WeeChat quick start guide (english version, for WeeChat >= 0.2.7) ================================================================= 1. Launch weechat A recommended terminal emulator for X (but not mandatory) is rxvt-unicode (it has good UTF-8 support, and no problem with default keyboard bindings). Run "weechat-curses" from your shell. 2. Online help / options WeeChat has help for all commands, just issue /help To get help on a command, issue /help command To set options, use /set config.section.option value (where config is configuration name ("weechat" for core, or a plugin name), "section" the section of this configuration and "option" the option name). WeeChat immediately uses new value (you *never* need to restart WeeChat after changes to configuration). You can use /set option with partial name and wildcard "*" at beginning or end to display all options containg letters. For example: /set => display all options (WeeChat and plugins) /set weechat.* => display WeeChat options /set irc.* => display IRC plugin options You can display help for an option with /help, for example: /help weechat.look.highlight All settings are saved when WeeChat ends (or with "/save" command to force write of options). You can edit configuration files (*.conf) by hand and reload them by /reload command if you don't want to use /set command. 3. Core vs plugins WeeChat "core" is only used to display data on screen and interact with user, that means weechat core without plugins is useless (faithful users: IRC was part of core for versions <= 0.2.6). All network protocols like IRC are provided in separate plugins. Use /plugin command to list loaded plugins, you should see "irc" and other plugins in list. 4. Create an IRC server You can add an IRC server with /server command, for example: /server add oftc irc.oftc.org 6667 As usual, help is available if you're lost: /help server 5. Set custom IRC server options WeeChat uses default values for all servers ("fallbacks"), if you don't specify a specific value for a server option. These default options are "irc.server_default.*". For each server option, WeeChat uses its value if it is defined (not "null"). Otherwise WeeChat uses default value (irc.server_default.xxx). For example there's default nicks (based on your un*x login), and you can override them for oftc server with following command: /set irc.server.oftc.nicks "mynick1,mynick2,mynick3,mynick4,mynick5" To set username and realname: /set irc.server.oftc.username "My user name" /set irc.server.oftc.realname "My real name" To enable auto-connect to server at startup: /set irc.server.oftc.autoconnect on To run a command after connection to server, for example to identify with nickserv: /set irc.server.oftc.command "/msg nickserv identify xxxxxx" Note: many commmands can be separated by ';' (semi-colon) To auto-join some channels when connecting to server: /set irc.server.oftc.autojoin "#channel1,#channel2" To remove value of a server option, and use default value instead, for example to use default nicks (irc.server_default.nicks): /set irc.server.oftc.nicks null Other options: You can setup other options with following command ("xxx" is option name): /set irc.server.oftc.xxx value 6. Connect to IRC server and auto-join channels /connect oftc Note: this command can be used to create and connect to a new server without using /server command (should I repeat you can see help for this command with /help connect ? ;) 7. Join/part IRC channels Join a channel: /join #channel Part a channel: /part [quit message] Close server or channel buffer: /close [quit message] (/close is an alias on /buffer close) 8. Buffer/window management A buffer is a component linked to a plugin with a number with a category and a name. Buffer contains data displayed on screen. A window is a view on a buffer. By default there's only one window displaying one buffer. If you split screen, you will see many windows with many buffers at same time. Commands to manage buffers and windows: /buffer /window (I'll not repeat here that you can get help with /help on these commands) For example, to split verticaly screen into a small window (1/3 width), and a large (2/3), use command: /window splitv 33 9. Key bindings WeeChat uses many keys by default. All these keys are in documentation, but you should know at least some vital keys: - alt + left/right arrows (or F5/F6): switch to previous/next buffer - F7/F8: switch to previous/next window (when screen is split) - F9/F10: scroll title bar - F11/F12: scroll nicklist - tab: complete text in input bar, like in your shell - page up/down: scroll text in current buffer - alt + A: jump to buffer with activity (in hotlist) According to your keyboard and/or your needs, you can rebind any key to a command with "/key" command. A useful key is meta-k (alt-k) to find key codes. For example, to bind meta-y (alt-y) to command "/buffer close": /key (press meta-k) (press meta-y) /buffer close You'll have a command line like: /key meta-y /buffer close To remove key: /key unbind meta-y 10. Plugins/scripts On some distros like Debian, plugins are available via a separate package (like weechat-plugins). Plugins are automatically loaded when found. Some plugins let you use scripts in WeeChat (in many languages like Perl, Python, Ruby, Lua and Tcl). These plugins must be loaded with /plugin command and they provide commands like /perl, used to load scripts. Many external plugins/scripts (from contributors) are available for WeeChat, please look at: http://weechat.flashtux.org/plugins.php Please look at WeeChat documentation to load/unload plugins or scripts. 11. More documentation You can now use WeeChat and read FAQ/documentation for any other question: http://weechat.flashtux.org/faq.php http://weechat.flashtux.org/doc.php Enjoy WeeChat! -- (c) 2006-2009, written by FlashCode Last edited on 2009-01-02. This document is part of WeeChat and is distributed under GPL 3 licence.