| Basic mIRC by Pai and updated by Tye |
This section will get you used to the basic chatting features of
mIRC. It assumes you already have mIRC installed and have
filled in your personal info in mIRC setup. (Select Setup from the
File menu in mIRC to edit your info under the "Servers" tab.) You
should also spend a few days getting used to basic IRC as you
go over this section and the mIRC help file.
This is mIRC's toolbar, which (unless you've disabled) you
will see near the top of your mIRC window. You can click on the
buttons to access various mIRC features.
Below the toolbar you can see mIRC's switchbar. This is
similar to Windows 95's taskbar. You can use it to change windows
quickly and tell at a glance which channels and queries you have open.
Simply click on a button to change windows. You can drag the switchbar
to other sides of the mIRC window using the mouse, or disable it in
mIRC options.
On IRC, a channel is an 'area' where one or more people can
join and talk. Channels can be compared to a 'room' where (almost)
anyone can freely enter and exit, and chat as a group.
All channels have a name. Channel names (usually) start with the
pound sign- #. The name itself usually describes an interest,
trait, or group that most members of the channel share. For example,
if you are looking for people who play chess, you might want to join
#chess. If you are looking for people in California, you might try
#California. There are also general-purpose rooms with no specific
theme, such as #chat and #funfactory.
To join a channel, you can either-
- Type /join #channelname and press Enter. (in any mIRC window)
- Open mIRC's channels folder, (toolbar button
or Alt+J)
type the name in the top box or select it from the list, and
click on "Join".
There are a number of ways to find channels to suit you-
- Find out about a channel name from a web page or friend.
- Guess a name based on an interest. (such as #rpg or #startrek)
- Search a list of channels. (next section)
To get a listing of channels, click on button 
on the mIRC
toolbar. (or press Alt+L) Here you can specify what sort of channels
you want to find-
- Enter any keywords you'd like to search for, such as "car" or "mirc" in the Match Text box.
- You may enter a minimum number of people in the 'min' box. Channels with less than this
number of users will not be shown.
- You may enter a maximum number of users in the 'max' box. Channels with over this many
people will not be shown.
- Press the 'Get List!' button to get a channel listing, or the 'Apply' button if you already have
a channel listing and would like to search it again based on new criteria.
A window listing channels should pop up. Once the window stops filling, you can double-click
on a channel to join it.
A new window will open up for each channel. Once you are in a channel, spend a while just
watching the conversation, before jumping in. To 'talk' on the channel, simply enter text in the box
at the bottom of the window and press Enter. The list on the right of the channel window lists
the nicknames of all users currently on the channel.
Some quick tips-
- Do not be rude, do NOT type IN ALL CAPS, and do not say anything you wouldn't say in
person. Remember, you CAN be kicked out of a channel.
- To perform an action, prefix your message with /me. For example,
/me dances around. (with the slash.) This will appear in a different color as * nickname dances around,
instead of the normal style of text.
- To exit a channel, simply close the window. (Click on the X in the upper right corner, or select Close
from the Window menu.)
- To switch between windows in mIRC, you can select them from the switchbar (a bar with many buttons
with window names on them) or select them from the Window menu.
At some point you will want to talk to someone privately, one-on-one. This is very easy to do. Simply
click on the nickname in the channel list so that it becomes selected, then right-click and select 'Query'.
In other words, left-click once on the nickname, right-click once, then select 'Query' from the menu that
pops up. You can also type /query nickname in any window. (the slash tells mIRC that it is
a special command, not a message.
(Note- A nickname is the 'name' that a user goes by. The nicknames are listed at the side of the channel
window. When a user says something, it will always appear using their nickname.)
Once the private window is open, you may type text into it as usual, and you will be privately speaking
with the user. Any private messages from them will appear in this window as well.
IRC is suspect to a problem known as lag. This is a situation where your messages take more than
a few seconds to reach their destination, due to network traffic or other problems. Since this is such a common
problem, there is a simple and effective tool to measure lag, known as a ping.
When you 'ping' a user, you measure the amount of time it takes for a message to reach the user AND return
to you. Typical ping times range from under a second to a few seconds under good situations, to many minutes
under horrible lag situations.
To ping a user, simply type /ping nickname in any window. The results of your ping will show up in
mIRC's Status Window, so keep an eye on it. Soon, you should see a message stating the time it took for your ping
to return.
If you are having problems with lag, there are a number of ways to try and correct the situation. Try changing servers,
or closing any file transfers you have in mIRC or other applications. If you are only interested in chatting with one or
two people, try a DCC chat.
Changing Nicknames
Once you are on IRC, you have a unique nickname which is used to identify you. Different networks have different limits on nickname length.
They range from nine characters to thirty. You should not use a ridiculously long nickname, as it annoys people to have to type out and it takes
up a lot of space on their screen. You should try to limit the length of your nicknames to 15 characters.
You will find a variety of nicknames, from Bob and Jane to SmileyGuy, [c0w], and [-}|{-]. (yes, those
are all legitimate nicknames.) You may find common nicknames already in use, such as Dragon, Billy, etc. You
should try to come up with a more original, unique name. If your favorite nickname is taken, you may try the same
nickname with a hyphen or other character appended, such as ^Dragon^ or Dragon-. (available characters are
[brackets], {braces}, -hyphen-, _underscore_, ^caret^, |bar|, `backquote`, and \backslash\, as well as numbers
and letters.)
Once you are already on IRC, you may desire to change your nickname. This can be done easily with the
/nick command. For example, type /nick NiceGuy to attempt to change your nickname
to 'NiceGuy'. Since two people cannot have the same nick, you will not always get your desired nickname. If your
change is successful, it will appear in all channels. If someone already has your nickname, a message will appear
in the mIRC Status Window.
Previous sections have referred to the mIRC Status Window. This is simply a window where mIRC displays
all information that isn't related to a specific channel or other window. For example, server info, errors, CTCPs, etc.
will appear in this window.
You should always keep an eye on the Status Window for any errors or other events that may occur, especially
if things are not working the way you think they should. To switch to the Status Window, select it from the mIRC
Switchbar (left-most window) or from the Window menu, or press Alt+1. (number one.)
You may feel that you need to know more about a user than their nickname, and IRC provides a simple way to
gather some basic information on a user. For this, you can either use mIRC's Address Book or the
/whois command. The Address Book has a pretty interface, but the /whois command
is ultimately simpler to use.
To get info on a user, type /whois nickname. Information such as in the above image should appear
in your Status Window. The first line gives basic user info- 'Yui@dt0b1n42.san.rr.com' is the user's address,
which really doesn't mean much to the average user. The part before the @ is the identd, and is user specified. The
part after the @ is based on the user's ISP or wherever they are connecting from. In the same line, 'Chichiri' is a
user specified info line. It will be whatever the user has entered as their "Real Name" in mIRC Setup. (if they are
using mIRC.) You can find interesting information on a user here, but remember that most of it is specified as-is
by the user, and is not gaurunteed to be accurate of anything.
The next line shows channels the user is on. (If a channel is prefixed with a @ or +, then that is NOT part of the
channel name but instead signifies the user's status on the channel.) The final line shows the IRC server the
user is connected to.
The /whois reply is generally pretty self explanitory, so if you are curious about a user, you may
want to use this to find out a little more information about them. You can do this through mIRC's Address Book
(button 
on the mIRC toolbar, or Alt+B) in the "Who is?" section, as well.
Sometimes you may wish to leave your computer on and connected to IRC when you are not paying attention.
You may be taking a quick break, working in another application, or even going away for a while but staying
connection for some odd reason.
To do this, you will want to make use of a few neat commands. The first one is /away. This command
is used so that other users know you are away from IRC, IE not paying full attention. Simply type
/away I'm out to lunch! or something along those lines. Anyone who sends you a private message
or looks up your whois info will now see that you are away.
When you return, type /away by itself and you will no longer be shown as away.
/away will not show anything to your channels, however. For this, you may wish to use a neat command
called /amsg. (for 'all message'.) Type something such as /amsg Bye, going to eat and that
message will appear in every channel you are in. You can also use /ame to do the same thing as an
action. For example, /ame is going to eat!.
You now should know pretty much what you need to chat comfortably on IRC. Feel free to try out new
features by experimenting or reading the mIRC help file, or of course reading more tutorials on paiRC.
Some quick takes-
- Toolbar button
will, with one click, connect you to IRC.
- When connected, button
will disconnect you from IRC.
- Toolbar button
will open mIRC's configuration.
- You can change windows using the Window menu, Ctrl+Tab, etc. (like normal Window's programs) or
by using the switchbar or Alt+n. (n being the number of the window- 1 for Status Window, 2 for the next
window, etc.)
- Remember that you don't have to use mIRC's tools just to join a channel you already know. Just type
/join #channel.
- To copy text from a window, simply drag the mouse over it (highlighting it) and release. The text is
automatically copied to the clipboard.
- When you want to disconnect from IRC, type /quit bye everyone!. Feel free to use any
message you like- it will be shown in any channels you are in.
- You may see people using abbreviations such as brb and lol, or smileys such as :). Go to the
Abbreviations page and Smileys page to learn more. :)
The remaining tutorials assume you know this basic mIRC and IRC knowledge, and will not
be as simplistic or slow-paced, so make sure you understand all of this before moving on to learn more.
