1. Introduction

If ZenIRC is installed properly, starting ZenIRC without any extensions is fairly easy--you just type `M-x zenirc' in your Emacs.

If ZenIRC isn't installed at all, you probably won't be able to read this manual. Turn to the "INSTALL" file which comes with the distribution of ZenIRC-3.0.

If ZenIRC is installed but you still can't start it, there's a big chance that you can't connect to the default server.

1.1 Finding an IRC server and connecting to it.

There's only one default server for ZenIRC, irc.stealth.net. This server might, of course, be down or unreachable. If this is so, you need to connect to another server for ZenIRC to work.

ZenIRC comes with a list of servers maintained by Doug McLaren. The list is from 1996-04-15 so it might not be correct. This list is posted to the Usenet group alt.irc and alt.irc.questions twice a month and a copy of it can be found via anonymous FTP at ftp.comco.com:/pub/irc/server-list-current

1.1.1 Changing default server (and attributes).

There's three different ways to change your default server. They're listed below in the prefered order. If you use example 1.1.1.1 or 1.1.1.2 you'll get some redundancy example 1.1.1.3 can't give you. 1.1.1.3 is good if you want to start right away and set things up later on in life.

1.1.1.1 The $IRCSERVER way.

By setting your environment variable $IRCSERVER you also change the default servers for most other IRC clients around. How to set this variable is different in different shells.

sh, bash, zsh; IRCSERVER="some.server";export IRCSERVER csh, tcsh; setenv IRCSERVER "some.server"

ZenIRC uses this variable just like ircII. The correct syntax is;

server1[:port1[:password1[:nickname1[:username1]]]] server2[:port2...

To set your default server to irc.stealth.net with the nickname `ben' and your secondary server to irc.funet.fi on port 6666 with the nickname Vesa you would set $IRCSERVER to;

irc.stealth.net:::ben: irc.funet.fi:6666::Vesa:

1.1.1.2 The zenirc-server-alist way.

By setting the ZenIRC variable zenirc-server-alist you can do the same thing as with $IRCSERVER, this way you won't have the same defaults for other clients though.

To do exactly as the example in 1.1.1.1, you should set zenirc-server-alist as follows;

	(setq zenirc-server-alist 
	  '(("irc.stealth.net" nil nil "ben" nil)
	    ("irc.funet.fi" 6666 nil "Vesa" nil)))

1.1.1.3 Using ordinary variables.

The only thing you actually _need_ to set is zenirc-server-default.

To set your default server, use zenirc-server-default;

	(setq zenirc-server-default "irc.stealth.net")

To set your default nickname, use zenric-nick-default;

	(setq zenirc-nick-default "ben")

To set your default password, use zenric-password-default;

	(setq zenirc-password-default "mostly not used")

To set your default port, use zenirc-port-default;

	(setq zenirc-port-default 6667)

To set your default username, use zenirc-user-login-name-default;

	(setq zenirc-user-login-name-default "oedipus rpc.rexd")

1.1.2 Those servers are all down.

If you don't want to restart Emacs and ZenIRC to try a new server, type `M-x zenirc-select' and you will be asked a few questions.

1.1.3 The server doesn't let me on?!

The IRC administrators might not want people from everywhere to connect to his server. I'd recomend you to use an as closeby server as possible. The list of servers lists the server by country, the best shot would be to use one as close to you as possible.

There's also a possiblity that the admin has banned your domain. If this is true, talk to your system administrator about it.

Some servers won't let you connect if your system isn't running an IDENT service. This breaks the RFC for IDENT so be sure to tell the administrator of the server about this idiocy, then go on and pick a better server.

This document was generated by XEmacs shared group account on December, 19 2009 using texi2html 1.65.