XChat or irssi+screen+ssh?
Ever since I started to IRC from my Linux machine, not only I had been a happy (almost) user of XChat for years but also I wrote an XChat plugin for Guile. All that changed when I moved to Finland three years ago and was educated about the benefits of the combination of irssi+screen+ssh, the biggest (perhaps the only one) of them being the persistence connection to IRC. Since then I had been using that combination. After three years, I am having doubts about the choice I made at that time.
XChat might not be able to provide me with a persistent connection to the IRC world but it still provides lots of small features that irssi does not (and in some cases can not) provide that really does matter in the end and one would expect in a modern IRC client, e.g hard-to-miss notifications when I get new messages, saving of logs and DCC-sent-files directly on my local-machine etc.
I switched to back to XChat a few days ago. I mostly feel good about coming back to it but still miss the persistent connection to IRC. Especially when I suspend/resume my laptop. After resuming, XChat happily assumes that everything is exactly how it was before I suspended the laptop and it takes a while in realizing that it needs to re-connect to all networks. In most cases the network connection doesn't take long but in case of very busy networks like ircnet, it takes a lot of time and is therefore a source of annoyance.
The reason I am discussing this here and not doing anything about it is that I currently don't have time do anything about it and if someone has already solved this problem somehow, I would like to know.
XChat might not be able to provide me with a persistent connection to the IRC world but it still provides lots of small features that irssi does not (and in some cases can not) provide that really does matter in the end and one would expect in a modern IRC client, e.g hard-to-miss notifications when I get new messages, saving of logs and DCC-sent-files directly on my local-machine etc.
I switched to back to XChat a few days ago. I mostly feel good about coming back to it but still miss the persistent connection to IRC. Especially when I suspend/resume my laptop. After resuming, XChat happily assumes that everything is exactly how it was before I suspended the laptop and it takes a while in realizing that it needs to re-connect to all networks. In most cases the network connection doesn't take long but in case of very busy networks like ircnet, it takes a lot of time and is therefore a source of annoyance.
The reason I am discussing this here and not doing anything about it is that I currently don't have time do anything about it and if someone has already solved this problem somehow, I would like to know.
Comments
You can use the proxy plugin for irssi that will allow you to maintain a persistent connection to the network while you are offline with xchat.
This should make reconnect a lot faster. The only downside is that if someone sends you a message while you are offline you will have to manually check it. This could be fixed with a script though...
That stays online as an agent. And then you(xchat) connect to the agent.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bouncer_(networking)
In general there are painfully hard to setup up.
rant>
Also, you might just consider IRC broken and complain about it, and use XMPP. You don't need always on for multiuser chats, when you have offline messageing. But i guess gnome is about decadence and very old pants ;)
/rant
another solution would be VNC.
For the offline messaging: there are scripts, like awayproxy, that take care of that. Enjoy!
The core part stays online all the time and the client connects to it. The result is similar to irssi + screen but with a real GUI including balloon notifications.
It's written in Qt version 4 and runs on all Qt supported platforms. That includes Maemo based tablets.
http://www.quassel-irc.org
Plus throw bitlbee in there and you can be online on the im networks at the same time.
no proxies
no bouncers
no graphics
It Just Works.
no proxies
no bouncers
no graphics
Really? I didn't know that.
easy to install irc proxy - just connect you xchat to it and get a quicklog of what was said during your absence. You can configure the quicklog as long or short as you like
Although I find xchat not so great, and irssi to be less distracting from my primary task.
OMMV
The current URL to dricproxy is http://dircproxy.googlecode.com/
I'm liking how I can do irc/instant messaging/twitter whatever all in one with pidgin, but would also like a persistent irc connection.
I recommend dircproxy for its easy to use interface (very basic) and simple setup . Not pain-in-the-butt like psybnc or others.