IRC
IRC (Internet Relay Chat) is something that, if you stay online long enough, you will have to fool around with. It's a real-time internet chat where users chat with each other in channels which are located on a server (which house hundreds if not thousands of different channels). It's often the fastest way to get in touch with another person on BoxTorrents since many idles the IRC, which is not the case with the forum.
There are two official BoxTorrents IRC channels on the DeltaAnime IRC network: #boxtorrents and #box-support.
If you're new to IRC
If you've read the FAQ and your question isn't in there, or you have an account issue you need help with (i.e. something you can't solve by yourself even if you know how to), the support channel is a relatively quick way to get the help you need.
5-Step Guide to getting on #box-support
- Go to daIRC's webchat page.
- Type your Boxtorrents username in the first field (makes things easier for us).
- Type box-support in the second field.
- Click 'Chat Now'.
- If you get a pop-up dialog box saying '"The application's digital signature cannot be verified"', click Run/Ok.
What to do once you're in #box-support
- Describe your problem in detail. The more you tell us about the problem, the more we are able to help.
- Staff may not reply immediately (we're not always at immediate disposal so have some patience), but someone will talk to you in a while.
- If no staff replies within 15 minutes, you probably caught us at a bad time (wait around, or come back again in 1-2 hours).
What you need to know:
- Users with % beside their name are mods/staff.
- Users with &, @ or ~ beside their name are admin. (~ means channel owner, but #box-support channel was set up by an admin)
- Users with no symbol beside their names are (most likely) normal users.
- Users may offer help and advice with regards to fixing your ratio or finding good torrents to seed. However, only staff will be able to do anything about your account.
- Navi is not an admin. It is a bot, and it won't talk to you. It only responds to ? rules (channel rules), ? commands(available commands), ? FAQ(link to FAQ) and ? Wiki(link to Wiki).
- Bxt is not a mod. It is a bot, and it wont' talk to you either. It only responds to +ratio <Boxtorrents username>(shows your tracker ratio).
What not to do:
- Do not PM (private message) any staff members, unless they ask you to (usually to ask for more sensitive information, e.g. email address, that we need to help resolve your issue). If you do not know how to send a private message you can ignore this.
- Do not try to help other users (unless you know what you're talking about) or try to impersonate staff. Annoying users will be banned from the support channel.
- Do not yell at us like we're some customer service rep. We do not get paid for providing support, and will not tolerate verbal abuse.
IRC Clients
This is a list of the best IRC clients available.
ChatZilla
One of the easiest clients to use, if you use Firefox. Since its a Firefox plug-in, it should work on any operating system. If you want a simple, clean IRC client to get in and out, ChatZilla will work fine.
Installation
Follow this link. Then just hit the big green button that says "Add to Firefox". Give it permission to install, let Firefox restart, and it's installed. To use, just go to the "Tools" drop down menu in Firefox and select "ChatZilla".
mIRC
Another popular IRC client for Windows. While free to use, a donation nag window pops up at startup after the 30th day.
Colloquy
Colloquy is a full-featured open source IRC client for the Macintosh, iPhone, and iPod Touch.
Pidgin
Pidgin is a multi-protocol instant messaging program. It supports many common IM protocols out of the box (such as Messenger, AIM, Yahoo, ICQ, etc.), and it also supports the IRC protocol.
Opera
The Opera browser comes with an inbuilt IRC chat client. It's fairly similar to ChatZilla.
Trillian
Trillian is another multi-protocol instant messaging program, coming with IRC support as well. There are currently two available versions of Trillian: Basic and Pro. Both have IRC support, so there's no need to buy the Pro version.
XChat
XChat is an IRC client that rivals mIRC not only in power but also in popularity.
It was originally completely free and open-source, but now it only remains free for Linux.
The Windows version is available to try at the homepage, while there is a version compiled by someone else (for free) available at silverex. Keep in mind that the latest free compiled version is still many steps behind the latest official release, and that it is compiled from the Linux source (freely available), rather than the source used in official Windows releases, meaning that free compiled versions may not function as well as the official releases.
Mibbit Webchat
For those who don't want to install more software on their computer, Mibbit is the solution. You can register an account to store all your servers and channels so you don't have to do it each time you go to the site, but you can always use it without an account.
daIRC Webchat
For even greater convenience, you can use daIRC's Webchat client. It only allows access to channels on irc.deltaanime.net, but if you're just looking for a quick way to get onto #boxtorrents or #box-support through a browser this is your best bet.
Since the server is automatically set to irc.deltaanime.net, you can bypass the "/server" step in the instructions below.
Connecting to BoxTorrents
Most guides here were made with ChatZilla in mind!
BoxTorrents uses the IRC server:
irc.deltaanime.net
The main chatroom is:
#boxtorrents
And the support room is:
#box-support
How to connect to #boxtorrents
- Start your IRC client
- Enter the Nickname you want into the bottom left button, beside the input bar.
- Now, to join the server. Type (or copy/paste) into the input bar:
/server irc.deltaanime.net
- If your nickname hasn't been used yet (by you or another person) it will tell you the nickname needs to be registered.
To do this type (or copy/paste) into the input bar:
/msg nickserv register your_password your_email
Where "your_password" is the password you want, and "your_email" is your e-mail address. An activation code will be sent to your email address (used for registration). Read the email, type the command into IRC and your nickname will be registered (one nickname/group of nicknames per email address). Registration is not usually required to join a channel, but some channels explicitly require one (such as #boxtorrents).
- The battle is done at this point! To connect to a channel, so you can talk to people, type (or copy/paste) into the input bar:
/join #boxtorrents
How to reconnect to #boxtorrents
- Start your IRC client
- Your Nickname should still be in your client, so leave that part alone.
- To join the server again, type (or copy/paste)into the input bar:
/server irc.deltaanime.net
- Instead of asking you to register this time though, it will ask for your password. To do that, just type (or copy/paste) into the input bar:
/msg NickServ IDENTIFY password
Just replace "password" with the password you gave when registering.
- Now, you can reconnect to the chat room by typing (or copy/paste) into the input bar:
/join #boxtorrents
How to auto-connect, auto-join and auto-identify
To auto-connect a server, select the tab of the server you wish to auto-connect to in the future (you must have a window open assigned to that server in the first place!). Right click within the window, and select 'Open this network on startup'.
To auto-join a channel, select the tab of the channel you wish to auto-join in the future. Right click within the window and select 'Open this channel on startup'.
To auto-identify, go to the toolbar at the top, click Chatzilla -> Preferences -> Select the server in the panel on the left (in this case irc.deltaanime.net) -> click the 'Lists' tab -> Press 'Add...' in the Auto-perform section -> Fill in the following (remember to replace "password" with whatever your password is!):
/msg nickserv identify "password"
Connecting to different channels
To connect to another channel when first starting up, just replace #boxtorrents with the channel you want (like #box-support). If your already connected, type (or copy/paste) into the input bar:
/join #channelname
Where "#channelname" is the channel-which-you-want-to-connect-to's name.