Zircon Release 1.15 ----------------------- This is a release of Zircon, an X11 interface to Internet Relay Chat. The software is written in tcl/tk and uses the tcl-dp TCP extensions to provide network communications. Suggestions for improvements to Zircon are welcome. I am particularly interested in making the system useful for those users in groups where JIPS and other national character sets are used. Zircon has more features than you could possibly imagine and implements nearly everything that the irc II clients support as well as many other useful and interesting features. This reflects the power of tcl/tk *not* the fact that I am a wonderful programmer (I am, but that is a side issue :-)) tcl/tk is a wonderful system and you need it on your machine *NOW*. Please send all reports, comments and suggestions to: zircon@catless.newcastle.ac.uk You can usually find me on the channel #zircon along with other helpful Zircon users (and ScottM is often there too 8-; ). N.B. the user whose nick is zircon has nothing to do with this progam. You can always get the latest release of Zircon from ZirconBot - send the message !send current and it will be dcc'ed to you. !send beta will often send the latest beta test release of the system. If you use the registration feature of Zircon ZirconBot will inform you off new releases when you sign on to IRC. Mail ---- zircon-request@newcastle.ac.uk to be added to the Zircon users mailing list. Messages to the mailing list should be sent to zircon@newcastle.ac.uk Enjoy! Lindsay ------- REQUIREMENTS The software has been developed using: tcl Version 7.3 tk Version 3.6 tcl-dp Version 3.0 You must have the dpwish program rather than the usual wish for Zircon to be runnable. tcl/tk is available from harbor.ecn.purdue.edu in the directory /pub/tcl. tcl-dp is available there also, but the latest version can always be found on catless.ncl.ac.uk which is also the home of Zircon. You can configure lots of stuff using X resources, thus it is possible to make buttons and text associated with particular users and channels appear in special colours and fonts. The system is much easier to use than the usual UNIX interfaces to irc and a lot of people are using it on a day to day basis. Zircon also supports a distributed drawing board, but please do not use this when there are non-Zircon users around as they get annoyed when they cant see the pictures. For people who really cannot do without their ircII style commands a subset of these are also supported both in an optional command line and from Channel windows - see the MANUAL for details. INSTALLATION Make sure you have tcl and tk installed and have built tcl-dp. Edit the zircon Makefile and configure the path to dpwish, the name of the directory where zircon files are going to live, and where you want the main program to go. Then type make install Now create a file called rc in the zircon directory. This acts as a system wide rc file for all zircon users. Minimally put in here the name of the default irc server that you wish users to connect to, and the default port if it is not 6667. Also useful would be the name of you rnearest irc help service : Server default -host x.y.z -port 9999 set helpService "help_XX" The file DOTzirconrc shows you what you might want to put in your .zirconrc file in your HOME directory, but any of that stuff can also go in the rc file in the zircon library directory. The HOME rc file overrides the system one. You will also want to edit the file zircon.ad which can be found in the zircon library directory. This contains application defaults for X resources and is read by zircon on startup. HELP Mail problems to zircon@catless.ncl.ac.uk. The zircon mailing list can be joined by posting to zircon-request@newcastle.ac.uk and posted to at zircon@newcastle.ac.uk You can usually find help in the #zircon channel on IRC as well. Possible Future Extensions -------------------------- 1) Automatic AWAY canceling when you type in a window. 2) Nice icons instead of boring old buttons and text - suggestions welcome. 3) Face icons for users. Probably using the faces mail icon database. 4) Sound 5) Support for extended Server features Known Features -------------- 1) Zircon does not work with pre-2.8 servers. 2) There is no JIS support. In fact there are problems when you even attempt to join a group with JIS characters in its name as tcl tries to interpret the $ characters in them.... I have tried the JIPS version of tcl but it didnt help. 3) Character escaping in the low level CTCP protocol is not done everywhere, but it *is* done for SED encrypted messages 4) You cannot configure anything other than Channels using the configuration panel. If you wish to configure Message channels then you have to do them by hand in the rc file. This restriction will be lifted in the next release, along (I hope) with a completely redone configuration system. 5) The Sketch Pad facility is not completely finished.