weechat/doc/en/weechat_quickstart.en.txt
2009-01-31 15:38:18 +01:00

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WeeChat quick start guide (english version, for WeeChat >= 0.2.7)
=================================================================
1. Launch weechat
A recommended terminal emulator for X (but not mandatory) is rxvt-unicode
(it has good UTF-8 support, and no problem with default keyboard bindings).
Run "weechat-curses" from your shell.
2. Online help / options
WeeChat has help for all commands, just issue /help
To get help on a command, issue /help command
To set options, use /set config.section.option value
(where config is configuration name ("weechat" for core, or a plugin
name), "section" the section of this configuration and "option" the
option name).
WeeChat immediately uses new value (you *never* need to restart WeeChat
after changes to configuration).
You can use /set option with partial name and wildcard "*" at beginning or
end to display all options containg letters.
For example:
/set => display all options (WeeChat and plugins)
/set weechat.* => display WeeChat options
/set irc.* => display IRC plugin options
You can display help for an option with /help, for example:
/help weechat.look.highlight
All settings are saved when WeeChat ends (or with "/save" command to force
write of options).
You can edit configuration files (*.conf) by hand and reload them by
/reload command if you don't want to use /set command.
3. Core vs plugins
WeeChat "core" is only used to display data on screen and interact with
user, that means weechat core without plugins is useless
(faithful users: IRC was part of core for versions <= 0.2.6).
All network protocols like IRC are provided in separate plugins.
Use /plugin command to list loaded plugins, you should see "irc" and
other plugins in list.
4. Create an IRC server
You can add an IRC server with /server command, for example:
/server add oftc irc.oftc.org 6667
As usual, help is available if you're lost:
/help server
5. Set custom IRC server options
WeeChat uses default values for all servers ("fallbacks"), if you
don't specify a specific value for a server option.
These default options are "irc.server_default.*".
For each server option, WeeChat uses its value if it is defined (not
"null"). Otherwise WeeChat uses default value (irc.server_default.xxx).
For example there's default nicks (based on your un*x login), and you can
override them for oftc server with following command:
/set irc.server.oftc.nicks "mynick1,mynick2,mynick3,mynick4,mynick5"
To set username and realname:
/set irc.server.oftc.username "My user name"
/set irc.server.oftc.realname "My real name"
To enable auto-connect to server at startup:
/set irc.server.oftc.autoconnect on
To run a command after connection to server, for example to identify
with nickserv:
/set irc.server.oftc.command "/msg nickserv identify xxxxxx"
Note: many commmands can be separated by ';' (semi-colon)
To auto-join some channels when connecting to server:
/set irc.server.oftc.autojoin "#channel1,#channel2"
To remove value of a server option, and use default value instead,
for example to use default nicks (irc.server_default.nicks):
/set irc.server.oftc.nicks null
Other options:
You can setup other options with following command ("xxx" is option
name):
/set irc.server.oftc.xxx value
6. Connect to IRC server and auto-join channels
/connect oftc
Note: this command can be used to create and connect to a new server
without using /server command (should I repeat you can see help for
this command with /help connect ? ;)
7. Join/part IRC channels
Join a channel:
/join #channel
Part a channel:
/part [quit message]
Close server or channel buffer:
/close [quit message]
(/close is an alias on /buffer close)
8. Buffer/window management
A buffer is a component linked to a plugin with a number with a category
and a name. Buffer contains data displayed on screen.
A window is a view on a buffer. By default there's only one window
displaying one buffer. If you split screen, you will see many windows
with many buffers at same time.
Commands to manage buffers and windows:
/buffer
/window
(I'll not repeat here that you can get help with /help on these commands)
For example, to split verticaly screen into a small window (1/3 width),
and a large (2/3), use command:
/window splitv 33
9. Key bindings
WeeChat uses many keys by default. All these keys are in documentation,
but you should know at least some vital keys:
- alt + left/right arrows (or F5/F6): switch to previous/next buffer
- F7/F8: switch to previous/next window (when screen is splited)
- F9/F10: scroll title bar
- F11/F12: scroll nicklist
- tab: complete text in input bar, like in your shell
- page up/down: scroll text in current buffer
- alt + A: jump to buffer with activity (in hotlist)
According to your keyboard and/or your needs, you can rebind any key
to a command with "/key" command.
A useful key is meta-k (alt-k) to find key codes.
For example, to bind meta-y (alt-y) to command "/buffer close":
/key (press meta-k) (press meta-y) /buffer close
You'll have a command line like:
/key meta-y /buffer close
To remove key:
/key unbind meta-y
10. Plugins/scripts
On some distros like Debian, plugins are available via a separate package
(like weechat-plugins).
Plugins are automatically loaded when found.
Some plugins let you use scripts in WeeChat (in many languages like Perl,
Python, Ruby, Lua and Tcl). These plugins must be loaded with /plugin
command and they provide commands like /perl, used to load scripts.
Many external plugins/scripts (from contributors) are available for
WeeChat, please look at:
http://weechat.flashtux.org/plugins.php
Please look at WeeChat documentation to load/unload plugins or scripts.
11. More documentation
You can now use WeeChat and read FAQ/documentation for any other question:
http://weechat.flashtux.org/faq.php
http://weechat.flashtux.org/doc.php
Enjoy WeeChat!
--
(c) 2006-2009, written by FlashCode <flashcode@flashtux.org>
Last edited on 2009-01-02.
This document is part of WeeChat and is distributed under GPL 3 licence.