MY IRC GUIDE
By Manon/Mirichan
Hello and welcome to my little IRC guide.
I’ve heard many people mention being afraid of it and honestly? IRC is easy to
use as long as you follow a few simple rules.
This guide is done in the manner I have always created
guides at work… so it’s a very hand-holding step-by-step guide with pictures.
Don’t be insulted but being very visual myself, I like learning with images ^_~
This guide is written based on MY experience.
I am sure others would say there are better softwares to access IRC or you can
do things this way or that way… As a less than 1-yr user who has been getting
TONS of manga & anime series through IRC? I’d say my method work well
enough for me *lol*. Hopefully it will for you too… If you would like to
use all the keyboard-intensive shortcuts? Take a few minutes to read the mIRC
help files… they’re pretty good.
Technical info: I’m using Windows XP
Home edition. I run a firewall (ZoneAlarm Pro) and a virus scan
(McAfee Virus Scan Home Edition) and run Spybot once or twice a
month… I got NO viruses (keeping fingers crossed) but I have also limited the
type of files I download/accept (I will show you how later).
Let’s start now ^__^
INSTALL & CONFIGURATION OF SOFTWARE
At first, you will
need a software to access IRC. I personally use mIRC (http://www.mirc.com/). It’s shareware,
so normally after its trial period, you’re supposed to pay for it. If you
don’t? Not much happens except that when you open it, it will tell you it’s
expired (in my example, I’m 2 days left from its expiration date) and ask you
to register (aka buy) it. If you don’t want to, you just click on the Continue
button and that’s about it… You get to a point where you just don’t see the
blinking button asking you to buy it when you log on. It’s up to you to decide
if you want to buy it or not ^_~
Once you’ve downloaded the software and
installed it? You need to configure it a tad if you want to make your job
online as smooth as possible.
Of course, when you start configuring it, it
will ask your name & email ID. For that specific information, you can
INVENT it if you want to avoid spam. BTW? I have invented a name but used an
alternate email I have. I never got any spam at that email address so
you decide if you want to spoof an email ID or not. By “NAME” we don’t mean the
nick (that’s coming up below)… I mean a user name.
You will also need to give yourself a nick…
that is not already in use, obviously. You don’t NEED to register it everywhere
but there are some channels that will NOT accept unregistered nicks to access
them so it might be a good idea to register your nickname in the servers you
access the most (personally, it’s the Rizon, Irc.Highway and Aniverse servers).
Rizon: Many of the
fansub groups moved there after mIRCx demise.
IRCHighway: Many [most] yaoi
scanlation groups moved there…
For this guide, we
will assume we are creating/registering a nickname for user BLUE2004
(assuming that nick is not already registered ^_~)… so everywhere you see mirichan
in the screencaps, imagine it says blue 2004 instead.
So you’ve launched the mIRC software, you’re
logged in as blue2004.
Now to register that nick with RIZON (for starter… you’d need to do it with IRCHighway and any other afterwards… it’s not a one-step register to all servers, unfortunately).
You will need a password for your nick, so for this example, it will be red062004.
To register your nick, you would type: /msg nickserv register <password>
<e-mail>
So in our example,
replacing <password> by red062004 and <e-mail> by (let’s
pretend) Blue2004@yahoo.com, we would therefore register our nick this
way:
/msg nickserv register red062004 blue2004@yahoo.com
Each time you want
to use your nick, you must identify it by entering your password:
/msg nickserv
identify red062004
Of course, doing
that every time [together with the “disabling IP host masking” for Rizon & Irc.Highway]
would get boring fast… so we can ensure the software does it for us…
One word about IP-host masking… it’s something done on some servers (like these 2 in particular) and Fserves are UNABLE to see you if you don’t unmask… what it means? You may queue for a file BUT the Fserve won’t ever be able to send it to you.
BTW… The choices you see ticked in my screencaps? I’d recommend you follow them… they’ll make your life easier.
The following screencaps are ALL
options I’ve selected… as I said, you might decide to modify them… go ahead but
you might want to start with my default THEN go exploring on your own once
you’re a bit more familiar 
with IRC and getting what you want.
The part that is important here? The 2 boxes that show in the RED rectangle… which will reconnect you automatically if you get kickban.
Since there is a STRONG chance you might get kicked in your first forays into IRC (many channels are set up that there’s a program running that kick you if you do something you shouldn’t… like pasting a trigger wrong). Usually, thank god, it’s only a KICK and you’re back automatically if you are set up as indicated here… but if you did something more serious? You can be ban for a certain amount of time… running from minutes to hours to days to much longer.
Again, in this screencap, I’d recommend you select the boxes as I’ve
indicated. What it means?
Send request:
It means that if, after spending hours queued for a file and you are NOT there to accept the DCC transfer, you will lose your queue and never get the file.
But if you have your software set up to automatically ACCEPT the file, the software will accept it for you.
Chat request:
No… it’s not about chatting with people BUT accepting “chat” sessions with Fserves, aka so you can see their content and queue files… More about that one later, when you will see it in action.
This is an IMPORTANT box… This is where you tell the software just
what kind of files you are accepting…
It’s a montage, btw since I wanted to show ALL file types I accept.
As you can see, it’s only anime, manga or music file types…
IF you don’t run Matrovka or OGM files, then you don’t have to get these files listed… same thing for RAR files if you only have ZIP installed.
You decide…
Okay… That’s it for the configuration part of this guide (it looks long but it’s full of screencaps ^_~)… Now to really access something.
ACCESSING A SERVER/CHANNEL
So you launched your mIRC software… usually, if you set it up like mine, it will open back to the last server you used… So we’ll continue the examples with Rizon.
You’re accessing the server… your host is unmasked. Now to go to a specific channel.
Please note that EACH server has its own rules… as an example, Anime-Kraze has triggers (lovely things, those… you type !triggers and it brings the trigger for their latest release… from there, you type that release trigger and it gives you the trigger of the different XDCC bots who have the file… lovely! But most channels DON’T DO such a nice wonderful job… so therefore I am NOT going to use A-Kraze as an example ^_~).
Let’s use AnimeOne instead since many of us are using them for some of our stuff, like Kyou Kara Maou.
To access AnimeOne, you do the steps indicated:
Once AnimeOne opens, we will move that particular channel to our Favorites bookmark so it will be easier still to access afterwards.
Create a favorite bookmark:
*Note the screencap is a montage
Select Add to Favorites… The following window will show up:
I would recommend you create a Folder called RIZON so you can put all your Rizon channels into it [AnimeOne, Anime-Kraze, Anime-Keep, Anbudom, Spoon, etc.] and a IRC.HIGHWAY folder for when you create favorites for channels in that particular server.
And now the fun starts…
The screencap that follows show you what you will see upon joining AnimeOne. You will notice your screen is split in 3 windows…
Left window: contains lots of information and colorful writing (btw… you can change color displays… have fun, it’s a mess). [see RED frame]
Right window: is the list of OPS in the channel (the ones at the top with the @ before their names… LISTEN TO THEM – they are the operators and can boot/ban you), then the list of not full ops but somewhat OP (%), then the list of that channel XDCC bots (often containing the name of the group in their titles, like Aone-ANBU| or AonE|Arch2), then finally a list of the Fserves (start with a + sign) and the regular users/leechers (like us). [see BLUE frame]
Bottom window:
The one window where you type your triggers or you chat. [see GREEN frame]
IMPORTANT:
BEFORE we start hitting triggers and
stuff… one word about CUT
& PASTE in IRC… because oh god, is it different!!!
You want to copy something? Highlight it (starting from the left)… THAT’S IT… (the highlight won’t stay but the “copy” function has done its job). It’s a very different way of “copying” when used to Windows.
If you want to test it without making a fool of yourself in a channel? (Some people can be right on nasty towards newbies)
Highlight any trigger (aka the whole shibang, like [/ctcp Morandir is no longer a n00b l33cher!] as seen in the example below) … THEN go into another software (LJ, email, word-processor, whatever) and RIGHT-CLICK, paste… See?
Normally… if you highlighted correctly (remember, start from THE LEFT… it won’t work otherwise) you copied…to paste it, you only need to right-click/paste it.
Triggers: Usually are: !list, !rules, @find, etc.
Like most guides, I’d say hit the !rules first to see what is allowed or NOT in that channel. Some channels accept @find searches… others boot/ban you. I personally don’t use @find much anymore because it’s often useless… and I got kicked one time too many.
The trigger you’ll use the most? !list – You get something like that:
One word of advice? Using !list in channels like AnimeOne… can inundate you with pages and pages of Fserves. ^__^
This guide is an introduction to IRC… I can’t explain everything so presently I’m doing a guide to allow you to really HIT the chans where they hide the latest anime/manga file… and it’s the XDCC bots. I will only briefly mention Fserves first…
The !list result will show you Fserves, TDCC and XDCC. I’ll discuss the fansub channel own bots below… the XDCCs I am mentioning here are people’s own…
TDCC
Take Dragonlord04 for example (see above). His Fserve is a TDCC… aka there’s only ONE file and if there are free space in his queue, you are added.
The trigger to get that file is seen between the bracket [/ctcp Dragonlord04 Dragonlord04’s List of Anime that he wants.] BUT not the brackets, of course.
Personal XDCC
Anita is a personal XDCC… Personal XDCCs usually deal with “pools”… in Anita’s example? The pools are Koi_Kaze and Tenjou_Tenge.
To access it? Trigger is NOT between brackets but it’s easy to find, aka /ctcp Anita XDCC list Tenjou_Tenge (for example for that particular pool).
As you can see, one of the charms (NOT) of IRC chans is that other people posts will often show up amongst something you requested…here, you can see stuff NOT part of my trigger showing up, aka people leaving/joining AND a conversation in the channel…
If I wanted, per example, to get Tenjou Tenge, episode 8? I would type /ctcp Anita XDCC get Tenjou_Tenge #8… and I would be either queued for the file, get it immediately or denied if the XDCC is full.
Fserve
Finally, Morandir is a regular Fserve (but note it specifies you need to do /dccserver +sc on 59 first in the bottom window (green frame in previous screencap) BEFORE you type or paste the trigger).
When you access a Fserve, you will first need to type DIR to see the content… If they are folders, you will need to open the one folder you need by typing CD then the name of the folder you want to look into… *note, this is a montage… the files shown are NOT in Morandir.*
In our example, the folder Gun Grave show a few files. If you
want one of these, you type:
GET
then the name of the file [DO NOT put the file size… the file name ends usually with the file type].
So in our example, it would be:
Get [aone]_gun_grave_-_02_[098077e8].avi
If you want to go OUT of a folder, you type CD.. to go INTO a folder (or sub-folder), you type CD.
Therefore, to go further down into a folder? cd
To get back
out? cd..
Don’t forget to close the Fserve window when you are finished. Some people hate it if you “camp” in their Fserve and may actually ban you for that infraction.
Unfortunately some Fserves stay active for a very short time (2 mins to 5 mins in some cases)… so if the list is long and unruly? Look at it carefully, close the window (the DCC session probably ended anyway) and re-trigger it to open…
Fserves can contain LOTS of great material… but they are often very slow (the anime ones). Thankfully, the manga Fserves are usually less awfully slow as the files are smaller.
And there are Fserves you will NEVER be able to open/access… either because they only accept @/+v (aka only the OPS and other Fserves can access) or because they are firewalled very tight and even if you shut down yours, you can’t access…
XDCC bots
So… Let’s say we want to find the latest Kyou Kara Maou file in one of the fansub group channel own bot…
You can try by doing a /msg (the syntax for those is usually: /msg [name of channel bot] xdcc list) to one XDCC to see its content. You will either get a denial “Wait until the list is in the public channel” (or something similar) or you might get something like
or you may get the list ^_~.
Also… you can check at the TOPIC of the chan (aka the first few lines at the top of the window when you first access the chan…
As you can see, they have a XDCC BOT LISTING. Just get to that specific webpage, and you’ll get a long list of bots and their content. A quick search and I got the following:
<+AonE|DamN> ** To request a file type: "/ctcp AonE|DamN xdcc send #x" ** #1 466x [173M] [AonE-Onigiri]_Kono_Minikukumo_Utsukushii_Sekai_12_[59CA2EDA].avi#2 44x [174M] [AonE]_Kyou_Kara_Maou_-_09_[DE0EA691].avi
#3 50x [176M] [AonE]_Tenjou_Tenge_-_08_[4D9A4FD0].avi
#4 74x [175M] [AonE]_Tenjou_Tenge_-_09_[7CAD796A].avi
[and there were more of that… so if you try it and it’s too far in the queue or the bot is not online, you just go for the next one down the list that had the file you are looking for ^_^].
So… to queue for the file, in the bottom window, you would type:
/ctcp AonE|DamN xdcc send #2
If you are lucky? The file will be sent soon/immediately or in a few hours… all depending.
That’s about it…
NEVER LEAVE A CHAN where you’ve queued material. Most times, you will lose your queue if you leave the channel.
Of course, you can open/access several chan windows from the same server or different servers…
Just ensure that if you want to open IRC.HIGHWAY for example,
you click in the box that says new server window BEFORE clicking on the
button entitled Connect to Server.
And always be sure you are on that particular server window when you open a channel… because if you open A-Kraze when on IRC.Highway ? It will open a channel consisting of mostly probably only you ^_^
There are lots more stuff you can do, including sending material to someone else while in IRC… but that’s not the purpose of this guide.
I hope this little guide helped you. Just remember to follow the rules of the specific channel you are in… respect the operators or you will be banned so fast your head will spin ^_~
Before trying to chat in a channel, check the waters first… don’t just barge in because some people in these channels can be real jerks, unfortunately…
And if you have questions or suggestions? Just contact me (Mirichan@livejournal.com).