

I like mIRC. Its so simple to use.

 

[skace]

I'd argue it more but it really is a moot point if nsafreak has completely written mIRC off.

 

[BrokenVisage]

What's wrong with mIRC? It's by far the best client for scripting if you ask me, best client overall too.

 

[Nothinman]

What's wrong with mIRC? It's by far the best client for scripting if you ask me, best client overall too.

It was virtually the last client to support connections to multiple servers concurrently.
It's amazingly ugly and traps all of your windows inside of the parent because of it's crap MDI design.
The scripting language isn't bad, but once the script gets large its slows down considerably.
The scripting editor lacks virtually all of the functions I like in an editor like syntax highlighting, inline line numbers, regex search/replace, etc.
AFAIK the scripting language isn't easily extensible, you're pretty much stuck with whatever Khaled decides should be included.

I could probably come up with others, but it's been so long since I've used it that I can hardly remember how bad it really is.

 

[statik213]

firefox has an irc plugin... https://addons.mozilla.org/extensions/moreinfo.php?id=16
I use x-chat though...

 

[BurnItDwn]

I'm a big BitchX fan here.
Many people also seem to like Epic

I haven't touched Mirc since the late 90s, it was unstable and there's always new bugs/sploits being found it seems.
If you choose to run windows, and don't have a unix shell, and for whatever reason want to run a windows IRC client, I've used Virc and Pirch (from like 1996 to 1999). Both work, but they are a pile of crap when compared to BitchX.

BitchX does have a bit of a learning curve to it, however, once you're used to it and have everything set the way you want, you'll find it hard to use anything else.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

What's wrong with mIRC? It's by far the best client for scripting if you ask me, best client overall too.

It was virtually the last client to support connections to multiple servers concurrently.
It's amazingly ugly and traps all of your windows inside of the parent because of it's crap MDI design.
The scripting language isn't bad, but once the script gets large its slows down considerably.
The scripting editor lacks virtually all of the functions I like in an editor like syntax highlighting, inline line numbers, regex search/replace, etc.
AFAIK the scripting language isn't easily extensible, you're pretty much stuck with whatever Khaled decides should be included.

I could probably come up with others, but it's been so long since I've used it that I can hardly remember how bad it really is.

A lot of your scripting comments date back to before mIRC had dll support, at which point it gained the functionality to do just about whatever the hell people want it to do. And that was ages ago.

Your window comments are just plain innacurate. That is 4 IRC networks btw.

 

[Nothinman]

A lot of your scripting comments date back to before mIRC had dll support, at which point it gained the functionality to do just about whatever the hell people want it to do. And that was ages ago.

So now I need to load compiled dlls to extend the scripting support? That's better, but not very much.

Your window comments are just plain innacurate. That is 4 IRC networks btw.

Well that's good that they finally made the MDI use optional, but the thing is still crap.

 

[skace]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
So now I need to load compiled dlls to extend the scripting support? That's better, but not very much.

Well that's good that they finally made the MDI use optional, but the thing is still crap.

Well. The scripting support is massive. But awhile back they made some modifications to mIRC such that you can pretty much load and utilize any dlls, making it so you can do anything you want with the scripting engine. I'm not sure how thats not very much better. The scripts available for mIRC are thousands deep, for every single function you can find probably 10 scripts to do it or write your own. Granted, I'm not the most knowledgeable scripter, the screenshot is running my own script, but I never got into self-made dlls or anything to do with sockets. Everything I've ever needed to do was done from inside the language itself. Some of the cool things that were done in mIRC in the past, built in video games, system stat programs, xdcc functionality, a battle.net chat client that allowed you to connect to directly to battle.net from mIRC. I mean, I can't see how it isn't powerful.

 

[Nothinman]

But awhile back they made some modifications to mIRC such that you can pretty much load and utilize any dlls, making it so you can do anything you want with the scripting engine. I'm not sure how thats not very much better.

Because it requires you to load compiled DLLs, making it pretty much impossible for non-developers to extend the scripting support. For instance, irssi's scripting is done mainly in perl. Perl modules are just more perl so it's pretty simple to package up your extension and distribute it. And on top of it, there's thousands of perl modules on CPAN handling everything from the GoogleMaps API to file and stream encryption and even RFID reader interfaces.

 

[yelo333]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
irssi

:thumbsup:

<grumble> Hitting quote, then logging in only replies to the message, and does not paste the quoted text. </grumble>

 

[n0cmonkey]

Nothing better than irssi. BitchX is ok, I guess, but why bother when irssi is around? IamC was awesome! Definitely the best Windows only client I ever found.

Never touch mIRC.

 

[Rayden]

I forgot about X-Chat 2. I recently switched to HydraIRC because my X-chat trial ran out after an format. Glad I checked this thread. X-Chat is great.