PChedas

So what is this "IRC" thing you might hear people go on about in some places on the gigantic network of tubes you might be wondering. It stands for "Internet Relay Chat" and I'm not going to go into a gigantic history, that's what google and wikipedia are for.

Why would you use a client? So you can customize how it looks, and you can join a lot more channels and networks easier than using it in your browser. Also, it allows you to set notices for when someone sends you a message, depending on the client. There's dozens of other things you can do with a client, but first you need to actually get connected to a network before it's of any use to you!



First thing's first, download HexChat here; its free and all of that nice stuff (no nagware or screens asking you to donate coffee), so no viruses or anything: http://hexchat.org/downloads.html

Assuming you're on Windows, you can use either the 32 or 64bit version, I recommend using x64 unless you're running a old computer with Windows XP still (why would you be doing that?)
After you have that installed, on first run you'll hopefully get this dialog box:



What you'll want to do here is:

-Scroll down and find "Rizon" and highlight it by clicking on it once
-Click "Favor" on the right, "Rizon" will turn bold

-Check the 2 boxes under the list

"Skip network list on startup" does what it says, you're not bombarded with the list every time you start HexChat; "Show favorites only" keeps you from having to scroll through the list should you need to open it back up, be mindful that if you ever need to join another network, unchecking this will show the entire list. Alternately, you can add it yourself


"Nick name" is what you want to be shown as in the channel, but be mindful that someone else on the network might already have the name you want to use, so enter a few different ones you'd like as alternatives (or just add a suffix like "_" or "2" to the one you want to use) for "2nd choice" and "3rd choice". "User name" is for if/when you've registered to Nickserv on Rizon's server, this can be pretty much anything you want it to be as it isn't normally visible (and I recommend doing this so others won't take your nick when you're offline). After you've done that, click on edit and you'll get a new dialog window:



As far as this dialog box goes, you won't have to do much aside from adding in "#fuwanovel" to favorite channels, this will join any channels you put in this box upon connection to the server. The only other box you might need to worry about here is "Nickserv password", and this is for if you decide to register your nick so no one else can use it. The rest of them are for more "advanced" networks (usually used on private tracker IRCs). Go ahead and click Close when your screen matches this one. You'll be returned to dialog box above and from there. Click on Connect, and you'll have this hopefully:








And you're done!

Of course, you can change how the program looks, this is just a default after all (at least as far as I know), or you can choose to leave it as it is. Go ahead and poke around the program and explore the settings and chat with everyone else in the channel as you do so~ You can always bug me in the channel if you need help with something.




I'll add other things under this as required/when I'm in the mood to.