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Using IRC in your browser

Addison Berry
by Addison Berry
January 13, 2009

Using IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is a great way to have real-time conversations online. For many people who aren't familiar with it though, just getting into an IRC channel can be enough to deter them. This video will look at two quick and easy browser-based ways to access IRC, Mibbit.com and the ChatZilla Firefox extension. We'll look at how to get into the Drupal support channel (#drupal-support) and how to get both clients to remember the channels you like to use. There are more videos coming that cover client applications that you can install on your computer and general IRC usage, etiquette and tips.

Some handy links:
Drupal IRC channels
Mibbit.com
Firefox ChatZilla Add-on

Comments on this post will automatically be closed three months from the original post date.

Comments

DrupalChat.net

On January 13th, 2009 Chris Charlton (not verified) said:

For Drupal fans, there's http://drupalchat.net that loads up all the popular Drupal IRC rooms in one shot, using Mibbit. There's even a Mibbit IRC Drupal module I contributed to that helps people add IRC chat windows to their site.

LA Drupal uses this for our LA Drupal chat room over at http://ladrupal.org/chat.

I always user

On January 14th, 2009 Tim Millwood (not verified) said:

I always user http://drupalchat.net and find it really good. Main reason is because it bypasses the proxy and firewall in work, and it sets up all the drupal channels for me. I never knew there were so many other rooms (http://drupal.org/irc) maybe there should be links on http://drupalchap.net to join the other channels?

Add a channel

On January 14th, 2009 mroswell (not verified) said:

To add a new channel to DrupalChat.net, use the command

/join #drupal-themes
(or the freenode channel name of your choice)

Links do sound like a good idea, though.

IRC in Opera

On January 13th, 2009 Tim Altman (not verified) said:

The Opera browser has an IRC client built in. Just click an IRC link and it should take you directly to the channel. No messy extensions or web pages needed.

Thanks for the tip

On January 31st, 2009 Steve (not verified) said:

Thanks for that tip. I've been having problems with HydraIRC locking up my machine, and that Opera client is pretty slick.

Some additional clients

On January 13th, 2009 akahn (not verified) said:

There is finally emerging an IRC client as beautiful as Mac OS X, LimeChat: http://limechat.net/mac/ . It's written in Ruby with RubyCocoa.

But Irssi still reigns supreme for me. (Available in MacPorts.)

thanks

On February 21st, 2009 mary (not verified) said:

very useful tutorial. Never heard of mibbit before this, it's a great way to get into drupal discussions.

The Opera IRC client looks pretty good too.

Thanks for all the links

quit time

On May 24th, 2009 dave (not verified) said:

Is there some other player to view this? quit time isn't working.. or do i have to buy a new computer?

circumventing quicktime

On September 30th, 2009 Willem (not verified) said:

Hi,

I had that as well. To circumvent this you need to go to this article under videocasts and click on its title. This will lead you to the actual article view, which contains a download tab. Option click on the tab to download the podcast. Next download and install the latest version of VLC (http://www.videolan.org/vlc) and make sure to have it open your mov and mp4 files. Apple is not such bad company, but they provide a couple of really really bad programs, quicktime, itunes and finder being among the most prominent fails.