X-Chat 2.8 Frequently Asked Questions

1. Section One: Compiling and Installing.

1. I get this error: /bin/sh: no: command not found

2. How do I compile X-Chat on my Sun OS system?

2. Section Two: Using X-Chat.

1. How do I enable identd in X-Chat? (How do I get rid of the ~ in front of my username?)

2. How do I auto join more than one channel with keys?

3. How do I autoconnect and join a channel when X-Chat loads?

4. How do I cut and paste in X-Chat?

5. How do I connect through a proxy?

6. How do I show @ and + in front of nicknames that are Op and Voice when they talk?

7. How do I change the Op and Voice userlist icons and Tree View icons?

8. How do I set different ban types?

9. Why can't I see accented-letters/umlauts/upper-ascii-chars in X-Chat?

10. Why does the timestamp overlap some nicknames?

11. How do I turn on Conference mode where I will not see join or part messages?

12. How can I run the /dccserver command?

13. Why doesn't DCC send work behind a router (IPNat/ADSL)?

14. How do I execute multiple commands in one line?

15. How do I enable Emacs key bindings in XChat?

16. I get this error: "Unknown file type abc.yz. Maybe you need to install the Perl or Python plugin?"

17. How do I play sound files on certain events?

18. How do I auto-load scripts at startup?

19. How do I minimize X-Chat to the System Tray (Notification Area)?

20. Can I select and copy text with the time stamps?

21. What's the deal with opening URLs in XChat on Linux/Unix?

22. Where are the log files saved to?

23. How do I rotate log files every so often?

24. How do I enable graphical smilies (emoticons)?

3. Section Three: Contributions, Development and Bugs.

1. Why does X-Chat leak so much memory?

2. My copy of X-Chat crashes, what can I do?

3. Can I write a new language translation for X-Chat?

1. Section One: Compiling and Installing.

1. I get this error: /bin/sh: no: command not found

If you get an error something like:

Making all in po
make[2]: Entering directory `/home/zed/xchat/files/xchat-1.8.7/po'
file=./`echo ca | sed 's,.*/,,'`.gmo \
  && rm -f $file && PATH=../src:$PATH no -o $file ca.po
/bin/sh: no: command not found
make[2]: *** [ca.gmo] Error 127
make[2]: Leaving directory `/home/zed/xchat/files/xchat-1.8.7/po'
make[1]: *** [all-recursive] Error 1
make[1]: Leaving directory `/home/zed/xchat/files/xchat-1.8.7'
make: *** [all-recursive-am] Error 2

It means you don't have GNU gettext installed. There are two solutions:

• Install GNU gettext and try again.
• Use ./configure --disable-nls. This will disable foreign language support and all menus and GUI will be in English only.

2. How do I compile X-Chat on my Sun OS system?

X-Chat uses GNU gettext which in turn requires gmake, either install that and or use ./configure --disable-nls with Sun's own make.

2. Section Two: Using X-Chat.

1. How do I enable identd in X-Chat?

UNIX:
Identd isn't actually apart of X-Chat. You will need to download and install your own ident server. Most distributions, including Fedora, come with an ident server program called oidentd. Make sure it is enabled in /etc/xinetd.conf or read you distribution's documentation. As an alternative, you can try this experimental identd server: xchat_auth

WINDOWS:
The win32 version of X-Chat comes with a built-in identd server. It is

/* HexChat
 * Copyright (C) 1998-2010 Peter Zelezny.
 * Copyright (C) 2009-2013 Berke Viktor.
 *
 * This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
 * it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
 * the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
 * (at your option) any later version.
 *
 * This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
 * but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
 * MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
 * GNU General Public License for more details.
 *
 * You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
 * along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
 * Foundation, Inc., 51 Franklin St, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA 02110-1301, USA
 */

#ifndef HEXCHAT_CHANOPT_H
#define HEXCHAT_CHANOPT_H

int chanopt_command (session *sess, char *tbuf, char *word[], char *word_eol[]);
gboolean chanopt_is_set (unsigned int global, guint8 per_chan_setting);
void chanopt_save_all (gboolean flush);
void chanopt_save (session *sess);
void chanopt_load (session *sess);

#endif

• The Perl, Python and TCL plugins come with XChat in the same archive.
• During ./configure, it will check for Perl, Python and TCL libs and headers, you should check if it failed there.
• The plugins directory can be found by issuing the shell command

  xchat -p

• All *.so files are auto-loaded at startup (*.dll on Windows).
• If you downloaded a binary package, maybe the packager decided to exclude the Perl or Python plugins.

17. How do I play sound files on certain events?

In the menus, go to: Settings > Preferences > Sound. Select the event you want to make a sound on, then type in a sound filename (or use the Browse button).

18. How do I auto-load scripts at startup?

You just have to place the scripts into XChat's data directory. XChat will auto-load scripts if they have the right extension .e.g If a filename ends in .pl, it will be loaded as a Perl script. This data directory is different on each platform:

Windows

It depends on your version of Windows and where it stores the Application Data folder. On Windows XP it is usually:

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\X-Chat 2\
or simply:
C:\Program Files\XChat\Plugins\


UNIX

~/.xchat2/ Where "~" represents your home directory i.e.: $HOME/.xchat2/

19. How do I minimize X-Chat to the System Tray (Notification Area)?

There are two plugins available that allow this:
Unix: SysTray Plugin
Windows: xTray

Note that XChat 2.8.0+ has its own tray feature, but you can disable it in Settings > Preferences > Alerts and still run these plugins, if you prefer.

20. Can I select and copy text with the time stamps?

Yes, but this requires at least XChat 2.6.3. Simply hold down SHIFT while marking the text and the time stamps will be included.

21. What's the deal with opening URLs in XChat on Unix/Linux?

Right-clicking on a URL and selecting Open Link in Browser will open the link in your "preferred browser". In Gnome, your preferred browser can be changed in System > Preferences > More Preferences > Preferred Applications.

Notes for 2.8.0 or newer:

Everything should just work automatically without any changes from you. Here's how the current logic works:

• First, it tries to run xdg-open, which is a universal URL handler from freedesktop.org. Most modern Linux desktops will have this now, or in the near future.
• If xdg-open doesn't exist, it will try to detect a running Gnome or KDE desktop. This is done via the environment variables GNOME_DESKTOP_SESSION_ID and KDE_FULL_SESSION.
• If Gnome is detected, it will execute: gnome-open <url>
• If KDE is detected, it will execute: kfmclient exec <url>

Notes for 2.6.8 or older:

If you're not using Gnome, e.g KDE or some other desktop environment, you're fresh out of luck!
Note for Debian and Ubuntu: Integration with Gnome is broken on this distro! Please set sensible-browser instead. We have no control over what the Debian packagers do, so complain to them for this screw up. Example: sudo update-alternatives --set x-www-browser /usr/bin/firefox

More details

While holding down CTRL you can single left-click a URL to open it in your preferred browser. If you really want to change this to plain left-click you can type: /set gui_url_mod 0, provided you have XChat 2.6.6 or newer.

You can also add more items to the right-click menu in XChat: Settings > Advanced > URL Handlers.
For example, you could add an entry like !firefox -a firefox -remote 'openURL(%s,new-tab)'
But this kind of messing around shouldn't be necessary, it just works automatically in Gnome, KDE and Windows with 2.8.0+!

22. Where are the log files saved to?

UNIX

~/.xchat2/xchatlogs/
where ~ represents your home directory.


Windows

Windows XP/2000: C:\Documents and Settings\username\Application Data\X-Chat 2\xchatlogs
Windows Vista/7: C:\Users\username\AppData\Roaming\X-Chat 2\xchatlogs

23. How do I rotate log files every so often?

Requires: 2.6.1+

By default settings, no rotation occurs, your log files will just keep getting larger.

Go to Settings > Preferences > Logging and change the log filename to any one of these:

Setting	Example filename that would be written
%Y-%m-%d/%n-%c.log	2006-12-30/FreeNode-#channel.log
%n/%Y-%m-%d/%c.log	FreeNode/2006-12-30/#channel.log
%n/%c.log	FreeNode/#channel.log (no rotation)

%Y, %m and %d represents the current year, month and day respectively. %n is the network name, e.g. "FreeNode" or "UnderNet", and finally, %c is the channel. In these examples, a new log filename and folder would be created after midnight.

You can find more possibilities at http://xchat.org/docs/log/.

24. How do I enable graphical smilies (emoticons)?

This feature is only available in the official Windows XChat release. You have to TICK this feature during installation. If you didn't do this, you can simply run the installer again, and TICK the "Eye Candy Theme" when given the option.

If you want to use the graphical theme, but disable it just for smilies (i.e leave it ON for things like Join/Part, Modes etc only), type this command and restart:

/set text_emoticons off

3. Section Three: Contributions, Development and Bugs.

1. Why does X-Chat leak so much memory?

The simple answer is, it doesn't! There are some GTK+ pixmap based themes around that leak a lot of memory. Please try using a different theme and see if that resolves the problem. X-Chat itself only allocates about 40kb of memory through malloc()!

2. My copy of X-Chat crashes, what can I do?

Firstly, make sure it's the latest stable version of X-Chat. Stable versions have an EVEN middle number, e.g.: 2.8.0 or 2.8.1. Often late fixes are placed in this directory: 2.8.x patches

If you still experience crashes, you should consider running it through GDB. This will help us find a fix quickly, and it's easy to do! See here.

3. Can I write a new language translation for X-Chat?

You sure can, but I don't accept translations directly. They must be done through the Translation Project. All the relevant information should be on that page.