path: root/docs/manual.txt

 Irssi 0.8 documentation - http://irssi.org

 Copyright(c) 2000 Timo Sirainen <tss@iki.fi>


 Index

	0. Generic babbling
	1. Installation
	2. Message levels
	3. Flood protection
	4. Configuration
	5. Servers
	6. Channels
	7. IRC commands and features
	8. Notify list
	9. Text highlighting
	10. Ignoring
	11. Logging
	12. Aliases
	13. Themes
	14. Last log (currently text version only)
	15. Nick and word completion
	16. Translation tables
	17. Windowing system (text version)
	18. Keyboard (text version)
	19. Perl scripting



 0. Generic babbling

 0.1 History

	Hello. I'm Timo Sirainen aka. cras, and I'm IRC addict. :)

	I'm actually quite new in IRC, I got my first internet connection
	sometimes around fall 1997 and I started actively IRCing around
	christmas. I used EPIC and BitchX mostly at the start, but soon
	found some nice KDE IRC client which name I can't remember anymore.
	It's author however stopped developing it after I had been using it
	a few months. And since it had bugs and all, I wanted another nice
	GUI IRC client. I didn't find any.

	Since I've always been a coder and do-it-yourself guy (my own
	offline reader and BBS software in the BBS ages), I started my own
	IRC client at spring 1998. I called it yagIRC standing for "Yet
	another GTK IRC client". GTK was in around version 1.0 back then,
	and it had a lot of features/bugs which I found all the time as I
	tried to do some "different" things than other people. These
	sometimes prevented me of doing something some feature I wanted.

	So, in summer 1998 I went to army and I passed development of yagIRC
	to two guys, they did a few new features and released a version or
	two, but finally (in summer 1999?) they put a message to web page
	which told that they finally had stopped developing it entirely,
	also saying that my code was a total mess :) (yes, it was a mess)

	I got out of the army 1.1.1999. I promised to myself that I wouldn't
	do another IRC client, but after trying to use BitchX a while, I
	started dreaming about an IRC client which would have an excellent
	look and feel. After trying various things, I only came up with the
	GNOME panel applet which people still tell me that it's a great
	feature. I was more like thinking some pretty little icons in
	some corner telling me about new messages and other stuff..

	I thought that I would keep Irssi a small project, just doing a few
	little features that *I* wanted, nothing for others. But after few
	versions and few interested people, I started coding it more and
	more generic..

	Finally, after releasing version 0.6.0 (february, 1999) I realized
	that things were getting into a big mess again. I started a rewrite,
	I organized the code into irc-base, irc-extra, user interface and
	GUI directories, created the signalling system for letting them
	communicate themselves easily and released 0.7.0. This was the base
	for the rest of the 0.7.x releases, and it did work pretty well.
	The signalling system was excellent, for example creating text mode
	version was really easy and you didn't need tens of (empty) gui_xxx()
	functions like in the yagIRC days. Maintaining the text and GTK
	versions separately was really easy too.

	About a year later after releasing Irssi 0.7.0, I started having
	dreams about an IRC client that would be extremely modular, like you
	could upgrade the client to newer version ON THE FLY without needing
	to even disconnect from the servers. I started a project codenamed
	i2k, I took the code from Irssi, split it into more directories and
	changed quite a lot of the code to work a bit differently.

	I developed i2k quite a long, until I finally gave up with it since
	it could do only some basic things, and Irssi 0.7 really needed
	maintaining. After a while I got an idea, maybe I could merge the
	code from the i2k to Irssi more easily than rewriting the whole
	client. This was more easier than I thought. It's now been two
	months since I started it, and Irssi 0.8 is looking absolutely
	excellent.

 0.2 Irssi 0.8

	Irssi 0.8 is my fourth try to create the perfect IRC client.
	This time I'm concentrating to the code. I try to avoid kludges, I
	try to make as simple code as I can, and I try to provide enough
	easy to use functions so that extending Irssi is as simple as
	possible. I also try to keep the "bloat" features in scripts or
	modules instead of build-in.

	I think I'm succeeded with these goals pretty well, there's some
	small problems but everything in the big picture looks great.

 0.3 Future

	What about Irssi 1.0, what will it look like?

	I was thinking about the Linux kernel versioning and keeping
	Irssi 0.8 a stable version all the time while developing new
	features only to Irssi 0.9. After 0.9 is finished, it will be
	called 0.10 or 1.0 depending if I think it's ready to be called 1.0.

	1.0's goal is that it has all the possible features anyone will
	ever need. If not build-in, then in scripts or loadable modules.
	Not very small goal :)

 0.4 This documentation

	Strange, I just created the index list and started writing this.
	I've never been too good at documentation and I usually don't like
	writing it, but after coding so much recently and seeing that the
	NEWS file was getting *SO* large, I thought that I had to put all
	these features down somewhere so people (and me!) would find them.

	Besides of just telling about Irssi's features and how to use them,
	this file also contains some not so well known IRC features, some
	of my own experiences, opinions, etc. So even if you're an
	experienced IRCer, you might still want to browse through this file.

	NOTE: my experiences are mostly IRCnet related, and Irssi is pretty
	much IRCnet specific too, since it's the most commonly used IRC
	network here in Finland. IRCnet has tens of servers here where as
	other IRC networks have maybe one or two or mostly none.


 1. Installation

 1.1 Configuration

	configure script accepts these parameters:

	--with-servertest       Build test irc server which you can use to
	                        try crash irc clients
	--with-socks            Build with socks library
	--with-mysql=dir        Build with mysql plugin
	--without-gtk           Build without GTK frontend
	--without-textui        Build without text frontend
	--without-bot           Build without irssibot
	--without-gnome         Build without GNOME libraries
	--without-gnome-panel   Build without GNOME panel
	--without-imlib         Build without Imlib library (you can use only
	                        .xpm files as backgrounds)
	--enable-memdebug       Enable memory debugging, great for finding
	                        memory leaks
	--enable-gtk-hebrew     Enable Hebrew support - see README-HEBREW
	--disable-perl          Disable Perl support

	In short:

	./configure
	make
	make install

 1.2 Command line parameters

	--connect -c <server>	Connect to server at startup
	--port -p <port>	 - specify port
	--noconnect -!		Don't autoconnect to any servers at startup
	--nick -n		Specify what nick to use
	--hostname -h		Specify what host name to use
	--no-applet		Don't start GNOME panel applet


 2. Message levels


	Message levels (or in short, levels) are used almost everywhere.
	They describe what kind of messages we're dealing with. Here's a
	list of them all:

	CRAP            - Can be almost anything
	MSGS            - Private messages
	PUBLIC          - Public messages in channel
	NOTICES         - Notices
	SNOTES          - Server notices
	CTCPS           - CTCP messages
	ACTIONS         - Actions (/me) - both private and public
	                  (which is a bit problematic..)
	JOINS           - Someone joins a channel
	PARTS           - Someone parts a channel
	QUITS           - Someone quits IRC
	KICKS           - Someone gets kicked from channel
	MODES           - Channel mode is changed
	TOPICS          - Channel topic is changed
	WALLOPS         - Wallop is received
	INVITES         - Invite is received
	NICKS           - Someone changes nick
	DCC             - DCC messages
	CLIENTNOTICES   - Irssi's notices
	CLIENTERRORS    - Irssi's error messages
	CLIENTCRAP      - Some other messages from Irssi
	HILIGHT         - Hilighted text
	NOHILIGHT       - Don't use hilighting for this message


 3. Flood protection

 3.1 Command flood protection

	Most (all?) IRC servers' flood protection works like this
	(from RFC 1459):

	--------
	* check to see if client's `message timer' is less than
	  current time (set to be equal if it is);

	* read any data present from the client;

	* while the timer is less than ten seconds ahead of the current
	  time, parse any present messages and penalize the client by
	  2 seconds for each message;

	which in essence means that the client may send 1 message every 2
	seconds without being adversely affected.
	--------

	Irssi's flood protection works the same way, except it penalizes
	2.2 seconds by default for each message (helps with some servers).
	You can change it with /SET cmd_queue_speed <milliseconds>. You can
	also change the number of commands before flood protection activates
	(ie. the burst count) with /SET cmd_max_at_once <count>.

	IRC servers also have an input buffer where the client's commands
	are saved before processed. It's size is server specific (can be as
	low as 1k!) If it gets full, the server kicks you out (the
	"Excess flood" quit message). Irssi's flood protecion protects this
	pretty well with small commands, but if you send many big commands
	(like >400 char long messages) fast, you could get easily kicked out.
	Normally this isn't problem, but if you have scripts sending long
	messages, you should remember this. I'm not sure how much you should
	wait between the long messages, but 2 seconds isn't enough.

	This protection is used with all commands sent to server, so you
	don't need to worry about it with your scripts.

 3.2 CTCP flood protection

	Other people can pretty easily flood you with CTCP requests, and
	even if you wouldn't get kicked out from the server, they could
	easily grow your command queue. So, Irssi's CTCP flood protection
	works like this:

	First it checks how big the CTCP reply queue is, if it's longer
	than `max_ctcp_queue', the CTCP is ignored. You can change it with
	/SET max_ctcp_queue <count> (default is 5).

	After this the CTCP reply is placed to server's "idle queue", so
	the reply is sent "when there's extra time", this means that if
	you are busy sending other commands, it might take a while before
	the reply is sent.

 3.3 Detecting floods

	Irssi is all the time automatically checking different flooding,
	when flood is noticed, it sends "flood" signal. This can be easily
	used for example to create a script for kicking channel flooders.
	Autoignore uses this also, see section 10.2.

	Flood is detected when more than `flood_max_msgs' same kind of
	messages arrives in `flood_timecheck' milliseconds to same target
	(channel or private msg) so it isn't flooding if same user sends a
	message to 10 different channels you are on, but it is flooding if
	10 messages are sent to same channel by the same user.

	Currently only messages, notices and ctcps are checked for
	flooding.

	/SET flood_max_msgs = <count>, default is 4
	/SET flood_timecheck = <milliseconds>, default is 5 seconds
	If either of these is 0, the flood checking is disabled.


 4. Configuration

 4.1 Configuration files

	The configuration is saved to ~/.irssi/config file. You can edit
	it with text editor if you want, you can also add comments to it
	and they stay there even if /SAVE is used. Comments are the lines
	starting with # character. Any errors in config file are displayed
	at startup.

	Irssi uses it's own config library for handling the config file.
	The format is pretty much the same as in libPropList and should be
	easily understandable.

	You can reload the config file on the fly with /REHASH command, you
	can also read a different config file with /REHASH <filename>.

	If you change any settings, they aren't saved to file until you use
	/SAVE. You can save the config file to different place with
	/SAVE <filename>.

 4.2 Settings

	You can view or change the settings with /SET command.

	/SET without any arguments displays all the settings.
	/SET <key> displays settings which key (partly) matches <key>
	/SET <key> <value> sets <key> to <value>

	Boolean settings accepts only values ON, OFF and TOGGLE. You can
	also use /TOGGLE command to change them, so /TOGGLE <key> behaves
	like /SET <key> TOGGLE. /TOGGLE also accepts arguments ON and OFF
	when /TOGGLE behaves exactly like /SET.

	Remember that changes are not saved until you use /SAVE!


 5. Servers

 5.1 Generic

	Irssi is multi-server friendly. You can be connected to multiple
	different servers, or the same server multiple times. Most of the
	settings that let you specify the channel, let you also specify IRC
	network.

	Servers are referenced by a "server tag". If the server is known
	to belong to some IRC network, the tag is the IRC network's name,
	like "ircnet". If the IRC network is unknown, the tag is created
	from the server's name, like irc.funet.fi -> funet. If the tag
	already exists, a number is added to the end of it and raised until
	unused tag is found.

	Quit messages have a small problem if there's already a few
	commands in server's input command queue. If the server's socket is
	disconnected immediately after QUIT message is sent, it is possible
	that the server didn't yet process the quit command and your quit
	message will be "broken pipe" or something similiar. The right thing
	to do is to let the server disconnect you, but what if the
	connection to server is broken and the server never disconnects you?
	I solved the problem by waiting a few seconds to see if the server
	disconnects us. If it didn't, force the disconnect. This explains
	the (a bit annoying) "waiting for servers to close connections"
	message when quiting Irssi. Most IRC clients just ignore this whole
	problem, but I hate it if my quit message isn't displayed right.

 5.2 IRC networks

	Different IRC networks behave a bit differently, and to be as
	efficient as possible, Irssi needs to know a few things about them
	or the safe defaults will be used. The default configuration file
	contains the settings for the biggest IRC networks.

	/IRCNET ADD [-kicks <count>] [-msgs <count>] [-modes <count>]
	            [-whois <count>] [-cmdspeed <ms>] [-cmdmax <count>]
	            [-nick <nick>] [-user <user>] [-name <name>]
	            [-host <host>] <name>

	    -kicks: Maximum number of nicks in one /KICK command
	    -msgs: Maximum number of nicks in one /MSG command
	    -modes: Maximum number of mode changes in one /MODE command
	    -whois: Maximum number of nicks in one /WHOIS command
	    -cmdspeed: Same as /SET cmd_queue_speed, see section 3.1
	    -cmdmax: Same as /SET cmd_max_at_once, see section 3.1
	    -nick, -user, -name: Specify what nick/username/realname to use
	    -host: Specify what host name to use, if you have multiple

	/IRCNET REMOVE <name>

 5.3 Manually connecting and disconnecting

	To connect to a new server, use:
	/CONNECT [-ircnet <ircnet>] [-host <hostname>] <address>|<ircnet>
	         [<port> [<password> [<nick>]]]

	If there's no password, set it to -. You can directly connect to
	IRC server in specified address, or you can connect to some IRC
	network and Irssi will pick the server for you.

	You don't need to specify the IRC network, password, nick, etc. if
	you setup the server using /SERVER -add (see next section). If the
	settings can't be found there either, Irssi will use the defaults:

	/SET default_nick = <nick>, defaults to user_name
	/SET alternate_nick = <nick>, defaults to <default_nick>_
	/SET user_name = <user>, defaults to your login name
	/SET real_name = <name>, taken from /etc/passwd by default
	/SET hostname = <host>, what host name to use when connecting
	/SET skip_motd ON|OFF|TOGGLE - Don't show server's MOTD

	NOTE: /CONNECT is also a command for IRC operators to connect IRC
	servers to other IRC servers. If you want to use it, use /SCONNECT
	instead.

	You can disconnect from the server with:
	/DISCONNECT *|<tag> [message]

	If message isn't given, Irssi will use the default quit message. You
	can set it with /SET quit_message <message>, default is "leaving".

	/SERVER disconnects the server in active window and connects to new
	one. It will take the same arguments as /CONNECT. If you prefix the
	address with + character, Irssi won't disconnect the active server,
	and it will create a new window where the server is connected
	(ie. /window new hide;/connect address)

	/SERVER without any arguments displays list of connected servers.

 5.4 Server settings

	/SERVER -add [-auto | -noauto] [-ircnet <ircnet>] [-host <hostname>]
	             [-cmdspeed <ms>] [-cmdmax <count>] [-port <port>]
		     <address> [<port> [<password>]]

	    -auto: Automatically connect to server at startup (default)
	    -noauto: Don't connect to server at startup
	    -ircnet: Specify what IRC network this server belongs to
	    -host: Specify what host name to use, if you have multiple
	    -cmdspeed: Same as /SET cmd_queue_speed, see section 3.1
	    -cmdmax: Same as /SET cmd_max_at_once, see section 3.1
	    -port: This is pretty much like the port argument later, except
	           this can be used to modify existing server's port.

	/SERVER -remove <address> [<port>]

	/SERVER -list

	Servers are identified by their name and port. You can have multiple
	entries for the same server name but in different ports. This is
	useful for IRC proxies, in one port you could have IRCNet proxy,
	another port would have EFNet, etc.

	If you wish to change existing server's port to something else, use
	-port command. For example if you had irc.server.org in port 6667
	and you wanted to change it to port 6668, use command:

	/SERVER -add -port 6668 irc.server.org 6667

	If you want to remove some settings from existing server, for
	example hostname, just give -host "" parameters to it.

	After connected to server, Irssi can automatically change your user
	mode. You can set it with /SET usermode <mode>, default is +i.

 5.5 Automatic reconnecting

	If you get disconnected from server, Irssi will try to reconnect
	back to some of the servers in the same IRC network. To prevent
	flooding the server that doesn't let you in (and avoiding K-lines),
	Irssi won't try to reconnect to the same server more often than
	once in `server_reconnect_time' seconds. You can change it with
	/SET server_reconnect_time <seconds>, default is 5 minutes.

	After reconnected to server, Irssi will re-set your user mode, away
	message and will join you back to the same channels where you were
	before the connection was lost.

	You can see list of the reconnections with /SERVER. The servers
	that have tag as RECON-n are the reconnections. You can remove them
	with /DISCONNECT <tag>, and you can reconnect to them immediately
	with /RECONNECT <n>. /RECONNECT without any arguments will
	disconnect from the active server and reconnect back immediately.

 5.6 Command redirections

	FIXME

 5.7 Server idle command queue

	There's some situations when you want to ask something from the
	server which isn't really important. For example when connected
	to server and you didn't get your nick, Irssi asks with /WHOIS
	who has your nick and displays it. But if you already have a lot of
	commands in buffer, like you just autojoined to many channels,
	you'd rather first let the JOIN commands to be sent to server

	This is where server idle queue gets into picture. Commands in
	idle queue are sent to server when there's nothing else in the
	normal command queue.

	Idle queue works with server redirections, so you can ask something
	from server when it has time and your function is called when the
	reply is received.

 5.8 Net splits

	Irssi keeps track of people who were lost in net splits. You can
	get a list of them with /NETSPLIT command.

	Another use for this is with bots. Channel master can op anyone in
	the channel and the bot happily accepts it. But if the opped user
	is lost behind a net split and in netjoin the server gives ops for
	the user, the bot should decide if the user (who isn't in bot's user
	database) is a malicious attacker who should be deopped, or if
	he/she/it is just some user that already had ops before the net
	split.

	/SET hide_netsplit_quits - If ON, hide all netsplit quit messages
	     and display only "Netsplit host1 host2: nicks".

	/SET netsplit_max_nicks - If non-zero, limit the number of nicks
	     printed in netsplit message and add "(+<n> more, use /NETSPLIT
	     to show all of them)" text.

 5.9 Lag checking

	Irssi will constantly check how big the lag to the server is. It's
	done by sending IRSSILAG CTCP replies to ourself. Using PING command
	for this would seem more reasonable, but there was too many problems
	with it - some servers didn't even know the whole PING command!

	If the lag is too big, Irssi will reconnect to different IRC server.
	This is sometimes useful if the connection has been stuck for 30
	minutes but it still hasn't been closed.

	/SET lag_check_time <seconds> - Specifies how often to check the
	     lag. If it is set to 0, the lag detection is disabled. Default
	     is 30 seconds.
	/SET lag_max_before_disconnect <seconds> - Specifies how big the lag
	     can be before reconnecting to another server. Default is 5
	     minutes.
	/SET lag_min_show <100th seconds> - Specifies the minimum lag to
	     display in status bar. Default is 1 second.

 5.10 Raw log

	All data that is received or sent to server is kept in a raw log
	buffer for a while. Also event redirections are kept there. This is
	very useful for debugging purposes.

	/RAWLOG SAVE <filename> - Save the current raw log buffer to file
	/RAWLOG OPEN <filename> - Like /RAWLOG SAVE, but keep the log file
	                          open and write all new log to it.
	/RAWLOG CLOSE - Close the open raw log

	/SET rawlog_lines <count> - Specify the number of raw log lines to
	                            keep in memory.


 6. Channels

 6.1 Generic

	There's several types of channels you can join, here's a list of
	the ones that Irssi supports:

	#channel - Normal channels, most commonly used
	+channel - Modeless channels, channel has no modes, no channel
	           operators and no topic. This way no-one is above others
	           and there's no operator-wars etc. But on the other hand,
	           you can't kick any troublemakers..
	&channel - Local channels, these channels aren't distributed outside
	           the IRC server. IRCNet has replaced server notices with
	           several different &channels (&ERRORS, &NOTICES, etc.)
	!channel - New channels, currently supported only by IRCNet. These
	           channels are designed so that they can't be taken over
	           with net splits. /JOIN !channel joins to existing
	           !channel, /JOIN !!channel creates a new channel.

 6.2 Joining, parting

	Channels can be joined with /JOIN command. You can join to multiple
	channels with one /JOIN by giving it a comma-separated list of
	channels, like /JOIN #channel1,#channel2. If you don't give the
	channel mode character (#+&!) before the channel name, Irssi
	automatically uses # channels.

	Channel name may contain any characters except SPACE, BELL, NUL,
	CR, LF or comma (','). You can also restrict the channel to only
	certain users by adding the hostmask to the end of the channel
	name separated with a ':' character, like #channel:*!*@*.fi lets
	only people from .fi domain join the channel. This doesn't work with
	all IRC servers and it's pretty difficult to use, since everyone
	will have to always join the #channel:*!*@*.fi channel, #channel or
	#channel:*!*@*.se channels are different channels. Ban exceptions
	(+e) and especially invite lists (+I) replace this functionality
	pretty well, see section 6.5.

	If channel has a password (aka. key), you can join it with
	/JOIN #channel pass, or multiple channels with passwords with

	/JOIN #secret1,#public,#secret2 pass1,x,pass2

	#public didn't have any password, so we used "x" as it's password.
	It doesn't really matter what password you send with channels that
	don't have passwords.

	You can leave channels with /PART [<channels>] [<part message>].
	For example "/PART byebye all" leaves the active channel with
	"byebye all" message, or /PART #chan1,#chan2 leaves those channels.

	NOTE: Sending JOIN 0 directly to server (/quote join 0) leaves all
	the channels you are joined. There's been some jokes about joining
	for example to #2000,0 where the server actually leaves you from all
	channels. With Irssi this isn't really a problem, since irssi would
	happily join to channels #2000 and #0.

 6.3 Automatic joining

	Irssi can automatically join to specified channels in specified
	IRC networks. It can also automatically send the password when
	manually joining to channel without specifying the password.

	/CHANNEL ADD [-auto | -noauto] [-bots <masks>] [-botcmd <command>]
	         <channel> <ircnet> [<password>]

	With -bots and -botcmd arguments you can automatically send
	commands to someone in channel. This is useful for automatically
	getting ops for channels, for example

	/CHANNEL ADD -auto -bots "*!bot@bothost.org bot*!*@host2.org"
	         -botcmd "msg $0 op mypass" #channel ircnet

	You can also use the -botcmd without -bots argument. The command is
	then sent whenever you join the channel.

	If you want to remove some settings from existing channel record,
	for example bots, just give the -bots "" parameters to it. Password
	can be removed by setting it to - (or actually, "" works too).

	You can remove the channels with
	/CHANNEL REMOVE <channel> <ircnet>

	/CHANNEL LIST displays list of channels with settings.
	/CHANNEL without any arguments displays list of channels you have
	joined. You can also use /CHANNEL to join to channels just as with
	/JOIN, like /CHANNEL #a.

 6.4 After-join automation

	When joined to channel, Irssi asks some information about it.
	After it has got all of it, it prints the "Channel synchronized"
	text. The following information is asked:

	- Channel mode
	- WHO list to get nicks' hosts - useful for /BAN for example
	- Ban list - useful for allowing /UNBAN to use wildcards
	- Exception list, Invite list - these are asked only from servers
	  that support +I and +e modes, mostly just IRCNet and some EFNet
	  servers. These aren't really needed for anything currenty, except
	  /INVITELIST and /BANS uses them to display the lists.

	If you have joined many channels at once, Irssi tries to optimize
	the commands it sends to server. Instead of sending two commands
	to ask two channels' mode, it just sends MODE #a,#b. Same thing with
	WHO list and ban/except/invite lists. Some servers do not support
	this and they reply with different kinds of error messages, Irssi
	tries to deal with them all right and resend the commands again
	separately. However, some strange servers sometimes use some weird
	error replies that Irssi doesn't know about, and the channel never
	gets synchronized. If this happens with some server you know, please
	let the Irssi's author know about it.

 6.5 Channel modes

	Irssi knows these channel modes:

	i - Invite only - People can't join to channel without being
	    /INVITEd, or being in invite list (+I, see below).
	m - Moderated - People who don't have voices (+v) can't send
	    messages to channel
	p - Private - People who aren't joined to channel can't see it
	    for example with /WHOISing people who are in channel.
	s - Secret - Like private, but the channel isn't displayed in
	    /LIST's output.
	n - No external msgs - Without this mode, anyone can send messages
	    to channel without even being joined.
	t - Topic can be changed only by channel operators.

	k <key> - Channel password (aka. key) - The channel can't be joined
	          without specifying the channel key (see section 6.2).

	l <count> - User limit - No more than <count> people can join to
	            channel. This can be overridden with /INVITE with some
	            servers.

	            This is usually used for protecting channel from join
	            flooding, like some bot allows max. 5 users to join in
	            one minute or so.

	a - Anonymous - No-one's nick name, host or anything else can be
	    seen. All messages, joins, parts, modes, etc. are seen as coming
	    from nick "anonymous", this could be pretty confusing but nice
	    feature if you want total anonymity. This mode can only be set,
	    never unset. This mode isn't supported by all servers.

	    NOTE: there is/was one bug :) Channel operators can guess if some
	    nick might be in the channel and try to kick it. If nick was in
	    channel, everyone will see the nick that was kicked.

	r - Re-op - If channel becomes opless for longer than 45 (?) minutes,
	    op everyone in the channel. This works only in !channels. This
	    mode can only be set, not unset by channel creator.

	b - Set/remove ban. For example MODE #channel +b *!*@*.org bans
	    everyone from .org domain.

	    If someone from .org domain was already in channel before the
	    ban was set, he/she couldn't be able to write any messages to
	    channel (doesn't work with all servers).

	    Ban can also be overridden with /INVITE, although many stupid
	    IRC clients automatically kick the user out because they see
	    the ban and think that because of it the user shouldn't be in
	    the channel (doesn't work with all servers).

	e - Ban exceptions. You could for example ban everyone from
	    *!*@*.org but set ban exception to *!*@*.host.org - works only
	    in IRCnet/EFnet servers.

	I - Invite list. If channel is invite only (+i), people in this
	    list can join it without being /INVITEd - works only in
	    IRCnet/EFnet servers.

	    This is excellent for in-country channels that don't want
	    foreigners (spammers!) to join the channel, for example setting
	    channel's mode to +i and +I *!*@*.fi allows only finnish people
	    to join the channel. In addition to this, there's usually a bot
	    in the channels and sending /MSG bot invite command to it
	    /INVITEs you to the channel.

	    The ':' feature in channel modes is quite similiar, see section
	    6.2.

	O - Channel owner, the nick who creates a !channel receives this
	    mode. It isn't displayed anywhere, you can't pass it to anyone
	    else and you can't regain it again. This is needed for setting
	    +r mode in channel when it's first created.

	o <nick> - Grant or revoke channel operator status from nick
	v <nick> - Grant or revoke voice status from nick, only people with
	           +v (or +o) can talk to channel when it's moderated (+m).

	You can send multiple mode changes with one mode command:

	/MODE #channel +nto-o+v nick1,nick2,nick3

	This would set channel's mode to +nt, give ops to nick1, take ops
	from nick2 and give voices to nick3.

	You can set only limited number of modes that requires argument in
	one command. In IRCnet it's 3, in EFnet it's 4 and in many others
	it's 6. If it's not known, Irssi defaults to 3. Irssi will also
	automatically split them, so you can use /MODE +oooooo n1,n2,..
	command to op 6 people and Irssi will split it to two commands in
	IRCnet/EFnet.

	Instead of manually setting o, v and b modes you probably want to
	use /OP, /DEOP, /VOICE, /DEVOICE, /BAN and /UNBAN commands.

	/OP, /DEOP, /VOICE and /DEVOICE commands allows wildcards as their
	argument. So /OP ni* will op all non-opped people whose nick start
	with "ni". /DEOP * will deop everyone else except you. /VOICE and
	/DEVOICE work the same way.

 6.6 Bans

	You can give /BAN a list of nicks or whole ban masks. /UNBAN
	accepts wildcards, so if you have ban nick!user@reallylonghost.org,
	you can simply unban it with /UNBAN *really*

	Using /BAN <nicks>, Irssi will automatically create the mask. You
	can change the way it's created with /BANTYPE command:

	/BANTYPE normal|host|domain|custom

	Normal - *!user@*.domain.net
	Host   - *!*@host.domain.net
	Domain - *!*@*.domain.net
	Custom [nick] [user] [host] [domain]
	       eg. /bantype custom nick domain - nick!*@*.domain.net
	       eg. /bantype custom user host - *!user@host.domain.net

	Irssi has also a couple of commands to help banning people:

	/KICKBAN [<channel>] <nick> <reason> - ban and kick the nick
	/KNOCKOUT [<seconds>] <nick> <reason> - kickban the nick, unban
	          after waiting <seconds>, default is 5 minutes.

 6.7 Massjoins

	Automatic opping the nick right after joined to channel is a pretty
	commonly used. What mostly irritates me with this is that the nick
	may be opped multiple times by different people, or after netsplits
	when the people join back, the server will op them, but still the
	bots op the people again, even if it was just done by the server.

	Irssi has this feature that it sends a "massjoin" signal a while
	after the real join. If someone has already opped the nick, you can
	easily check it in the massjoin signal handler.

	The default is to report maximum of 5 joins in one massjoin signal.
	If the 5 joins don't come in 5 seconds, the signal is sent anyway.
	You can change these with /SET massjoin_max_wait <milliseconds> and
	/SET massjoin_max_joins <count>.


 7. IRC commands and features (FIXME)

 7.x Basic commands

 7.x IRC operator commands

 7.x Away features

 8. Notify list

	Notify list is generally used for knowing when someone you know
	comes to IRC or leaves from IRC. Traditionally notify list can
	handle only a list of nicks, no nick masks etc. I lost interest to
	traditional notify lists long time ago, since the people I know
	are in IRC all the time. So I made a bit more featureful notify
	list:

	/NOTIFY [-list] [-away] [-idle [minutes]] <mask> [ircnet [ircnet...]]

	    -away: Notifies about away-status changes
	    -idle: Notifies if idle time is first larger than <minutes>
	           (default is hour) and then it drops down.
            -list: Lists the notify list entries with all their settings
	    <mask>: Either a simple "nick" or "nick!*@*blah.org". The nick
	            can't contain wildcards, but the user/host can.

	/UNNOTIFY <mask>

	/NOTIFY without any arguments displays if the people in notify
	list are online or offline.


 9. Text highlighting

	Irssi supports highlighting lines that match the specified pattern.
	You can also change the color of the nicks that match specified nick
	mask, so you could for example show your friends' nicks with
	different color.

	/HILIGHT [-nick | -regexp | -word] [-color <color>]
	         [-level <level>] [-channels <channels>] <text>

	    -nick: Match only for nick, <text> is a nick mask
	    -regexp: <text> is a regular expression
	    -word: <text> must match to full words
	    -color: Print the reply with <color> - see below
	    -level: Match only for <level> messages, default is
	            publics,msgs,notices,actions
	    -channels: Match only in <channels>

	/DEHILIGHT <ref#> | <text>

	/HILIGHT without any arguments displays list of the hilights.

	By default the highlighted line will be printed with white color.
	You can change this with the -color argument. If <color> is a
	number, Irssi will treat it as a MIRC color code. You can also use
	bolds (^B), underlines (^_) etc. as <color> if you like.


 10. Ignoring

 10.1 Manual ignoring

	Irssi's ignoring options should be enough for everyone :)

	/IGNORE [-regexp | -word] [-pattern <pattern>] [-replies] [-except]
	        [-channels <channel>] <mask> <levels> <^levels>

	    -regexp: <pattern> is a regular expression
	    -word: <pattern> must match to full words
	    -pattern: <pattern> must match to the message's text
	    -replies: Ignore replies to nick in channels. For example
	              "/IGNORE -replies *!*@*.fi PUBLIC" ignores everyone
		      from Finland, but also anyone sending message
		      "tofinnishnick: blahblah".
	    -except: *DON'T* ignore
	    -channels: Ignore only in channels
	    <mask>: Either a nick mask or list of channels
	    <levels>: List of levels to ignore
	    <^levels>: List of levels to NOT ignore
	               (/ignore -except nick notices = /ignore nick ^notices)

	/UNIGNORE <ref#> | <mask>

	/IGNORE without any arguments displays list of ignores.

	The best match always wins, so you can have:

	    /IGNORE * CTCPS
	    /IGNORE -except *!*@host.org CTCPS

 10.2 Automatic ignoring

	Irssi can automatically set ignores for people who flood you.
	Currently you can autoignore MSGS, NOTICES, CTCPS and PUBLIC.
	Actions are placed to either MSGS or PUBLIC. See section 3.3 for
	definition of the flood.

	/SET autoignore_time <seconds> specifies how long to ignore the
	user.

	/SET autoignore_levels <levels> specifies what levels to ignore
	automatically, default is to ignore only CTCPS.


 11. Logging

 11.1 Basic logging

	/LOG OPEN [-noopen] [-autoopen] [-targets <targets>] [-window]
	          [-rotate hour|day|week|month] <filename> [<levels>]

	    -noopen: Create the entry to log list, but don't start logging
	    -autoopen: Automatically open this log file at startup
	    -targets: Log only in specified channels/nicks
	    -window: Log the active window
	    -rotate: Reopen the log file every hour, day, week or month.
	             This makes only sense if you specify date/time formats
	             to file name.
	    <filename>: File name where to log, it is parsed with
	                strftime(), so %d=day, etc. see "man strftime" for
			more info.
	    <levels>: Defaults to ALL

        /LOG CLOSE <ref#> | <fname> - Close log and remove from log list
	/LOG START <ref#> | <fname> - Start logging to file
	/LOG STOP <ref#> | <fname> - Stop logging to file
	/LOG without any arguments displays the log list

	/SET log_create_mode <mode> - Specifies what file mode to use with
	     the created log files. Default is 0644.

	All of these are parsed with strftime():
	/SET log_timestamp <text> - Specifies the time stamp format.
	     Default is "%H:%M ".
	/SET log_open_string <text> - Text written to log when it's opened
	/SET log_close_string <text> - Text written to log when it's closed
	/SET log_day_changed <text> - Text written to log when day changes

	NOTE: Log files are locked after opened, so two Irssis can't
	accidentally try to write to the same log file.

	Examples:

	/LOG OPEN -targets cras ~/irclogs/cras.log MSGS
	  - Logs all messages from/to nick `cras'

	/LOG OPEN -rotate day -targets #linux ~/irclogs/linux/linux-%Y-%m-%d
	  - Logs all messages in channel #linux. Log is rotated daily, so
	    logs in 1. May 2000 goes to file "linux-2000-05-01", when the
	    day is changed, Irssi closes the log and starts logging to
	    "linux-2000-05-02" etc.

 11.2 Window logging

	/WINDOW LOG ON|OFF|TOGGLE [<filename>]

	Start/stop logging the active window. This works exactly like
	/LOG OPEN -window.

	/WINDOW LOGFILE <filename>

	Sets the default log file to use in the window, it can be
	overridden with specifying the file name in /WINDOW LOG. If no file
	name isn't given, Irssi defaults to ~/irc.log.<windowname> or
	~/irc.log.Window<ref#> if window doesn't have name.

	Creates the entry to log list, same as /LOG OPEN -window -noopen.
	Also, if /WINDOW LOG ON is used it starts logging to this file.

 11.3 Automatic logging

	This is the logging method that I had been asked to implement for
	ages, and it is really simple to use too. It logs only messages
	that have "targets", ie. private messages and channel specific
	messages (msgs, modes, topics, etc). WHOIS replies and such aren't
	logged. If you with to log them too, use the /LOG command.

	So, when for example a private messages comes to you from "guy"
	nick, Irssi creates a log file ~/irclogs/guy.log for it. After few
	minutes of inactivity, the log file is closed.

	/SET AUTOLOG ON|OFF|TOGGLE - Enable/disable autolog.

	/SET AUTOLOG_LEVEL <level> - Specifies what levels to log, default
	is ALL.

	/SET AUTOLOG_PATH <path> - expandos (see special_vars.txt) can be
	used, $0 is the target. If you are using multiple servers, it makes
	sense to use the server tag as part of the file name, for example
	~/irclogs/$tag/$0.log (this is the default). The directories are
	created automatically.

 11.4 Awaylog

	Irssi logs specified messages when you're away. After you set
	yourself unaway, Irssi will display all the messages in the awaylog.

	/SET awaylog_level <level> - Default is MSGS HILIGHT
	/SET awaylog_file <filename> - Default is ~/.irssi/away.log

	You can disable this feature by setting awaylog_level to NONE.