XChat for Windows is an IRC (Internet Relay Chat) program that allows you to chat on the Internet. Please see the xchat webpage for a quick start guide.
News for 2.8.1a (27/Jan/2007):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Maximized window state is now remembered when you hide/restore from the tray.
* Fixed opening URLs like "dot.com" that previously failed to be opened by
Windows because they didn't start with www or http://.
* iconv.dll is no longer needed (751 KB of disk and memory saved!). This was
quite a big job under the hood, please report any problems with character
sets.
* Fixed a bug in the /exec plugin that could cause text printed to stdout
by ActivePerl to be sent to the channel, under certain conditions.
* Fixed small bug: #100239 buffer overflow in setup dialog.
News for 2.8.1 (12/Jan/2007):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Added a system tray icon (aka Notification Area). This is probably the
biggest feature addition in this series. Also added a /TRAY command so
scripts can manipulate the icon.
Note: If you prefer to use the X-Tray plugin, you can still do so. Just
disable XChat's tray icon in Settings > Preferences > Alerts.
* Settings: Warn the user when trying to put the tree on the top/bottom.
* Channel modes are no longer shown in the titlebar if they contain a key.
* Added /GUI APPLY command, which does that same as pressing OK in the
settings window (e.g use it after /set). Mainly for scripters.
* Allow changing the logging folder if the log filename is set to a full path
in the settings window (e.g. starts with "C:").
* Added 'Your Action' text event.
* Separated out /away and /back commands so it's obvious what they'll do.
* Settings are now saved even if you shut-down Windows before closing XChat.
* Fixed the "Save As" function saving to the wrong folder in the URL Grabber.
* Changes to /MENU command (See plugin20.html for details):
- Now works for popup menus too.
- Allows creation of radio menu items.
- -p arg can now to be negative to give a position offset from right/bottom.
- -i arg to specify an icon file.
* Plugin API:
- Added "event_text" to xchat_get_info().
- Added "modes" to xchat_get_info(). Returns the current channel modes, if
they are known.
News for 2.6.9c (17/Dec/2006):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Emoticons are now supported even if you turn off 'Indent nicknames'.
* Warn users about trying to use 64-bit ActivePerl.
* Minor security fix.
News for 2.6.9b (6/Nov/2006):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* This is a minor bug fix release, since 2.6.9a did not run on Windows 2000 or
98 due to a missing gdiplus.dll on those systems.
* Fixed installation of the Eye Candy theme files, which previously installed
to the wrong folder.
News for 2.6.9a (4/Nov/2006):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Background images can now also be PNG or JPEG (previous only ICO, GIF and
BMP worked).
* Icons for eye-candy theme (icons.conf) and Op/Voice icons can now also be in
PNG format (*.ico and *.png filenames are searched for).
* A new Channel List window, which has a nicer layout and uses less CPU power
and memory when sorting a very large list. Supports downloading the channel
list with "minusers" (ELIST) to save time. A right-click menu was also added.
News for 2.6.9 (17/Oct/2006):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* When called with --help or -?, the command line options are now displayed
even in DOS.
* Special-cased BRASnet for nickserv.
* Plugin Interface:
* Added fields: lag, queue to the "channels" list.
* Added fields: sizehigh to the "dcc" list.
* Added fields: networks to the "notify" list.
* Added /GETFILE command, to open a file dialog.
* Command hooks that start with a period ('.') will now be hidden from /HELP
and /HELP -l.
* Fixed: [1544960] quitting via tabs behaves bad on bncs.
* Fixed: [1568931] treeview problem: closing tabs by holding shift and
clicking.
* "Clear" button in Ban List window now has a 'Are you sure?' dialog for
safety.
* The notify list can now contain entries specific to only one or more IRC
networks.
* Userlist popup menu and buttons: added %e for 'current network name'.
* Added option: 'Flash taskbar on any private messages'.
* Added a new encoding choice: "IRC (Latin-1/UTF-8 hybrid)".
How it works is described at: http://forum.xchat.org/viewtopic.php?t=3180
* Improved the identd server to handle multiple connections when you auto-
connect to a lot of networks at once.
* The Python plugin now uses the latest Python 2.5.
* The Move File function now uses a thread so it doesn't hold up XChat while
moving (this is for the "Move completed files to:" DCC feature).
News for 2.6.7a (27/Aug/2006):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Added proper support for unicode time stamps and log filenames so that
non-English ones work correctly (e.g. Non-ASCII days of the week now
work, such as Cyrillic).
* Fixed a few text printing bugs when running in Spanish. Please report if
there are still some remaining problems.
* Handle gracefully plugins that try to execute commands with invalid UTF-8.
* Improved handling of irc:// links from web browser, as not to make
another connection unless absolutely necessary.
News for 2.6.7 (25/Jul/2006):
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Fixed errors in the Finnish translation that caused highlighted messages
not to wrap correctly.
* Improved the fallback routine when you receive non-UTF8 messages. It
can now handle CP1252 from mIRC users and the ISO-8859-15 Euro symbol.
* Added CHANOPT command for setting channel specific options such as showing
of joins and part, beep on message and color paste.
* /CLEAR HISTORY will clear your command history.
* The /QUERY command now has -nofocus arg, which scripts might find useful.
* You can now /set gui_url_mod 0, to allow left-clicking URLs (default is
4, for CTRL).
* Advanced users can /set tab_small 2, to get _extra_ small tabs.
* Added /SPLAY <soundfile>.
* Fixed /reconnect and auto-reconnect issue [1525383].
* Fixed "restricted mode" errors in the Python plugin.
* Plugin Interface:
* The second args to xchat_list_int and xchat_list_str can now be NULL as
a shortcut to "channels" list for current context only.
* Added bits 6-8 to the field "flags" in the "channels" list.
* /GUI MSGBOX <text> can now contain Pango markup.
* Added -m arg to /MENU. See plugin20.html for more.
* Fixed using the /MENU args -p and -e at the same time.
* Perl Plugin (Lian Wan Situ)
* Fixed a bug with Xchat::print that prevents printing out a single 0.
* Fixed a bug in Xchat::get_prefs that was clobbering the stack.
* Allow scripts that use a non-existent function for the shutdown callback
to be unloaded.
* Added check in set_context for undef.
* Added the fields from get_list "channels" for the current context to the
result of context_info.
News for 2.6.5a:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Fixed being able to DCC resume while using the "Save As..." dialog
on Windows 98.
* Fixed connecting to a IRC server via proxy (bug in 2.6.5 only).
* Fixed a rare crash, if you accepted a DCC using the Uploads & Downloads
window but then clicked OK in the "Save As..." dialog after the transfer
was completed.
* Added an option of using 'Last-Spoke' nick completion order in Settings >
Input Box.
* Fixed a crash if you left a Ban-List window open after closing the
associated channel and then clicking Refresh.
News for 2.6.5:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Randomized the lookup of round robin hostnames, since WinSock does
not cycle through them and always picks the first address only.
* Tree Views now have dotted connecting lines.
* The Browse button in the DCC download folder settings now opens a
proper folder-chooser dialog (not supported on Windows 98).
* The python plugin is now fully dynamic and can be safely installed
even if you don't have Python right now.
* DCC file transfers via HTTP, Socks4 or Socks5 proxy is now supported.
* Timestamps are now preserved in the /lastlog command. Also fixed a
bug where the separator line disappeared during /lastlog.
* Made the setup window a little neater and Gnome-like.
* Improved the notify window a little and fixed a small memory leak.
* Fixed CTCPs being truncated in the RawLog window.
* Added an option to open a "Save As..." dialog when receiving a DCC
file offer.
* Fixed a crash if you try to remove a network from the list while it's
in a auto-reconnect delay.
* Python: Fixed some memory usage bugs.
* Perl: Turned on utf8 flag for things that should have it on.
News for 2.6.3a:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Fixed opening a irc:// URL while "Skip serverlist on startup" is off.
* Fixed the tree layout "flashing" (redrawing slowly) after you
switched to tabs and back to tree.
* You can now mark and copy timestamps if you hold down SHIFT.
* Fixed a conflict with a program called UEStudio, which could lead to
crashes when UEStudio installed a buggy spelling library.
* Added Unicode filename support for drag&drop to dialog windows and
the userlist.
* Improved the Socks5 error reporting, instead of just printing the
infamous "Proxy traversal failed".
News for 2.6.3:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Updated translations (de, fr, sv).
* XChat is now fully Unicode enabled when running on Windows 2000/XP,
which allows you to use file and folder names with non-ASCII
characters, even when those characters don't exist in your current
regional setting's language. Specifically, this works in:
o DCC files and receive folder name.
o The DCC completed folder (the MoveFile routine is unicode enabled).
o "Application Data\username\X-Chat 2\" folder name.
o Command line parameter parsing.
o Plugin file and folder names.
o Sending a URL to web browser.
More information about this feature is at:
http://forum.xchat.org/viewtopic.php?t=2490
* Added experimental commands: /GUI TILE and /GUI UNTILE.
* Shrunk minigtk.dll by ~16 KB.
* Fixed display of realname in the nick-name right-click menu when
it contains a '&' character [1403069].
* Added support for UniBG's nickserv.
* Show help when using wrong args for /DCC, instead of silence.
* Support receiving 2048 bytes per line from server and dcc-chat, so we
can support 512 UTF-8 characters that some servers now send.
* Fixed a conflict with UltraEdit that could lead to crashes if you had
upgraded UltraEdit from version 11 to 12.
News for 2.6.2:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Made "/server freenode" send auto-join channels but not
"/server irc://freenode".
* Fixed using Strip mIRC colors & Color nicks at the same time.
* Fixed a bug in timestamp drawing using a non-fixed-width font.
* Fixed display of real name in the nick-name right-click menu when
it contains a '<' character.
* Under the hood improvements to the DCCServer.
News for 2.6.1c:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Improved the sorting speed of the Channel List by 25% (clicking the
column headings).
* Various improvements from the 2.6.1 unix release:
http://xchat.org/changelog.txt
News for 2.6.1a:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Fixed the search window not remembering the toggle states for case-
sensitive and search backwards the next time you open it.
* Fixed logging not stripping mIRC colors correctly.
* Fixed dialog buttons not displaying correctly if you have
"Resizable userlist" turned off.
News for 2.6.1:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Added support for log rotation based on time/date. For example, if you
set your log filename in the settings to "%F/%n-%c.log" it'll create
logs like 2005-11-24/FreeNode-#channel.log. For a full list of possible
percent ("%") variables to use, see: http://xchat.org/docs/log
* You can now double click on rows to expand/collapse in the tree layout.
* Alt-LeftArrow, Alt-RightArrow now work in the tree layout too.
* Modernized and improved various GUIs (ported to GtkTreeView, BIG!):
* Search Text window, with case sensitive and search backwards options.
* File transfer and DCC Chat windows totally remodelled.
* Channel list window also rewritten to use GtkTreeView.
* Improved icon and emoticon drawing in the main text area, you can now
mark and copy them just like text.
* Auto-find in the server list window is improved.
* Added "Auto accept file offers" to the File Transfer settings.
* Fixed crash when trying to Detach or Close a utility tab via right-click,
when it's not the currently focused tab.
* Fixed a bug in using the scroll-wheel while hovering over a scrollbar,
where it would only go down and not up.
* Fixed a possible crash in changing color settings before changing to/from
the tree layout (SF bug #1349088).
* Added translations: Dutch, Finnish, French and German.
News for 2.6.0:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Message boxes are now warning, error or info with appropriate icon.
* Red marker line feature enabled by default.
* Added /SEND <nick> [file] which will automatically switch to PSEND
when detecting a private net address.
* Simplified default nick-right-click menu.
* Show "Last Talk" in nick-right-click menu as "minutes ago".
* Strip mIRC colour from away message in right-click menu.
* Warn when opening banlist in non-channel.
* Reorganised and simplified IRC/Server menus and new View menu.
* The editable Server menu is no more, if you want it type
/set gui_usermenu 1 and restart.
* Option to view channels in tabs or tree structure.
* Shorter titlebar text for better viewing in taskbar.
* Removed "Connect in new tab" button in server list, it now does it
intelligently. Use stock Connect icon.
* Removed "Tint (shade) transparency" item from settings and figure
it out based on tint values.
* When closing a tab, re-focus the one near by, instead of always the
last.
* Firefox style close button.
* The lag and throttle metres now have tooltips that give you real
information (hover the pointer over them).
* Added workaround to show on-join ChanServ notices in the right tab.
* Tab scroll buttons are now side-by-side when in vertical mode.
* Automatically change key shortcut of "Marked Away" if the
translation already uses ALT-A for the Help menu (e.g _Aide in
French).
* Your nickname in the bottom-left corner now turns gray when you are
marked away, just like the userlist.
* Introduced a delay before joining channels, to allow for FreeNode's
short comings. If a umode +e is received it'll send auto-join
channels immediately.
* Plugin API: Added win_ptr to xchat_get_info.
* Non-irc (utility) tabs can now be detached aswell.
* Fixed behaviour problems of the userlist pane, which might be set
incorrectly if the window was resized while a server-tab is focued.
* Added a confirm-dialog when trying to close a server-tab with
children.
* Server list's edit window now gives you an option of a network
specific "Second choice" nickname.
* Auto detect RusNet and use /NICKSERV to identify instead of /MSG.
* Added /Ghost command.
* Fixed: The WHOIS away-line ignored irc_whois_front setting.
* Scroll-wheel now works while hovering over a tab (Khisanth).
* The input box right-click menu now has bold, underline and italic.
* irc:// URLs in your web browser are now opened in an existing xchat
window, if one is running.
* WIN32: Auto-loading perl scripts now also works from:
C:\Program Files\XChat\Plugins\
* Better command-line parameter parsing via GOption. See near bottom
of this document for a list of possible arguments.
* When inserting unprintable character codes (Color, Bold, Underline
or ctrl-shift-a for new-line), they now display a box (previously
they didn't show up at all).
* Tab completion order can now be in "last talk" order if you
/set completion_sort 1 (default is alphabetical order).
* Reworked Character Chart window so you can actually find your char.
* The time stamp format now supports a few more items that were only
available on Linux previously: %C, %D, %e, %F, %k, %l, %P.
* Included the choice of "Eye Candy Theme" during installation.
* Included OpenSSL 0.9.7i libraries.
News for 2.4.5f:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Fixed playing of beeps, which could play too slowly on some
versions of Windows and cause a slowdown.
News for 2.4.5e:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Fixed auto-reconnect intermittently not working.
* Updated German translation file.
* Other very small bug fixes.
News for 2.4.5c:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Fixed an error in the Italian translation which could cause the program
to fail when using an Italian locale (2.4.5d).
* Fixed a bug preventing HTTP proxy from working.
* Fixed the "color Cyrillic topic" bug.
* Windows XP style tabs. If you prefer the old style type /set tab_xp 0
and restart XChat.
* Added /NICK -r <nick>, which will automatically try to regain a
nickname if it's currently taken.
News for 2.4.5b:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Fixed possible crashes using the SJIS (Japanese) character set.
* Other small bug fixes.
News for 2.4.5:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* All the same improvements and fixes as the UNIX version. Details
at http://xchat.org/changelog.txt
* Some tweaks to improve the GUI on Windows 98 and 2000.
* DCC send/receive now support very large files (above 4 GB). Note, this
requires a NTFS disk, as FAT32 has a 4 GB limit.
* Fixed resizing of the columns in the DCC and Channel-List windows.
* Added a new dialog box after connecting, to help IRC newbies get
started.
* Improved font substitution. When a character isn't available in your
current font, other fonts are searched, just like on Linux.
News for 2.4.4:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* All the same improvements and fixes as the UNIX version. Details
at http://xchat.org/changelog.txt
* Included a spell checking feature, see http://xchat.org/spell/
* OpenSSL libraries upgraded to 0.9.7g.
News for 2.4.3:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* This is a minor bug fix release.
* OpenSSL libraries upgraded to 0.9.7f.
* Same changes as the UNIX version: http://xchat.org/changelog.txt
News for 2.4.2:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Fixed a memory leak in the /DNS command.
* Fixed Cyrillic transliteration, which was broken in 2.4.1b.
* Improved the speed of drawing text by approx 15%.
* Same changes as the UNIX version: http://xchat.org/changelog.txt
News for 2.4.1b:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Included a mIRC compatible DCC server. Enable via /dccserver command.
This allows you to download from certain bots that tell you to execute
the "/dccserver +sc 59" command. Don't forget to disable it when you're
done with "/dccserver off".
* The builtin identd(authentication) server now supports IPv6.
* The Python plugin now works with the official Python-2.4 release
available at http://www.python.org/2.4/. It is not compatible with
ActivePython from ActiveState.
* The Ban List window now lists Ban-Exemptions too.
* XChat now handles theme changes in Windows-XP more gracefully.
News for 2.4.1a:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Fixed crashes when running in Italian or Catalan languages.
News for 2.4.1:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Same changes as the UNIX version: http://xchat.org/changelog.txt
* Fixed opening URLs in a browser that contain non-ascii characters.
* OpenSSL libraries upgraded to 0.9.7e.
News for 2.4.0c:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Only internal changes, nothing visible.
News for 2.4.0b:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Improved DCC receiving efficiency slighty by reducing ACK
(acknowledgement) traffic.
* Fixed an error that could make the evaluation period expire
incorrectly.
News for 2.4.0a:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Built from current CVS, with these two new features:
* Brought back the "Connect to selected server only" option in the
Serverlist edit window (like "Cycle until connected" in 2.0.x).
This will cause it NOT to cycle to the next server in the list
when you get disconnected. Instead it'll just keep trying the
same server.
* You can now move networks and servers via Shift+Up/Down (in the
ServerList window).
* Included the Lithuanian translation, which was accidently left
out in the last release.
News for 2.4.0:
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
* Added support for complex script shaping (uniscribe). If you set the
environmental variable "XCHAT_UNISCRIBE", it will turn on, but text
display and scrolling may be slower. This is only needed by some
languages, e.g. Thai. This is only experimental!
* Fixed refresh of window while scrolling when another window was on top.
Details: http://bugzilla.gnome.org/show_bug.cgi?id=147825
* Menus and tooltips now have a drop shadow on XP.
* The TCL plugin has been recompiled with ActiveTcl 8.4.7.0.
* The Python plugin has been recompiled with Python 2.3.4.
* Included the choice of installing the 2.0.x style black color scheme.
C:\Documents and Settings\<username>\Application Data\X-Chat 2But it is known to reside here on Windows Vista:
C:\Users\<username>\Application Data\X-Chat 2Alternatively, you can click "Open Data Folder" in the Logging section of the settings window.
-?, --help Show help options -a, --no-auto Don't auto connect to servers --command=COMMAND Send a command to existing xchat -d, --cfgdir=PATH Use a different config directory -n, --no-plugins Don't auto load any plugins -p, --plugindir Show plugin auto-load directory -u, --configdir Show user config directory --existing Try to open URL in existing xchat --url=URL Open an irc://server:port/channel URL --minimize=level Begin minimized. Level 0=Normal 1=Iconified 2=Tray -v, --version Show version information Examples: xchat.exe --cfgdir=E:\XCHAT-CONFIG xchat.exe --command="echo hi there"
Only some IRC servers support SSL. In the Network List window, click EDIT and look at the list of servers. To add a SSL server on port 7000 you would enter:
irc.mysslserver.net/+7000
Notice the "+" plus to indicate an SSL port. Most servers will NOT support SSL on port 6667, so check the network's web site. You may also want to TICK the "Accept Invalid Certificate" checkbox, as most IRC networks use a self-signed certificate (considered invalid).
No extra software is necessary to use SSL, xchat will use Window's own library called SChannel. If you prefer more advanced ciphers, it's optional to install OpenSSL. If the files SSLEAY32.dll and LIBEAY32.dll are present on your system, xchat will make use of them.
An easy to install version of OpenSSL for Windows is available at this web site: Shining Light Productions OpenSSL. You can get the light 1MB installer.
11.1 gui_tray_flags
This setting is really for hardcore users who want to tweak the window/tray behaviour of XChat. Possible values for gui_tray_flags are listed below. You may combine them by adding the numbers up. The minimum XChat version is listed in square brackets.1 [2.8.1] Window CLOSE button will minimize to tray instead of quiting. 2 [2.8.1] Don't show balloons unless hidden or iconified (normally it would show them if the window is not focused or behind another window too). 4 [2.8.3e] Window MINIMIZE button will minimize to tray instead of the task-bar.Examples:
If you want to turn ON all three flags, type this command: /set gui_tray_flags 7
To turn ON the "4" option: /set -on gui_tray_flags 4
To turn OFF the "4" option: /set -off gui_tray_flags 411.2 gui_tweaks
gui_tweaks was added in 2.8.5.1 Hide the userlist header (the user count) and put it in the titlebar instead. 2 Hide the nick name button (your nick next to the input box). 4 Swap the middle and left panes (allows side-by-side userlist/tree). Obscure, don't use. 8 Disable the tree-view dotted connecting lines. 16 Show the channel modes in the titlebar, even if they contain a key. 32 Compact userlist and tree (smaller line spacing) [2.8.7]. 64 Disable userlist icons [2.8.7d]. 128 Disable text attribute buttons [2.8.7e].
glib, GTK+, Pango and libintl. minigtk.dll is partially copyrighted by the FSF, distributed under LGPL. See LGPL.TXT for details. http://xchat.org/files/binary/win32/mini-src/ http://www.gtk.org/ http://ftp.gnu.org/gnu/gettext/ (libintl) This application may contain icons by Mark James. The icons are licensed under Creative Commons Attribution 2.5 license. http://www.famfamfam.com/lab/icons/silk/ http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/