XChatInstall - a graphical guide to installing XChat in Windows - with SSL enabled

Table of content:

This guide consists of three parts: Installing, Configuration and Connecting.

It assumes you have found a recent version of XChat on http://silverex.org/download/

Download the XChat .exe file and place it somewhere, like on your desktop.

Double-click it.

Installing

Step 1: The first screen. Just click Next.

Step 2: License Agreement. Click "I accept the agreement" - assuming you do agree. If you are unsure about what you agree to, you can read about the GNU General Public License on http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GNU_General_Public_License

Step 3: Select installation folder. You can just click Next, unless you specifically want to change it.

Step 4: Select Components. You can just click Next, unless you specifically want to change it.

Step 5: Select Start Menu Folder. You can just click Next, unless you specifically want to change it.

Step 6: Select Additional Tasks. Here you can choose to place a shortcut on your desktop or in the "quick launch" menu. If none of these are chosen, you can still find XChat in the start menu.

Step 7: Ready to Install. Just click Install.

Step 8: Wait while it installs. When installation has finished, it will close the installer and you will return to whatever you were doing before. This may seem confusing, but it has actually installed, unless the installer writes that it hasn't.

Configuration

For some reason, XChat uses a mixture of Danish and English here, so please don't pay notice to some of the buttons having gibberish text on them.

Step 1: Click "Add" (button with the plus sign) so we can add the Indymedia IRC network.

Step 2: Name it accordingly. "New Network" can be replaced with anything. Call it "Indymedia", for example.

Step 3: Edit the settings for this new network option.

Step 4: Change the server name and port to irc.indymedia.org/6697 by either clicking on the "newserver/6667" or clicking "Edit"

Step 5: Enable SSL: Toggle Use SSL for all the servers on this network and Accept invalid SSL certificate. If you like, you can enable the other settings as well, for example the Auto connect to this network at startup option.

Step 6: Before exiting, remember to change your character set. If you are European, set your charset to ISO-8859-15. Otherwise, UTF-8 (Unicode) is a good choice (it supports all character sets, but not all IRC clients support UTF-8 yet). Now you can close this window.

Step 7: Change your user information. Nickname must not contain any spaces. Username must also be short.

Connecting

You are now ready to connect to IRC. After pressing Connect, the following windows will appear.

Step 1: Check the Open the Channel-List window option. This way, you get a nice looking window with existing channels you can join. If this dialog window does not appear, it means you probably unchecked "Always show this dialog..." by accident. If this is the case, type /join #tech and ask for help.

Step 2: Sort the existing channels any way you like - for example by the number of users it has. Double-click the ones you want to join, and they will appear on your left if it is possible to join them.

Step 3: Sometimes when XChat has just been installed, it does not properly calculate the width of the nickname list. It may look like it has disappeared, but you just have to drag it back. Look at the arrow on the picture below and find the spot besides the scrollbar where you can drag it out.

Step 4: This is how the nickname bar looks like when dragged to a proper width. People with a green dot in front of them have "channel operator" status, which means they have administrative privileges in the channel.

Step 5: Last, but not least, let us confirm that SSL is properly enabled. (Some people might say that it is best to check this before joining channels.) To do this, go to the server window (the "irc.indymedia.org" menu option on the left) and type in /whois YOURNICK. If it says is using a secure connection, it means that you have properly connected using SSL. If this works, congratulations! If not, contact someone in #tech (using for example the webchat) or your preferred language channel.

-- SimonShine - 27 Jan 2007 -- Created document

-- SimonShine - 18 Aug 2007 -- Updated SSL settings from port 994 to 6697. Removed last illustration with a text explanation of how to detect that SSL is enabled.