IRC for Nubs

From Penny Arcade Alliance

We have recently built a little IRC network, this page will serve to help people understand how to get the most out of it and how to enjoy it to its fullest. A Comparison of Internet Relay Chat clients is available to help select one that works best for your system, but I'd like to recommend to you KVIrc as the client to use on Windows, Mac or Unix/Linux.

I'll be writing this tutorial based on the screens in KVIrc. Which, if you download and install it, I will pick up the tutorial at this point... On your first run of KVIrc it will run you through the inital setup:

1. Click next, then click next again.
2. Enter your Nickname
3. Pick locations and click next (no real need to change from defaults though)
4. Pick a theme, I'll admit, I'm quite a fan of the Fancy theme, then click next
5. Yes or no, if you want a shortcut, then click next
6. Yes or no, if you want to make it easy to connect to new servers with irc:// links, then click next
7. Click Finish

Now the application will actually run, and open the main window and an initial connect window, if for some reason it does not, click 'KVIrc' at the top... Okay, when the 'Servers' window pops up:

1. Click the round 'world' looking icon on the top of the stack of icons along the right
2. In the 'Network' box, type "PAA Network" and click 'Advanced' and it'll open the 'Network Details' window.
3. Fill in the first tab with your information, 'Username' and 'Nickname' can have the same value.
4. Click the second tab, and type "#PAA" in the box and click 'Add', if you know of any other channels (for your guild, or raid group) type in the name and click 'Add' after each one.
5. Click the last tab 'NickServ' and check the box that says 'Enable NickServ Identification' then click 'Add Rule'
6. Fill in the top box with your chosen Nickname that you entered on the first tab.
7. In the bottom box, change '<password>' to a password that you will use later, then click 'Ok'
8. Click 'Ok' and that will close the 'Network Details' window and return to the 'Servers' window
9. Click the squarish 'computer' looking icon that is second from the top along the right
10. This will add a server under the 'PAA Network' and in the 'Server' box, type "irc.pa-guilds.org"
11. Once again, click the 'Advanced' button, and it will bring up the 'Server Details' window
12. There's no need to fill in the first tab, it will use the information already provided, click the second tab
13. Check the box beside 'Connect to this server at startup' and click 'Ok' to return to the 'Servers' window
14. UNCHECK the box beside 'Show this dialog at startup' and click 'Ok'
15. Close KVIrc

Now, every time you open KVIrc, it should automatically connect to the network on start, the first time, it will also open a 'Join Channels' window, you can uncheck the box beside 'Show this window after connecting' and click 'Close' to never see it again. On the left hand side is a sort of tree structure, with the IRC server listed at the top and channels/conversations listed below. Anything with a green '#' icon beside it is a channel, and anything with a purple 'Q' beside it is a query, or a conversation. Click on them to switch between the windows for these various channels/conversations.

Once you're connected, and getting yourself settled, you can register your nickname, this will allow you to force a disconnect if you are already connected, but the connection has died or hung. To do this, use:

/msg nickserv register "PASSWORD" "EMAIL"

Where the "password" is the password you entered into that bottom box on the NickServ tab some while ago, and the email, but it should be valid if you should need to retrieve or reset your password.

This guide will be expanded upon, you can edit and expand on it as well, contributions are always appreciated!