source: doc/user-guide/commands.xml @ a338faa

Last change on this file since a338faa was 4c73ba62, checked in by Wilmer van der Gaast <wilmer@…>, at 2012-03-25T22:49:05Z

Update outdated help text for the handle_unknown setting.
  • Property mode set to 100644
File size: 70.8 KB
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1<chapter id="commands">
2        <title>Bitlbee commands</title>
3
4        <command-list/>
5
6        <bitlbee-command name="account">
7                <short-description>IM-account list maintenance</short-description>
8                <syntax>account [&lt;account id&gt;] &lt;action&gt; [&lt;arguments&gt;]</syntax>
9
10                <description>
11
12                        <para>
13                                Available actions: add, del, list, on, off and set. See <emphasis>help account &lt;action&gt;</emphasis> for more information.
14                        </para>
15
16                </description>
17
18                <bitlbee-command name="add">
19                        <syntax>account add &lt;protocol&gt; &lt;username&gt; [&lt;password&gt;]</syntax>
20
21                        <description>
22                                <para>
23                                        Adds an account on the given server with the specified protocol, username and password to the account list. Supported protocols right now are: Jabber, MSN, OSCAR (AIM/ICQ), Yahoo and Twitter. For more information about adding an account, see <emphasis>help account add &lt;protocol&gt;</emphasis>.
24                                </para>
25
26                                <para>
27                                        You can omit the password and enter it separately using the IRC /OPER command. This lets you enter your password without your IRC client echoing it on screen or recording it in logs.
28                                </para>
29                        </description>
30                       
31                        <bitlbee-command name="jabber">
32                                <syntax>account add jabber &lt;handle@server.tld&gt; [&lt;password&gt;]</syntax>
33
34                                <description>
35                                        <para>
36                                                The handle should be a full handle, including the domain name. You can specify a servername if necessary. Normally BitlBee doesn't need this though, since it's able to find out the server by doing DNS SRV lookups.
37                                        </para>
38
39                                        <para>
40                                                In previous versions it was also possible to specify port numbers and/or SSL in the server tag. This is deprecated and should now be done using the <emphasis>account set</emphasis> command. This also applies to specifying a resource in the handle (like <emphasis>wilmer@bitlbee.org/work</emphasis>).
41                                        </para>
42                                </description>
43                        </bitlbee-command>
44
45                        <bitlbee-command name="msn">
46                                <syntax>account add msn &lt;handle@server.tld&gt; [&lt;password&gt;]</syntax>
47
48                                <description>
49                                        <para>
50                                                For MSN connections there are no special arguments.
51                                        </para>
52                                </description>
53                        </bitlbee-command>
54                       
55                        <bitlbee-command name="oscar">
56                                <syntax>account add oscar &lt;handle&gt; [&lt;password&gt;]</syntax>
57
58                                <description>
59                                        <para>
60                                                OSCAR is the protocol used to connect to AIM and/or ICQ. The servers will automatically detect if you're using a numeric or non-numeric username so there's no need to tell which network you want to connect to.
61                                        </para>
62                                </description>
63
64                                <ircexample>
65                                        <ircline nick="wilmer">account add oscar 72696705 hobbelmeeuw</ircline>
66                                        <ircline nick="root">Account successfully added</ircline>
67                                </ircexample>
68                        </bitlbee-command>
69                       
70                        <bitlbee-command name="twitter">
71                                <syntax>account add twitter &lt;handle&gt; [&lt;password&gt;]</syntax>
72
73                                <description>
74                                        <para>
75                                                This module gives you simple access to Twitter and Twitter API compatible services.
76                                        </para>
77                                       
78                                        <para>
79                                                By default all your Twitter contacts will appear in a new channel called #twitter_yourusername. You can change this behaviour using the <emphasis>mode</emphasis> setting (see <emphasis>help set mode</emphasis>).
80                                        </para>
81                                       
82                                        <para>
83                                                To send tweets yourself, send them to the twitter_(yourusername) contact, or just write in the groupchat channel if you enabled that option.
84                                        </para>
85
86                                        <para>
87                                                Since Twitter now requires OAuth authentication, you should not enter your Twitter password into BitlBee. Just type a bogus password. The first time you log in, BitlBee will start OAuth authentication. (See <emphasis>help set oauth</emphasis>.)
88                                        </para>
89                                       
90                                        <para>
91                                                To use a non-Twitter service, change the <emphasis>base_url</emphasis> setting. For identi.ca, you can simply use <emphasis>account add identica</emphasis>.
92                                        </para>
93                                </description>
94                        </bitlbee-command>
95                       
96                        <bitlbee-command name="identica">
97                                <syntax>account add identica &lt;handle&gt; [&lt;password&gt;]</syntax>
98
99                                <description>
100                                        <para>
101                                                Same protocol as <emphasis>twitter</emphasis>, but defaults to a <emphasis>base_url</emphasis> pointing at identi.ca, and with OAuth disabled.
102                                        </para>
103                                </description>
104                        </bitlbee-command>
105
106                        <bitlbee-command name="yahoo">
107                                <syntax>account add yahoo &lt;handle&gt; [&lt;password&gt;]</syntax>
108
109                                <description>
110                                        <para>
111                                                For Yahoo! connections there are no special arguments.
112                                        </para>
113                                </description>
114                        </bitlbee-command>
115
116                </bitlbee-command>
117
118                <bitlbee-command name="del">
119                        <syntax>account &lt;account id&gt; del</syntax>
120
121                        <description>
122                                <para>
123                                        This commands deletes an account from your account list. You should signoff the account before deleting it.
124                                </para>
125
126
127                                <para>
128                                        The account ID can be a number/tag (see <emphasis>account list</emphasis>), the protocol name or (part of) the screenname, as long as it matches only one connection.
129                                </para>
130                        </description>
131                </bitlbee-command>
132
133                <bitlbee-command name="on">
134                        <syntax>account [&lt;account id&gt;] on</syntax>
135
136                        <description>
137                                <para>
138                                        This command will try to log into the specified account. If no account is specified, BitlBee will log into all the accounts that have the auto_connect flag set.
139                                </para>
140
141                                <para>
142                                        The account ID can be a number/tag (see <emphasis>account list</emphasis>), the protocol name or (part of) the screenname, as long as it matches only one connection.
143                                </para>
144                        </description>
145
146                </bitlbee-command>
147
148                <bitlbee-command name="off">
149                        <syntax>account [&lt;account id&gt;] off</syntax>
150
151                        <description>
152                                <para>
153                                        This command disconnects the connection for the specified account. If no account is specified, BitlBee will deactivate all active accounts and cancel all pending reconnects.
154                                </para>
155
156                                <para>
157                                        The account ID can be a number/tag (see <emphasis>account list</emphasis>), the protocol name or (part of) the screenname, as long as it matches only one connection.
158                                </para>
159                        </description>
160                </bitlbee-command>
161
162                <bitlbee-command name="list">
163                        <syntax>account list</syntax>
164
165                        <description>
166                                <para>
167                                        This command gives you a list of all the accounts known by BitlBee.
168                                </para>
169                        </description>
170                </bitlbee-command>
171
172                <bitlbee-command name="set">
173                        <syntax>account &lt;account id&gt; set</syntax>
174                        <syntax>account &lt;account id&gt; set &lt;setting&gt;</syntax>
175                        <syntax>account &lt;account id&gt; set &lt;setting&gt; &lt;value&gt;</syntax>
176                        <syntax>account &lt;account id&gt; set -del &lt;setting&gt;</syntax>
177
178                        <description>
179                                <para>
180                                        This command can be used to change various settings for IM accounts. For all protocols, this command can be used to change the handle or the password BitlBee uses to log in and if it should be logged in automatically. Some protocols have additional settings. You can see the settings available for a connection by typing <emphasis>account &lt;account id&gt; set</emphasis>.
181                                </para>
182                               
183                                <para>
184                                        For more infomation about a setting, see <emphasis>help set &lt;setting&gt;</emphasis>.
185                                </para>
186                               
187                                <para>
188                                        The account ID can be a number/tag (see <emphasis>account list</emphasis>), the protocol name or (part of) the screenname, as long as it matches only one connection.
189                                </para>
190                        </description>
191                </bitlbee-command>
192        </bitlbee-command>
193
194        <bitlbee-command name="channel">
195                <short-description>Channel list maintenance</short-description>
196                <syntax>channel [&lt;account id&gt;] &lt;action&gt; [&lt;arguments&gt;]</syntax>
197
198                <description>
199                        <para>
200                                Available actions: del, list, set. See <emphasis>help channel &lt;action&gt;</emphasis> for more information.
201                        </para>
202                       
203                        <para>
204                                There is no <emphasis>channel add</emphasis> command. To create a new channel, just use the IRC <emphasis>/join</emphasis> command. See also <emphasis>help channels</emphasis> and <emphasis>help groupchats</emphasis>.
205                        </para>
206                </description>
207
208                <bitlbee-command name="del">
209                        <syntax>channel &lt;channel id&gt; del</syntax>
210
211                        <description>
212                                <para>
213                                        Remove a channel and forget all its settings. You can only remove channels you're not currently in, and can't remove the main control channel. (You can, however, leave it.)
214                                </para>
215                        </description>
216
217                </bitlbee-command>
218
219                <bitlbee-command name="list">
220                        <syntax>channel list</syntax>
221
222                        <description>
223                                <para>
224                                        This command gives you a list of all the channels you configured.
225                                </para>
226                        </description>
227
228                </bitlbee-command>
229
230                <bitlbee-command name="set">
231                        <syntax>channel [&lt;channel id&gt;] set</syntax>
232                        <syntax>channel [&lt;channel id&gt;] set &lt;setting&gt;</syntax>
233                        <syntax>channel [&lt;channel id&gt;] set &lt;setting&gt; &lt;value&gt;</syntax>
234                        <syntax>channel [&lt;channel id&gt;] set -del &lt;setting&gt;</syntax>
235
236                        <description>
237                                <para>
238                                        This command can be used to change various settings for channels. Different channel types support different settings. You can see the settings available for a channel by typing <emphasis>channel &lt;channel id&gt; set</emphasis>.
239                                </para>
240                               
241                                <para>
242                                        For more infomation about a setting, see <emphasis>help set &lt;setting&gt;</emphasis>.
243                                </para>
244                               
245                                <para>
246                                        The channel ID can be a number (see <emphasis>channel list</emphasis>), or (part of) its name, as long as it matches only one channel. If you want to change settings of the current channel, you can omit the channel ID.
247                                </para>
248                        </description>
249                </bitlbee-command>
250
251        </bitlbee-command>
252
253        <bitlbee-command name="chat">
254                <short-description>Chatroom list maintenance</short-description>
255                <syntax>chat &lt;action&gt; [&lt;arguments&gt;]</syntax>
256
257                <description>
258
259                        <para>
260                                Available actions: add, with. See <emphasis>help chat &lt;action&gt;</emphasis> for more information.
261                        </para>
262
263                </description>
264
265                <bitlbee-command name="add">
266                        <syntax>chat add &lt;account id&gt; &lt;room&gt; [&lt;channel&gt;]</syntax>
267
268                        <description>
269                                <para>
270                                        Add a chatroom to the list of chatrooms you're interested in. BitlBee needs this list to map room names to a proper IRC channel name.
271                                </para>
272
273                                <para>
274                                        After adding a room to your list, you can simply use the IRC /join command to enter the room. Also, you can tell BitlBee to automatically join the room when you log in. (See <emphasis>chat set</emphasis>)
275                                </para>
276
277                                <para>
278                                        Password-protected rooms work exactly like on IRC, by passing the password as an extra argument to /join.
279                                </para>
280                        </description>
281
282                </bitlbee-command>
283
284                <bitlbee-command name="with">
285                        <syntax>chat with &lt;nickname&gt;</syntax>
286
287                        <description>
288                                <para>
289                                        While most <emphasis>chat</emphasis> subcommands are about named chatrooms, this command can be used to open an unnamed groupchat with one or more persons. This command is what <emphasis>/join #nickname</emphasis> used to do in older BitlBee versions.
290                                </para>
291                        </description>
292                </bitlbee-command>
293        </bitlbee-command>
294
295        <bitlbee-command name="add">
296                <short-description>Add a buddy to your contact list</short-description>
297                <syntax>add &lt;account id&gt; &lt;handle&gt; [&lt;nick&gt;]</syntax>
298                <syntax>add -tmp &lt;account id&gt; &lt;handle&gt; [&lt;nick&gt;]</syntax>
299
300                <description>
301                        <para>
302                                Adds the given buddy at the specified connection to your buddy list. The account ID can be a number (see <emphasis>account list</emphasis>), the protocol name or (part of) the screenname, as long as it matches only one connection.
303                        </para>
304
305                        <para>
306                                If you want, you can also tell BitlBee what nick to give the new contact. The -tmp option adds the buddy to the internal BitlBee structures only, not to the real contact list (like done by <emphasis>set handle_unknown add</emphasis>). This allows you to talk to people who are not in your contact list. This normally won't show you any presence notifications.
307                        </para>
308
309                        <para>
310                                If you use this command in a control channel containing people from only one group, the new contact will be added to that group automatically.
311                        </para>
312                </description>
313
314                <ircexample>
315                        <ircline nick="ctrlsoft">add 3 gryp@jabber.org grijp</ircline>
316                        <ircaction nick="grijp" hostmask="gryp@jabber.org">has joined <emphasis>&amp;bitlbee</emphasis></ircaction>
317                </ircexample>
318        </bitlbee-command>
319
320        <bitlbee-command name="info">
321                <short-description>Request user information</short-description>
322                <syntax>info &lt;connection&gt; &lt;handle&gt;</syntax>
323                <syntax>info &lt;nick&gt;</syntax>
324
325                <description>
326                        <para>
327                                Requests IM-network-specific information about the specified user. The amount of information you'll get differs per protocol. For some protocols (ATM Yahoo! and MSN) it'll give you an URL which you can visit with a normal web browser to get the information.
328                        </para>
329                </description>
330
331                <ircexample>
332                        <ircline nick="ctrlsoft">info 0 72696705</ircline>
333                        <ircline nick="root">User info - UIN: 72696705   Nick: Lintux   First/Last name: Wilmer van der Gaast   E-mail: lintux@lintux.cx</ircline>
334                </ircexample>
335
336        </bitlbee-command>
337
338        <bitlbee-command name="remove">
339                <short-description>Remove a buddy from your contact list</short-description>
340                <syntax>remove &lt;nick&gt;</syntax>
341
342                <description>
343                        <para>
344                                Removes the specified nick from your buddy list.
345                        </para>
346                </description>
347
348                <ircexample>
349                        <ircline nick="ctrlsoft">remove gryp</ircline>
350                        <ircaction nick="gryp" hostmask="gryp@jabber.jabber.org">has quit <emphasis>[Leaving...]</emphasis></ircaction>
351                </ircexample>
352
353        </bitlbee-command>
354
355        <bitlbee-command name="block">
356                <short-description>Block someone</short-description>
357                <syntax>block &lt;nick&gt;</syntax>
358                <syntax>block &lt;connection&gt; &lt;handle&gt;</syntax>
359                <syntax>block &lt;connection&gt;</syntax>
360
361                <description>
362                        <para>
363                                Puts the specified user on your ignore list. Either specify the user's nick when you have him/her in your contact list or a connection number and a user handle.
364                        </para>
365                       
366                        <para>
367                                When called with only a connection specification as an argument, the command displays the current block list for that connection.
368                        </para>
369                </description>
370        </bitlbee-command>
371
372        <bitlbee-command name="allow">
373                <short-description>Unblock someone</short-description>
374                <syntax>allow &lt;nick&gt;</syntax>
375                <syntax>allow &lt;connection&gt; &lt;handle&gt;</syntax>
376
377                <description>
378                        <para>
379                                Reverse of block. Unignores the specified user or user handle on specified connection.
380                        </para>
381                       
382                        <para>
383                                When called with only a connection specification as an argument, the command displays the current allow list for that connection.
384                        </para>
385                </description>
386        </bitlbee-command>
387       
388        <bitlbee-command name="otr">
389                <short-description>Off-the-Record encryption control</short-description>
390                <syntax>otr &lt;subcommand&gt; [&lt;arguments&gt;]</syntax>
391
392                <description>
393
394                        <para>
395                                Available subcommands: connect, disconnect, reconnect, smp, smpq, trust, info, keygen, and forget. See <emphasis>help otr &lt;subcommand&gt;</emphasis> for more information.
396                        </para>
397
398                </description>
399               
400                <bitlbee-command name="connect">
401                        <syntax>otr connect &lt;nick&gt;</syntax>
402                       
403                        <description>
404                       
405                                <para>
406                                        Attempts to establish an encrypted connection with the specified user by sending a magic string.
407                                </para>
408                               
409                        </description>
410               
411                </bitlbee-command>
412               
413                <bitlbee-command name="disconnect">
414                        <syntax>otr disconnect &lt;nick&gt;</syntax>
415                       
416                        <description>
417                       
418                                <para>
419                                        Resets the connection with the specified user to cleartext.
420                                </para>
421                               
422                        </description>
423               
424                </bitlbee-command>
425               
426                <bitlbee-command name="reconnect">
427                        <syntax>otr reconnect &lt;nick&gt;</syntax>
428                       
429                        <description>
430                       
431                                <para>
432                                        Breaks and re-establishes the encrypted connection with the specified user. Useful if something got desynced.
433                                </para>
434                               
435                                <para>
436                                        Equivalent to <emphasis>otr disconnect</emphasis> followed by <emphasis>otr connect</emphasis>.
437                                </para>
438                               
439                        </description>
440               
441                </bitlbee-command>
442               
443                <bitlbee-command name="smp">
444                        <syntax>otr smp &lt;nick&gt; &lt;secret&gt;</syntax>
445                       
446                        <description>
447                       
448                                <para>
449                                        Attempts to authenticate the given user's active fingerprint via the Socialist Millionaires' Protocol.
450                                </para>
451                               
452                                <para>
453                                        If an SMP challenge has been received from the given user, responds with the specified secret/answer. Otherwise, sends a challenge for the given secret.
454                                </para>
455                               
456                                <para>
457                                        Note that there are two flavors of SMP challenges: "shared-secret" and "question &amp; answer". This command is used to respond to both of them, or to initiate a shared-secret style exchange. Use the <emphasis>otr smpq</emphasis> command to initiate a "Q&amp;A" session.
458                                </para>
459                               
460                                <para>
461                                        When responding to a "Q&amp;A" challenge, the local trust value is not altered. Only the <emphasis>asking party</emphasis> sets trust in the case of success. Use <emphasis>otr smpq</emphasis> to pose your challenge. In a shared-secret exchange, both parties set their trust according to the outcome.
462                                </para>
463                               
464                        </description>
465               
466                </bitlbee-command>
467               
468                <bitlbee-command name="smpq">
469                        <syntax>otr smpq &lt;nick&gt; &lt;question&gt; &lt;answer&gt;</syntax>
470                       
471                        <description>
472                       
473                                <para>
474                                        Attempts to authenticate the given user's active fingerprint via the Socialist Millionaires' Protocol, Q&amp;A style.
475                                </para>
476
477                                <para>
478                                        Initiates an SMP session in "question &amp; answer" style. The question is transmitted with the initial SMP packet and used to prompt the other party. You must be confident that only they know the answer. If the protocol succeeds (i.e. they answer correctly), the fingerprint will be trusted. Note that the answer must be entered exactly, case and punctuation count!
479                                </para>
480                               
481                                <para>
482                                        Note that this style of SMP only affects the trust setting on your side. Expect your opponent to send you their own challenge. Alternatively, if you and the other party have a shared secret, use the <emphasis>otr smp</emphasis> command.
483                                </para>
484                               
485                        </description>
486               
487                </bitlbee-command>
488               
489                <bitlbee-command name="trust">
490                        <syntax>otr trust &lt;nick&gt; &lt;fp1&gt; &lt;fp2&gt; &lt;fp3&gt; &lt;fp4&gt; &lt;fp5&gt;</syntax>
491                       
492                        <description>
493                       
494                                <para>
495                                        Manually affirms trust in the specified fingerprint, given as five blocks of precisely eight (hexadecimal) digits each.
496                                </para>
497                               
498                        </description>
499               
500                </bitlbee-command>
501               
502                <bitlbee-command name="info">
503                        <syntax>otr info</syntax>
504                        <syntax>otr info &lt;nick&gt;</syntax>
505                       
506                        <description>
507                       
508                                <para>
509                                        Shows information about the OTR state. The first form lists our private keys and current OTR contexts. The second form displays information about the connection with a given user, including the list of their known fingerprints.
510                                </para>
511                               
512                        </description>
513               
514                </bitlbee-command>
515               
516                <bitlbee-command name="keygen">
517                        <syntax>otr keygen &lt;account-no&gt;</syntax>
518                       
519                        <description>
520                       
521                                <para>
522                                        Generates a new OTR private key for the given account.
523                                </para>
524                               
525                        </description>
526               
527                </bitlbee-command>
528               
529                <bitlbee-command name="forget">
530                        <syntax>otr forget &lt;thing&gt; &lt;arguments&gt;</syntax>
531                       
532                        <description>
533                       
534                                <para>
535                                        Forgets some part of our OTR userstate. Available things: fingerprint, context, and key. See <emphasis>help otr forget &lt;thing&gt;</emphasis> for more information.
536                                </para>
537                       
538                        </description>
539                       
540                        <bitlbee-command name="fingerprint">
541                                <syntax>otr forget fingerprint &lt;nick&gt; &lt;fingerprint&gt;</syntax>
542                               
543                                <description>
544                               
545                                        <para>
546                                                Drops the specified fingerprint from the given user's OTR connection context. It is allowed to specify only a (unique) prefix of the desired fingerprint.
547                                        </para>
548                                       
549                                </description>
550                               
551                        </bitlbee-command>
552                               
553                        <bitlbee-command name="context">
554                                <syntax>otr forget context &lt;nick&gt;</syntax>
555                               
556                                <description>
557                               
558                                        <para>
559                                                Forgets the entire OTR context associated with the given user. This includes current message and protocol states, as well as any fingerprints for that user.
560                                        </para>
561                                       
562                                </description>
563                               
564                        </bitlbee-command>
565
566                        <bitlbee-command name="key">
567                                <syntax>otr forget key &lt;fingerprint&gt;</syntax>
568                               
569                                <description>
570                               
571                                        <para>
572                                                Forgets an OTR private key matching the specified fingerprint. It is allowed to specify only a (unique) prefix of the fingerprint.
573                                        </para>
574                                       
575                                </description>
576                               
577                        </bitlbee-command>
578               
579                </bitlbee-command>
580               
581        </bitlbee-command>
582
583        <bitlbee-command name="set">
584                <short-description>Miscellaneous settings</short-description>
585                <syntax>set</syntax>
586                <syntax>set &lt;variable&gt;</syntax>
587                <syntax>set &lt;variable&gt; &lt;value&gt;</syntax>
588                <syntax>set -del &lt;variable&gt;</syntax>
589
590                <description>
591
592                        <para>
593                                Without any arguments, this command lists all the set variables. You can also specify a single argument, a variable name, to get that variable's value. To change this value, specify the new value as the second argument. With <emphasis>-del</emphasis> you can reset a setting to its default value.
594                        </para>
595
596                        <para>
597                                To get more help information about a setting, try:
598                        </para>
599
600                </description>
601
602                <ircexample>
603                        <ircline nick="ctrlsoft">help set private</ircline>
604                </ircexample>
605
606        </bitlbee-command>
607
608        <bitlbee-command name="help">
609                <short-description>BitlBee help system</short-description>
610
611                <syntax>help [subject]</syntax>
612
613                <description>
614                        <para>
615                                This command gives you the help information you're reading right now. If you don't give any arguments, it'll give a short help index.
616                        </para>
617                </description>
618        </bitlbee-command>
619
620        <bitlbee-command name="save">
621                <short-description>Save your account data</short-description>
622                <syntax>save</syntax>
623
624                <description>
625                        <para>
626                                This command saves all your nicks and accounts immediately. Handy if you have the autosave functionality disabled, or if you don't trust the program's stability... ;-)
627                        </para>
628                </description>
629        </bitlbee-command>
630
631        <bitlbee-setting name="account" type="string" scope="channel">
632
633                <description>
634                        <para>
635                                For control channels with <emphasis>fill_by</emphasis> set to <emphasis>account</emphasis>: Set this setting to the account id (numeric, or part of the username) of the account containing the contacts you want to see in this channel.
636                        </para>
637                </description>
638        </bitlbee-setting>
639
640        <bitlbee-setting name="allow_takeover" type="boolean" scope="global">
641                <default>true</default>
642
643                <description>
644                        <para>
645                                When you're already connected to a BitlBee server and you connect (and identify) again, BitlBee will offer to migrate your existing session to the new connection. If for whatever reason you don't want this, you can disable this setting.
646                        </para>
647                </description>
648        </bitlbee-setting>
649
650        <bitlbee-setting name="auto_connect" type="boolean" scope="account,global">
651                <default>true</default>
652
653                <description>
654                        <para>
655                                With this option enabled, when you identify BitlBee will automatically connect to your accounts, with this disabled it will not do this.
656                        </para>
657                       
658                        <para>
659                                This setting can also be changed for specific accounts using the <emphasis>account set</emphasis> command. (However, these values will be ignored if the global <emphasis>auto_connect</emphasis> setting is disabled!)
660                        </para>
661                </description>
662        </bitlbee-setting>
663
664        <bitlbee-setting name="auto_join" type="boolean" scope="channel">
665                <default>false</default>
666
667                <description>
668                        <para>
669                                With this option enabled, BitlBee will automatically join this channel when you log in.
670                        </para>
671                </description>
672        </bitlbee-setting>
673
674        <bitlbee-setting name="auto_reconnect" type="boolean" scope="account,global">
675                <default>true</default>
676
677                <description>
678                        <para>
679                                If an IM-connections breaks, you're supposed to bring it back up yourself. Having BitlBee do this automatically might not always be a good idea, for several reasons. If you want the connections to be restored automatically, you can enable this setting.
680                        </para>
681
682                        <para>
683                                See also the <emphasis>auto_reconnect_delay</emphasis> setting.
684                        </para>
685
686                        <para>
687                                This setting can also be changed for specific accounts using the <emphasis>account set</emphasis> command. (However, these values will be ignored if the global <emphasis>auto_reconnect</emphasis> setting is disabled!)
688                        </para>
689                </description>
690        </bitlbee-setting>
691
692        <bitlbee-setting name="auto_reconnect_delay" type="string" scope="global">
693                <default>5*3&lt;900</default>
694
695                <description>
696                        <para>
697                                Tell BitlBee after how many seconds it should attempt to bring a broken IM-connection back up.
698                        </para>
699
700                        <para>
701                                This can be one integer, for a constant delay. One can also set it to something like &quot;10*10&quot;, which means wait for ten seconds on the first reconnect, multiply it by ten on every failure. Once successfully connected, this delay is re-set to the initial value. With &lt; you can give a maximum delay.
702                        </para>
703
704                        <para>
705                                See also the <emphasis>auto_reconnect</emphasis> setting.
706                        </para>
707                </description>
708        </bitlbee-setting>
709
710        <bitlbee-setting name="auto_reply_timeout" type="integer" scope="account">
711                <default>10800</default>
712
713                <description>
714                        <para>
715                                For Twitter accounts: If you respond to Tweets IRC-style (like "nickname: reply"), this will automatically be converted to the usual Twitter format ("@screenname reply").
716                        </para>
717
718                        <para>
719                                By default, BitlBee will then also add a reference to that person's most recent Tweet, unless that message is older than the value of this setting in seconds.
720                        </para>
721
722                        <para>
723                                If you want to disable this feature, just set this to 0. Alternatively, if you want to write a message once that is <emphasis>not</emphasis> a reply, use the Twitter reply syntax (@screenname).
724                        </para>
725                </description>
726        </bitlbee-setting>
727
728        <bitlbee-setting name="away" type="string" scope="account,global">
729                <description>
730                        <para>
731                                To mark yourself as away, it is recommended to just use <emphasis>/away</emphasis>, like on normal IRC networks. If you want to mark yourself as away on only one IM network, you can use this per-account setting.
732                        </para>
733
734                        <para>
735                                You can set it to any value and BitlBee will try to map it to the most appropriate away state for every open IM connection, or set it as a free-form away message where possible.
736                        </para>
737
738                        <para>
739                                Any per-account away setting will override globally set away states. To un-set the setting, use <emphasis>set -del away</emphasis>.
740                        </para>
741                </description>
742        </bitlbee-setting>
743
744        <bitlbee-setting name="away_devoice" type="boolean" scope="global">
745                <default>true</default>
746
747                <description>
748                        <para>
749                                With this option enabled, the root user devoices people when they go away (just away, not offline) and gives the voice back when they come back. You might dislike the voice-floods you'll get if your contact list is huge, so this option can be disabled.
750                        </para>
751                       
752                        <para>
753                                Replaced with the <emphasis>show_users</emphasis> setting. See <emphasis>help show_users</emphasis>.
754                        </para>
755                </description>
756        </bitlbee-setting>
757
758        <bitlbee-setting name="away_reply_timeout" type="integer" scope="global">
759                <default>3600</default>
760
761                <description>
762                        <para>
763                                Most IRC servers send a user's away message every time s/he gets a private message, to inform the sender that they may not get a response immediately. With this setting set to 0, BitlBee will also behave like this.
764                        </para>
765
766                        <para>
767                                Since not all IRC clients do an excellent job at suppressing these messages, this setting lets BitlBee do it instead. BitlBee will wait this many seconds (or until the away state/message changes) before re-informing you that the person's away.
768                        </para>
769                </description>
770        </bitlbee-setting>
771
772        <bitlbee-setting name="base_url" type="string" scope="account">
773                <default>http://api.twitter.com/1</default>
774
775                <description>
776                        <para>
777                                There are more services that understand the Twitter API than just Twitter.com. BitlBee can connect to all Twitter API implementations.
778                        </para>
779
780                        <para>
781                                For example, set this setting to <emphasis>http://identi.ca/api</emphasis> to use Identi.ca.
782                        </para>
783
784                        <para>
785                                Keep two things in mind: When not using Twitter, you <emphasis>must</emphasis> also disable the <emphasis>oauth</emphasis> setting as it currently only works with Twitter. If you're still having issues, make sure there is <emphasis>no</emphasis> slash at the end of the URL you enter here.
786                        </para>
787                </description>
788        </bitlbee-setting>
789
790        <bitlbee-setting name="charset" type="string" scope="global">
791                <default>utf-8</default>
792                <possible-values>you can get a list of all possible values by doing 'iconv -l' in a shell</possible-values>
793
794                <description>
795                        <para>
796                                This setting tells BitlBee what your IRC client sends and expects. It should be equal to the charset setting of your IRC client if you want to be able to send and receive non-ASCII text properly.
797                        </para>
798
799                        <para>
800                                Most systems use UTF-8 these days. On older systems, an iso8859 charset may work better. For example, iso8859-1 is the best choice for most Western countries. You can try to find what works best for you on http://www.unicodecharacter.com/charsets/iso8859.html
801                        </para>
802                </description>
803
804        </bitlbee-setting>
805
806        <bitlbee-setting name="color_encrypted" type="boolean" scope="global">
807                <default>true</default>
808
809                <description>
810                        <para>
811                                If set to true, BitlBee will color incoming encrypted messages according to their fingerprint trust level: untrusted=red, trusted=green.
812                        </para>
813                </description>
814        </bitlbee-setting>
815
816        <bitlbee-setting name="chat_type" type="string" scope="channel">
817                <default>groupchat</default>
818                <possible-values>groupchat, room</possible-values>
819
820                <description>
821                        <para>
822                                There are two kinds of chat channels: simple groupchats (basically normal IM chats with more than two participants) and names chatrooms, more similar to IRC channels.
823                        </para>
824                       
825                        <para>
826                                BitlBee supports both types. With this setting set to <emphasis>groupchat</emphasis> (the default), you can just invite people into the room and start talking.
827                        </para>
828                       
829                        <para>
830                                For setting up named chatrooms, it's currently easier to just use the <emphasis>chat add</emphasis> command.
831                        </para>
832                </description>
833        </bitlbee-setting>
834
835        <bitlbee-setting name="commands" type="boolean" scope="account">
836                <default>true</default>
837
838                <description>
839                        <para>
840                                With this setting enabled, you can use some commands in your Twitter channel/query. The commands are simple and not documented in too much detail:
841                        </para>
842
843                        <variablelist>
844                                <varlistentry><term>undo #[&lt;id&gt;]</term><listitem><para>Delete your last Tweet (or one with the given ID)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
845                                <varlistentry><term>rt &lt;screenname|#id&gt;</term><listitem><para>Retweet someone's last Tweet (or one with the given ID)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
846                                <varlistentry><term>reply &lt;screenname|#id&gt;</term><listitem><para>Reply to a Tweet (with a reply-to reference)</para></listitem></varlistentry>
847                                <varlistentry><term>report &lt;screenname|#id&gt;</term><listitem><para>Report the given user (or the user who posted the tweet with the given ID) for sending spam. This will also block them.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
848                                <varlistentry><term>follow &lt;screenname&gt;</term><listitem><para>Start following a person</para></listitem></varlistentry>
849                                <varlistentry><term>unfollow &lt;screenname&gt;</term><listitem><para>Stop following a person</para></listitem></varlistentry>
850                                <varlistentry><term>post &lt;message&gt;</term><listitem><para>Post a tweet</para></listitem></varlistentry>
851                        </variablelist>
852
853                        <para>
854                                Anything that doesn't look like a command will be treated as a tweet. Watch out for typos! :-)
855                        </para>
856                </description>
857        </bitlbee-setting>
858
859        <bitlbee-setting name="debug" type="boolean" scope="global">
860                <default>false</default>
861
862                <description>
863                        <para>
864                                Some debugging messages can be logged if you wish. They're probably not really useful for you, unless you're doing some development on BitlBee.
865                        </para>
866                       
867                        <para>
868                                This feature is not currently used for anything so don't expect this to generate any output.
869                        </para>
870                </description>
871        </bitlbee-setting>
872
873        <bitlbee-setting name="default_target" type="string" scope="global">
874                <default>root</default>
875                <possible-values>root, last</possible-values>
876
877                <description>
878                        <para>
879                                With this value set to <emphasis>root</emphasis>, lines written in a control channel without any nickname in front of them will be interpreted as commands. If you want BitlBee to send those lines to the last person you addressed in that control channel, set this to <emphasis>last</emphasis>.
880                        </para>
881                </description>
882        </bitlbee-setting>
883
884        <bitlbee-setting name="display_name" type="string" scope="account">
885                <description>
886                        <para>
887                                Currently only available for MSN connections. This setting allows you to read and change your "friendly name" for this connection. Since this is a server-side setting, it can't be changed when the account is off-line.
888                        </para>
889                </description>
890        </bitlbee-setting>
891
892        <bitlbee-setting name="display_namechanges" type="boolean" scope="global">
893                <default>false</default>
894
895                <description>
896                        <para>
897                                With this option enabled, root will inform you when someone in your buddy list changes his/her "friendly name".
898                        </para>
899                </description>
900        </bitlbee-setting>
901
902        <bitlbee-setting name="display_timestamps" type="boolean" scope="global">
903                <default>true</default>
904
905                <description>
906                        <para>
907                                When incoming messages are old (i.e. offline messages and channel backlogs), BitlBee will prepend them with a timestamp. If you find them ugly or useless, you can use this setting to hide them.
908                        </para>
909                </description>
910        </bitlbee-setting>
911
912        <bitlbee-setting name="fill_by" type="string" scope="channel">
913                <default>all</default>
914                <possible-values>all, group, account, protocol</possible-values>
915
916                <description>
917                        <para>
918                                For control channels only: This setting determines which contacts the channel gets populated with.
919                        </para>
920
921                        <para>
922                                By default, control channels will contain all your contacts. You instead select contacts by buddy group, IM account or IM protocol.
923                        </para>
924                       
925                        <para>
926                                Change this setting and the corresponding <emphasis>account</emphasis>/<emphasis>group</emphasis>/<emphasis>protocol</emphasis> setting to set up this selection.
927                        </para>
928                       
929                        <para>
930                                Note that, when creating a new channel, BitlBee will try to preconfigure the channel for you, based on the channel name. See <emphasis>help channels</emphasis>.
931                        </para>
932                </description>
933        </bitlbee-setting>
934
935        <bitlbee-setting name="group" type="string" scope="channel">
936
937                <description>
938                        <para>
939                                For control channels with <emphasis>fill_by</emphasis> set to <emphasis>group</emphasis>: Set this setting to the name of the group containing the contacts you want to see in this channel.
940                        </para>
941                </description>
942        </bitlbee-setting>
943
944        <bitlbee-setting name="handle_unknown" type="string" scope="global">
945                <default>add_channel</default>
946                <possible-values>root, add, add_private, add_channel, ignore</possible-values>
947
948                <description>
949                        <para>
950                                By default, messages from people who aren't in your contact list are shown in a control channel instead of as a private message.
951                        </para>
952
953                        <para>
954                                If you prefer to ignore messages from people you don't know, you can set this one to "ignore". "add_private" and "add_channel" are like add, but you can use them to make messages from unknown buddies appear in the channel instead of a query window.
955                        </para>
956
957                        <note>
958                                <para>
959                                        Although these users will appear in your control channel, they aren't added to your real contact list. When you restart BitlBee, these auto-added users will be gone. If you want to keep someone in your list, you have to fixate the add using the <emphasis>add</emphasis> command.
960                                </para>
961                        </note>
962                </description>
963
964        </bitlbee-setting>
965
966        <bitlbee-setting name="ignore_auth_requests" type="boolean" scope="account">
967                <default>false</default>
968
969                <description>
970                        <para>
971                                Only supported by OSCAR so far, you can use this setting to ignore ICQ authorization requests, which are hardly used for legitimate (i.e. non-spam) reasons anymore.
972                        </para>
973                </description>
974
975        </bitlbee-setting>
976
977        <bitlbee-setting name="lcnicks" type="boolean" scope="global">
978                <default>true</default>
979
980                <description>
981                        <para>
982                                Hereby you can change whether you want all lower case nick names or leave the case as it intended by your peer.
983                        </para>
984                </description>
985
986        </bitlbee-setting>
987
988        <bitlbee-setting name="local_display_name" type="boolean" scope="account">
989                <default>false</default>
990
991                <description>
992                        <para>
993                                Mostly meant to work around a bug in MSN servers (forgetting the display name set by the user), this setting tells BitlBee to store your display name locally and set this name on the MSN servers when connecting.
994                        </para>
995                </description>
996
997        </bitlbee-setting>
998
999        <bitlbee-setting name="mail_notifications" type="boolean" scope="account">
1000                <default>false</default>
1001
1002                <description>
1003                        <para>
1004                                Some protocols (MSN, Yahoo!) can notify via IM about new e-mail. Since most people use their Hotmail/Yahoo! addresses as a spam-box, this is disabled default. If you want these notifications, you can enable this setting.
1005                        </para>
1006                </description>
1007
1008        </bitlbee-setting>
1009
1010        <bitlbee-setting name="message_length" type="integer" scope="account">
1011                <default>140</default>
1012
1013                <description>
1014                        <para>
1015                                Since Twitter rejects messages longer than 140 characters, BitlBee can count message length and emit a warning instead of waiting for Twitter to reject it.
1016                        </para>
1017
1018                        <para>
1019                                You can change this limit here but this won't disable length checks on Twitter's side. You can also set it to 0 to disable the check in case you believe BitlBee doesn't count the characters correctly.
1020                        </para>
1021                </description>
1022
1023        </bitlbee-setting>
1024       
1025        <bitlbee-setting name="target_url_length" type="integer" scope="account">
1026                <default>20</default>
1027
1028                <description>
1029                        <para>
1030                                Twitter replaces every URL with fixed-length t.co URLs. BitlBee is able to take t.co urls into account when calculating <emphasis>message_length</emphasis> replacing the actual URL length with target_url_length. Setting target_url_length to 0 disables this feature.
1031                        </para>
1032
1033                        <para>
1034                                This setting is disabled for identica accounts by default and will not affect anything other than message safety checks (i.e. Twitter will still replace your URLs with t.co links, even if that makes them longer).
1035                        </para>
1036                </description>
1037
1038        </bitlbee-setting>
1039
1040        <bitlbee-setting name="mode" type="string" scope="account">
1041                <possible-values>one, many, chat</possible-values>
1042                <default>chat</default>
1043
1044                <description>
1045                        <para>
1046                                By default, BitlBee will create a separate channel (called #twitter_yourusername) for all your Twitter contacts/messages.
1047                        </para>
1048
1049                        <para>
1050                                If you don't want an extra channel, you can set this setting to "one" (everything will come from one nick, twitter_yourusername), or to "many" (individual nicks for everyone).
1051                        </para>
1052                       
1053                        <para>
1054                                With modes "chat" and "many", you can send direct messages by /msg'ing your contacts directly. Note, however, that incoming DMs are not fetched yet.
1055                        </para>
1056                       
1057                        <para>
1058                                With modes "many" and "one", you can post tweets by /msg'ing the twitter_yourusername contact. In mode "chat", messages posted in the Twitter channel will also be posted as tweets.
1059                        </para>
1060                </description>
1061
1062        </bitlbee-setting>
1063
1064        <bitlbee-setting name="mobile_is_away" type="boolean" scope="global">
1065                <default>false</default>
1066
1067                <description>
1068                        <para>
1069                                Most IM networks have a mobile version of their client. People who use these may not be paying that much attention to messages coming in. By enabling this setting, people using mobile clients will always be shown as away.
1070                        </para>
1071                </description>
1072
1073        </bitlbee-setting>
1074
1075        <bitlbee-setting name="nick" type="string" scope="chat">
1076                <description>
1077                        <para>
1078                                You can use this option to set your nickname in a chatroom. You won't see this nickname yourself, but other people in the room will. By default, BitlBee will use your username as the chatroom nickname.
1079                        </para>
1080                </description>
1081        </bitlbee-setting>
1082
1083        <bitlbee-setting name="nick_format" type="string" scope="account,global">
1084                <default>%-@nick</default>
1085
1086                <description>
1087                        <para>
1088                                By default, BitlBee tries to derive sensible nicknames for all your contacts from their IM handles. In some cases, IM modules (ICQ for example) will provide a nickname suggestion, which will then be used instead. This setting lets you change this behaviour.
1089                        </para>
1090
1091                        <para>
1092                                Whenever this setting is set for an account, it will be used for all its contacts. If it's not set, the global value will be used.
1093                        </para>
1094
1095                        <para>
1096                                It's easier to describe this setting using a few examples:
1097                        </para>
1098
1099                        <para>
1100                                FB-%full_name will make all nicknames start with "FB-", followed by the person's full name. For example you can set this format for your Facebook account so all Facebook contacts are clearly marked.
1101                        </para>
1102
1103                        <para>
1104                                [%group]%-@nick will make all nicknames start with the group the contact is in between square brackets, followed by the nickname suggestions from the IM module if available, or otherwise the handle. Because of the "-@" part, everything from the first @ will be stripped.
1105                        </para>
1106
1107                        <para>
1108                                See <emphasis>help nick_format</emphasis> for more information.
1109                        </para>
1110                </description>
1111        </bitlbee-setting>
1112
1113        <bitlbee-setting name="nick_source" type="string" scope="account">
1114                <default>handle</default>
1115                <possible-values>handle, full_name, first_name</possible-values>
1116
1117                <description>
1118                        <para>
1119                                By default, BitlBee generates a nickname for every contact by taking its handle and chopping off everything after the @. In some cases, this gives very inconvenient nicknames. The Facebook XMPP server is a good example, as all Facebook XMPP handles are numeric.
1120                        </para>
1121
1122                        <para>
1123                                With this setting set to <emphasis>full_name</emphasis>, the person's full name is used to generate a nickname. Or if you don't like long nicknames, set this setting to <emphasis>first_name</emphasis> instead and only the first word will be used. Note that the full name can be full of non-ASCII characters which will be stripped off.
1124                        </para>
1125                </description>
1126        </bitlbee-setting>
1127
1128        <bitlbee-setting name="oauth" type="boolean" scope="account">
1129                <default>true</default>
1130
1131                <description>
1132                        <para>
1133                                This enables OAuth authentication for an IM account; right now the Twitter (working for Twitter only) and Jabber (for Google Talk, Facebook and MSN Messenger) module support it.
1134                        </para>
1135
1136                        <para>
1137                                With OAuth enabled, you shouldn't tell BitlBee your account password. Just add your account with a bogus password and type <emphasis>account on</emphasis>. BitlBee will then give you a URL to authenticate with the service. If this succeeds, you will get a PIN code which you can give back to BitlBee to finish the process.
1138                        </para>
1139
1140                        <para>
1141                                The resulting access token will be saved permanently, so you have to do this only once. If for any reason you want to/have to reauthenticate, you can use <emphasis>account set</emphasis> to reset the account password to something random.
1142                        </para>
1143                </description>
1144
1145        </bitlbee-setting>
1146
1147        <bitlbee-setting name="ops" type="string" scope="global">
1148                <default>both</default>
1149                <possible-values>both, root, user, none</possible-values>
1150
1151                <description>
1152                        <para>
1153                                Some people prefer themself and root to have operator status in &amp;bitlbee, other people don't. You can change these states using this setting.
1154                        </para>
1155
1156                        <para>
1157                                The value "both" means both user and root get ops. "root" means, well, just root. "user" means just the user. "none" means nobody will get operator status.
1158                        </para>
1159                </description>
1160        </bitlbee-setting>
1161
1162        <bitlbee-setting name="otr_policy" type="string" scope="global">
1163                <default>opportunistic</default>
1164                <possible-values>never, opportunistic, manual, always</possible-values>
1165
1166                <description>
1167                        <para>
1168                                This setting controls the policy for establishing Off-the-Record connections.
1169                        </para>
1170                        <para>
1171                                A value of "never" effectively disables the OTR subsystem. In "opportunistic" mode, a magic whitespace pattern will be appended to the first message sent to any user. If the peer is also running opportunistic OTR, an encrypted connection will be set up automatically. On "manual", on the other hand, OTR connections must be established explicitly using <emphasis>otr connect</emphasis>. Finally, the setting "always" enforces encrypted communication by causing BitlBee to refuse to send any cleartext messages at all.
1172                        </para>
1173                </description>
1174        </bitlbee-setting>
1175
1176        <bitlbee-setting name="password" type="string" scope="account,global">
1177                <description>
1178                        <para>
1179                                Use this global setting to change your "NickServ" password.
1180                        </para>
1181                       
1182                        <para>
1183                                This setting is also available for all IM accounts to change the password BitlBee uses to connect to the service.
1184                        </para>
1185                       
1186                        <para>
1187                                Note that BitlBee will always say this setting is empty. This doesn't mean there is no password, it just means that, for security reasons, BitlBee stores passwords somewhere else so they can't just be retrieved in plain text.
1188                        </para>
1189                </description>
1190        </bitlbee-setting>
1191
1192        <bitlbee-setting name="paste_buffer" type="boolean" scope="global">
1193                <default>false</default>
1194
1195                <description>
1196                        <para>
1197                                By default, when you send a message to someone, BitlBee forwards this message to the user immediately. When you paste a large number of lines, the lines will be sent in separate messages, which might not be very nice to read. If you enable this setting, BitlBee will buffer your messages and wait for more data.
1198                        </para>
1199
1200                        <para>
1201                                Using the <emphasis>paste_buffer_delay</emphasis> setting you can specify the number of seconds BitlBee should wait for more data before the complete message is sent.
1202                        </para>
1203
1204                        <para>
1205                                Please note that if you remove a buddy from your list (or if the connection to that user drops) and there's still data in the buffer, this data will be lost. BitlBee will not try to send the message to the user in those cases.
1206                        </para>
1207                </description>
1208        </bitlbee-setting>
1209
1210        <bitlbee-setting name="paste_buffer_delay" type="integer" scope="global">
1211                <default>200</default>
1212
1213                <description>
1214
1215                        <para>
1216                                Tell BitlBee after how many (mili)seconds a buffered message should be sent. Values greater than 5 will be interpreted as miliseconds, 5 and lower as seconds.
1217                        </para>
1218
1219                        <para>
1220                                See also the <emphasis>paste_buffer</emphasis> setting.
1221                        </para>
1222                </description>
1223        </bitlbee-setting>
1224       
1225        <bitlbee-setting name="port" type="integer" scope="account">
1226                <description>
1227                        <para>
1228                                Currently only available for Jabber connections. Specifies the port number to connect to. Usually this should be set to 5222, or 5223 for SSL-connections.
1229                        </para>
1230                </description>
1231        </bitlbee-setting>
1232
1233        <bitlbee-setting name="priority" type="integer" scope="account">
1234                <default>0</default>
1235
1236                <description>
1237                        <para>
1238                                Can be set for Jabber connections. When connecting to one account from multiple places, this priority value will help the server to determine where to deliver incoming messages (that aren't addressed to a specific resource already).
1239                        </para>
1240
1241                        <para>
1242                                According to RFC 3921 servers will always deliver messages to the server with the highest priority value. Mmessages will not be delivered to resources with a negative priority setting (and should be saved as an off-line message if all available resources have a negative priority value).
1243                        </para>
1244                </description>
1245        </bitlbee-setting>
1246
1247        <bitlbee-setting name="private" type="boolean" scope="global">
1248                <default>true</default>
1249
1250                <description>
1251                        <para>
1252                                If value is true, messages from users will appear in separate query windows. If false, messages from users will appear in a control channel.
1253                        </para>
1254
1255                        <para>
1256                                This setting is remembered (during one session) per-user, this setting only changes the default state. This option takes effect as soon as you reconnect.
1257                        </para>
1258                </description>
1259        </bitlbee-setting>
1260
1261        <bitlbee-setting name="protocol" type="string" scope="channel">
1262
1263                <description>
1264                        <para>
1265                                For control channels with <emphasis>fill_by</emphasis> set to <emphasis>protocol</emphasis>: Set this setting to the name of the IM protocol of all contacts you want to see in this channel.
1266                        </para>
1267                </description>
1268        </bitlbee-setting>
1269
1270        <bitlbee-setting name="query_order" type="string" scope="global">
1271                <default>lifo</default>
1272                <possible-values>lifo, fifo</possible-values>
1273
1274                <description>
1275                        <para>
1276                                This changes the order in which the questions from root (usually authorization requests from buddies) should be answered. When set to <emphasis>lifo</emphasis>, BitlBee immediately displays all new questions and they should be answered in reverse order. When this is set to <emphasis>fifo</emphasis>, BitlBee displays the first question which comes in and caches all the others until you answer the first one.
1277                        </para>
1278
1279                        <para>
1280                                Although the <emphasis>fifo</emphasis> setting might sound more logical (and used to be the default behaviour in older BitlBee versions), it turned out not to be very convenient for many users when they missed the first question (and never received the next ones).
1281                        </para>
1282                </description>
1283        </bitlbee-setting>
1284
1285        <bitlbee-setting name="resource" type="string" scope="account">
1286                <default>BitlBee</default>
1287
1288                <description>
1289                        <para>
1290                                Can be set for Jabber connections. You can use this to connect to your Jabber account from multiple clients at once, with every client using a different resource string.
1291                        </para>
1292                </description>
1293        </bitlbee-setting>
1294
1295        <bitlbee-setting name="resource_select" type="string" scope="account">
1296                <default>activity</default>
1297                <possible-values>priority, activity</possible-values>
1298
1299                <description>
1300                        <para>
1301                                Because the IRC interface makes it pretty hard to specify the resource to talk to (when a buddy is online through different resources), this setting was added.
1302                        </para>
1303
1304                        <para>
1305                                Normally it's set to <emphasis>priority</emphasis> which means messages will always be delivered to the buddy's resource with the highest priority. If the setting is set to <emphasis>activity</emphasis>, messages will be delivered to the resource that was last used to send you a message (or the resource that most recently connected).
1306                        </para>
1307                </description>
1308        </bitlbee-setting>
1309
1310        <bitlbee-setting name="root_nick" type="string" scope="global">
1311                <default>root</default>
1312
1313                <description>
1314                        <para>
1315                                Normally the "bot" that takes all your BitlBee commands is called "root". If you don't like this name, you can rename it to anything else using the <emphasis>rename</emphasis> command, or by changing this setting.
1316                        </para>
1317                </description>
1318        </bitlbee-setting>
1319
1320        <bitlbee-setting name="save_on_quit" type="boolean" scope="global">
1321                <default>true</default>
1322
1323                <description>
1324                        <para>
1325                                If enabled causes BitlBee to save all current settings and account details when user disconnects. This is enabled by default, and these days there's not really a reason to have it disabled anymore.
1326                        </para>
1327                </description>
1328        </bitlbee-setting>
1329
1330        <bitlbee-setting name="server" type="string" scope="account">
1331                <description>
1332                        <para>
1333                                Can be set for Jabber- and OSCAR-connections. For Jabber, you might have to set this if the servername isn't equal to the part after the @ in the Jabber handle. For OSCAR this shouldn't be necessary anymore in recent BitlBee versions.
1334                        </para>
1335                </description>
1336        </bitlbee-setting>
1337
1338        <bitlbee-setting name="show_ids" type="boolean" scope="account">
1339                <default>false</default>
1340
1341                <description>
1342                        <para>
1343                                Enable this setting on a Twitter account to have BitlBee include a two-digit "id" in front of every message. This id can then be used for replies and retweets.
1344                        </para>
1345                </description>
1346        </bitlbee-setting>
1347
1348        <bitlbee-setting name="show_offline" type="boolean" scope="global">
1349                <default>false</default>
1350
1351                <description>
1352                        <para>
1353                                If enabled causes BitlBee to also show offline users in Channel. Online-users will get op, away-users voice and offline users none of both. This option takes effect as soon as you reconnect.
1354                        </para>
1355                       
1356                        <para>
1357                                Replaced with the <emphasis>show_users</emphasis> setting. See <emphasis>help show_users</emphasis>.
1358                        </para>
1359                </description>
1360        </bitlbee-setting>
1361
1362        <bitlbee-setting name="show_users" type="string" scope="channel">
1363                <default>online+,away</default>
1364
1365                <description>
1366                        <para>
1367                                Comma-separated list of statuses of users you want in the channel,
1368                                and any modes they should have. The following statuses are currently
1369                                recognised: <emphasis>online</emphasis> (i.e. available, not
1370                                away), <emphasis>away</emphasis>, and <emphasis>offline</emphasis>.
1371                        </para>
1372                       
1373                        <para>
1374                                If a status is followed by a valid channel mode character
1375                                (@, % or +), it will be given to users with that status.
1376                                For example, <emphasis>online@,away+,offline</emphasis> will
1377                                show all users in the channel. Online people will
1378                                have +o, people who are online but away will have +v,
1379                                and others will have no special modes.
1380                        </para>
1381                </description>
1382        </bitlbee-setting>
1383
1384        <bitlbee-setting name="simulate_netsplit" type="boolean" scope="global">
1385                <default>true</default>
1386
1387                <description>
1388                        <para>
1389                                Some IRC clients parse quit messages sent by the IRC server to see if someone really left or just disappeared because of a netsplit. By default, BitlBee tries to simulate netsplit-like quit messages to keep the control channels window clean. If you don't like this (or if your IRC client doesn't support this) you can disable this setting.
1390                        </para>
1391                </description>
1392        </bitlbee-setting>
1393
1394        <bitlbee-setting name="ssl" type="boolean" scope="account">
1395                <default>false</default>
1396
1397                <description>
1398                        <para>
1399                                Currently only available for Jabber connections. Set this to true if you want to connect to the server on an SSL-enabled port (usually 5223).
1400                        </para>
1401
1402                        <para>
1403                                Please note that this method of establishing a secure connection to the server has long been deprecated. You are encouraged to look at the <emphasis>tls</emphasis> setting instead.
1404                        </para>
1405                </description>
1406        </bitlbee-setting>
1407
1408        <bitlbee-setting name="status" type="string" scope="account,global">
1409                <description>
1410                        <para>
1411                                Most IM protocols support status messages, similar to away messages. They can be used to indicate things like your location or activity, without showing up as away/busy.
1412                        </para>
1413
1414                        <para>
1415                                This setting can be used to set such a message. It will be available as a per-account setting for protocols that support it, and also as a global setting (which will then automatically be used for all protocols that support it).
1416                        </para>
1417
1418                        <para>
1419                                Away states set using <emphasis>/away</emphasis> or the <emphasis>away</emphasis> setting will override this setting. To clear the setting, use <emphasis>set -del status</emphasis>.
1420                        </para>
1421                </description>
1422        </bitlbee-setting>
1423
1424        <bitlbee-setting name="strip_html" type="boolean" scope="global">
1425                <default>true</default>
1426
1427                <description>
1428                        <para>
1429                                Determines what BitlBee should do with HTML in messages. Normally this is turned on and HTML will be stripped from messages, if BitlBee thinks there is HTML.
1430                        </para>
1431                        <para>
1432                                If BitlBee fails to detect this sometimes (most likely in AIM messages over an ICQ connection), you can set this setting to <emphasis>always</emphasis>, but this might sometimes accidentally strip non-HTML things too.
1433                        </para>
1434                </description>
1435        </bitlbee-setting>
1436
1437        <bitlbee-setting name="strip_newlines" type="boolean" scope="account">
1438                <default>false</default>
1439
1440                <description>
1441                        <para>
1442                                Turn on this flag to prevent tweets from spanning over multiple lines.
1443                        </para>
1444                </description>
1445        </bitlbee-setting>
1446
1447        <bitlbee-setting name="show_old_mentions" type="integer" scope="account">
1448                <default>20</default>
1449
1450                <description>
1451                        <para>
1452                                This setting specifies the number of old mentions to fetch on connection. Must be less or equal to 200. Setting it to 0 disables this feature.
1453                        </para>
1454                </description>
1455        </bitlbee-setting>
1456
1457        <bitlbee-setting name="switchboard_keepalives" type="boolean" scope="account">
1458                <default>false</default>
1459
1460                <description>
1461                        <para>
1462                                Turn on this flag if you have difficulties talking to offline/invisible contacts.
1463                        </para>
1464                       
1465                        <para>
1466                                With this setting enabled, BitlBee will send keepalives to MSN switchboards with offline/invisible contacts every twenty seconds. This should keep the server and client on the other side from shutting it down.
1467                        </para>
1468                       
1469                        <para>
1470                                This is useful because BitlBee doesn't support MSN offline messages yet and the MSN servers won't let the user reopen switchboards to offline users. Once offline messaging is supported, this flag might be removed.
1471                        </para>
1472                </description>
1473        </bitlbee-setting>
1474
1475        <bitlbee-setting name="tag" type="string" scope="account">
1476                <description>
1477                        <para>
1478                                For every account you have, you can set a tag you can use to uniquely identify that account. This tag can be used instead of the account number (or protocol name, or part of the screenname) when using commands like <emphasis>account</emphasis>, <emphasis>add</emphasis>, etc. You can't have two accounts with one and the same account tag.
1479                        </para>
1480
1481                        <para>
1482                                By default, it will be set to the name of the IM protocol. Once you add a second account on an IM network, a numeric suffix will be added, starting with 2.
1483                        </para>
1484                </description>
1485        </bitlbee-setting>
1486
1487        <bitlbee-setting name="timezone" type="string" scope="global">
1488                <default>local</default>
1489                <possible-values>local, utc, gmt, timezone-spec</possible-values>
1490
1491                <description>
1492                        <para>
1493                                If message timestamps are available for offline messages or chatroom backlogs, BitlBee will display them as part of the message. By default it will use the local timezone. If you're not in the same timezone as the BitlBee server, you can adjust the timestamps using this setting.
1494                        </para>
1495
1496                        <para>
1497                                Values local/utc/gmt should be self-explanatory. timezone-spec is a time offset in hours:minutes, for example: -8 for Pacific Standard Time, +2 for Central European Summer Time, +5:30 for Indian Standard Time.
1498                        </para>
1499                </description>
1500        </bitlbee-setting>
1501
1502        <bitlbee-setting name="tls" type="boolean" scope="account">
1503                <default>try</default>
1504
1505                <description>
1506                        <para>
1507                                Newer Jabber servers allow clients to convert a plain-text session to a TLS/SSL-encrypted session. Normally (with this setting set to <emphasis>try</emphasis>) BitlBee will do this, if possible.
1508                        </para>
1509
1510                        <para>
1511                                If you want to force BitlBee to use TLS sessions only (and to give up if that doesn't seem to be possible) you can set this setting to <emphasis>true</emphasis>. Set it to <emphasis>false</emphasis> if you want the session to remain plain-text.
1512                        </para>
1513                </description>
1514        </bitlbee-setting>
1515
1516        <bitlbee-setting name="tls_verify" type="boolean" scope="account">
1517                <default>true</default>
1518
1519                <description>
1520                        <para>
1521                                Currently only available for Jabber connections in combination with the <emphasis>tls</emphasis> setting. Set this to <emphasis>true</emphasis> if you want BitlBee to strictly verify the server's certificate against a list of trusted certificate authorities.
1522                        </para>
1523
1524                        <para>
1525                                The hostname used in the certificate verification is the value of the <emphasis>server</emphasis> setting if the latter is nonempty and the domain of the username else. If you get a hostname related error when connecting to Google Talk with a username from the gmail.com or googlemail.com domain, please try to empty the <emphasis>server</emphasis> setting.
1526                        </para>
1527
1528                        <para>
1529                                Please note that no certificate verification is performed when the <emphasis>ssl</emphasis> setting is used, or when the <emphasis>CAfile</emphasis> setting in <emphasis>bitlbee.conf</emphasis> is not set.
1530                        </para>
1531                </description>
1532        </bitlbee-setting>
1533
1534        <bitlbee-setting name="to_char" type="string" scope="global">
1535                <default>": "</default>
1536
1537                <description>
1538                        <para>
1539                                It's customary that messages meant for one specific person on an IRC channel are prepended by his/her alias followed by a colon ':'. BitlBee does this by default. If you prefer a different character, you can set it using <emphasis>set to_char</emphasis>.
1540                        </para>
1541
1542                        <para>
1543                                Please note that this setting is only used for incoming messages. For outgoing messages you can use ':' (colon) or ',' to separate the destination nick from the message, and this is not configurable.
1544                        </para>
1545                </description>
1546        </bitlbee-setting>
1547
1548        <bitlbee-setting name="translate_to_nicks" type="boolean" scope="channel">
1549                <default>true</default>
1550
1551                <description>
1552                        <para>
1553                                IRC's nickname namespace is quite limited compared to most IM protocols. Not any non-ASCII characters are allowed, in fact nicknames have to be mostly alpha-numeric. Also, BitlBee has to add underscores sometimes to avoid nickname collisions.
1554                        </para>
1555
1556                        <para>
1557                                While normally the BitlBee user is the only one seeing these names, they may be exposed to other chatroom participants for example when addressing someone in the channel (with or without tab completion). By default BitlBee will translate these stripped nicknames back to the original nick. If you don't want this, disable this setting.
1558                        </para>
1559                </description>
1560        </bitlbee-setting>
1561
1562        <bitlbee-setting name="type" type="string" scope="channel">
1563                <default>control</default>
1564                <possible-values>control, chat</possible-values>
1565
1566                <description>
1567                        <para>
1568                                BitlBee supports two kinds of channels: control channels (usually with a name starting with a &amp;) and chatroom channels (name usually starts with a #).
1569                        </para>
1570
1571                        <para>
1572                                See <emphasis>help channels</emphasis> for a full description of channel types in BitlBee.
1573                        </para>
1574                </description>
1575        </bitlbee-setting>
1576
1577        <bitlbee-setting name="typing_notice" type="boolean" scope="global">
1578                <default>false</default>
1579
1580                <description>
1581                        <para>
1582                                Sends you a /notice when a user starts typing a message (if supported by the IM protocol and the user's client). To use this, you most likely want to use a script in your IRC client to show this information in a more sensible way.
1583                        </para>
1584                </description>
1585        </bitlbee-setting>
1586
1587        <bitlbee-setting name="user_agent" type="string" scope="account">
1588                <default>BitlBee</default>
1589
1590                <description>
1591                        <para>
1592                                Some Jabber servers are configured to only allow a few (or even just one) kinds of XMPP clients to connect to them.
1593                        </para>
1594                       
1595                        <para>
1596                                You can change this setting to make BitlBee present itself as a different client, so that you can still connect to these servers.
1597                        </para>
1598                </description>
1599        </bitlbee-setting>
1600
1601        <bitlbee-setting name="web_aware" type="string" scope="account">
1602                <default>false</default>
1603
1604                <description>
1605                        <para>
1606                                ICQ allows people to see if you're on-line via a CGI-script. (http://status.icq.com/online.gif?icq=UIN) This can be nice to put on your website, but it seems that spammers also use it to see if you're online without having to add you to their contact list. So to prevent ICQ spamming, recent versions of BitlBee disable this feature by default.
1607                        </para>
1608
1609                        <para>
1610                                Unless you really intend to use this feature somewhere (on forums or maybe a website), it's probably better to keep this setting disabled.
1611                        </para>
1612                </description>
1613        </bitlbee-setting>
1614
1615        <bitlbee-setting name="xmlconsole" type="boolean" scope="account">
1616                <default>false</default>
1617
1618                <description>
1619                        <para>
1620                                The Jabber module allows you to add a buddy <emphasis>xmlconsole</emphasis> to your contact list, which will then show you the raw XMPP stream between you and the server. You can also send XMPP packets to this buddy, which will then be sent to the server.
1621                        </para>
1622                        <para>
1623                                If you want to enable this XML console permanently (and at login time already), you can set this setting.
1624                        </para>
1625                </description>
1626        </bitlbee-setting>
1627
1628        <bitlbee-command name="rename">
1629                <short-description>Rename (renick) a buddy</short-description>
1630                <syntax>rename &lt;oldnick&gt; &lt;newnick&gt;</syntax>
1631                <syntax>rename -del &lt;oldnick&gt;</syntax>
1632
1633                <description>
1634                        <para>
1635                                Renick a user in your buddy list. Very useful, in fact just very important, if you got a lot of people with stupid account names (or hard ICQ numbers).
1636                        </para>
1637                       
1638                        <para>
1639                                <emphasis>rename -del</emphasis> can be used to erase your manually set nickname for a contact and reset it to what was automatically generated.
1640                        </para>
1641                </description>
1642
1643                <ircexample>
1644                        <ircline nick="itsme">rename itsme_ you</ircline>
1645                        <ircaction nick="itsme_">is now known as <emphasis>you</emphasis></ircaction>
1646                </ircexample>
1647
1648        </bitlbee-command>
1649
1650        <bitlbee-command name="yes">
1651                <short-description>Accept a request</short-description>
1652                <syntax>yes [&lt;number&gt;]</syntax>
1653
1654                <description>
1655                        <para>
1656                                Sometimes an IM-module might want to ask you a question. (Accept this user as your buddy or not?) To accept a question, use the <emphasis>yes</emphasis> command.
1657                        </para>
1658
1659                        <para>
1660                                By default, this answers the first unanswered question. You can also specify a different question as an argument. You can use the <emphasis>qlist</emphasis> command for a list of questions.
1661                        </para>
1662                </description>
1663
1664        </bitlbee-command>
1665
1666        <bitlbee-command name="no">
1667                <short-description>Deny a request</short-description>
1668                <syntax>no [&lt;number&gt;]</syntax>
1669
1670                <description>
1671                        <para>
1672                                Sometimes an IM-module might want to ask you a question. (Accept this user as your buddy or not?) To reject a question, use the <emphasis>no</emphasis> command.
1673                        </para>
1674
1675                        <para>
1676                                By default, this answers the first unanswered question. You can also specify a different question as an argument. You can use the <emphasis>qlist</emphasis> command for a list of questions.
1677                        </para>
1678                </description>
1679        </bitlbee-command>
1680
1681        <bitlbee-command name="qlist">
1682                <short-description>List all the unanswered questions root asked</short-description>
1683                <syntax>qlist</syntax>
1684
1685                <description>
1686                        <para>
1687                                This gives you a list of all the unanswered questions from root.
1688                        </para>
1689                </description>
1690
1691        </bitlbee-command>
1692
1693        <bitlbee-command name="register">
1694                <short-description>Register yourself</short-description>
1695                <syntax>register [&lt;password&gt;]</syntax>
1696
1697                <description>
1698                        <para>
1699                                BitlBee can save your settings so you won't have to enter all your IM passwords every time you log in. If you want the Bee to save your settings, use the <emphasis>register</emphasis> command.
1700                        </para>
1701
1702                        <para>
1703                                Please do pick a secure password, don't just use your nick as your password. Please note that IRC is not an encrypted protocol, so the passwords still go over the network in plaintext. Evil people with evil sniffers will read it all. (So don't use your root password.. ;-)
1704                        </para>
1705
1706                        <para>
1707                                To identify yourself in later sessions, you can use the <emphasis>identify</emphasis> command. To change your password later, you can use the <emphasis>set password</emphasis> command.
1708                        </para>
1709
1710                        <para>
1711                                You can omit the password and enter it separately using the IRC /OPER command. This lets you enter your password without your IRC client echoing it on screen or recording it in logs.
1712                        </para>
1713                </description>
1714
1715        </bitlbee-command>
1716
1717        <bitlbee-command name="identify">
1718                <syntax>identify [-noload|-force] [&lt;password&gt;]</syntax>
1719                <short-description>Identify yourself with your password</short-description>
1720
1721                <description>
1722                        <para>
1723                                BitlBee saves all your settings (contacts, accounts, passwords) on-server. To prevent other users from just logging in as you and getting this information, you'll have to identify yourself with your password. You can register this password using the <emphasis>register</emphasis> command.
1724                        </para>
1725
1726                        <para>
1727                                Once you're registered, you can change your password using <emphasis>set password &lt;password&gt;</emphasis>.
1728                        </para>
1729
1730                        <para>
1731                                The <emphasis>-noload</emphasis> and <emphasis>-force</emphasis> flags can be used to identify when you're logged into some IM accounts already. <emphasis>-force</emphasis> will let you identify yourself and load all saved accounts (and keep the accounts you're logged into already).
1732                        </para>
1733                       
1734                        <para>
1735                                <emphasis>-noload</emphasis> will log you in but not load any accounts and settings saved under your current nickname. These will be overwritten once you save your settings (i.e. when you disconnect).
1736                        </para>
1737
1738                        <para>
1739                                You can omit the password and enter it separately using the IRC /OPER command. This lets you enter your password without your IRC client echoing it on screen or recording it in logs.
1740                        </para>
1741                </description>
1742        </bitlbee-command>
1743
1744        <bitlbee-command name="drop">
1745                <syntax>drop &lt;password&gt;</syntax>
1746                <short-description>Drop your account</short-description>
1747
1748                <description>
1749                        <para>
1750                                Drop your BitlBee registration. Your account files will be removed and your password will be forgotten. For obvious security reasons, you have to specify your NickServ password to make this command work.
1751                        </para>
1752                </description>
1753        </bitlbee-command>
1754
1755        <bitlbee-command name="blist">
1756                <syntax>blist [all|online|offline|away]</syntax>
1757                <short-description>List all the buddies in the current channel</short-description>
1758
1759                <description>
1760                        <para>
1761                                You can get a more readable buddy list using the <emphasis>blist</emphasis> command. If you want a complete list (including the offline users) you can use the <emphasis>all</emphasis> argument.
1762                        </para>
1763                </description>
1764
1765        </bitlbee-command>
1766
1767        <bitlbee-command name="group">
1768                <short-description>Contact group management</short-description>
1769                <syntax>group list</syntax>
1770
1771                <description>
1772                        <para>
1773                                Only the <emphasis>group list</emphasis> command is supported at the moment, which shows a list of all groups defined so far.
1774                        </para>
1775                       
1776                        <para>
1777                                If you want to move contacts between groups, you can use the IRC <emphasis>/invite</emphasis> command. Also, if you use the <emphasis>add</emphasis> command in a control channel configured to show just one group, the new contact will automatically be added to that group.
1778                        </para>
1779                </description>
1780        </bitlbee-command>
1781       
1782        <bitlbee-command name="transfer">
1783                <short-description>Monitor, cancel, or reject file transfers</short-description>
1784                <syntax>transfer [&lt;cancel&gt; id | &lt;reject&gt;]</syntax>
1785               
1786                <description>
1787                        <para>
1788                                Without parameters the currently pending file transfers and their status will be listed. Available actions are <emphasis>cancel</emphasis> and <emphasis>reject</emphasis>. See <emphasis>help transfer &lt;action&gt;</emphasis> for more information.
1789                        </para>
1790
1791                        <ircexample>
1792                                <ircline nick="ulim">transfer</ircline>
1793                        </ircexample>
1794                </description>
1795               
1796                <bitlbee-command name="cancel">
1797                        <short-description>Cancels the file transfer with the given id</short-description>
1798                        <syntax>transfer &lt;cancel&gt; id</syntax>
1799
1800                        <description>
1801                                <para>Cancels the file transfer with the given id</para>
1802                        </description>
1803
1804                        <ircexample>
1805                                <ircline nick="ulim">transfer cancel 1</ircline>
1806                                <ircline nick="root">Canceling file transfer for test</ircline>
1807                        </ircexample>
1808                </bitlbee-command>
1809
1810                <bitlbee-command name="reject">
1811                        <short-description>Rejects all incoming transfers</short-description>
1812                        <syntax>transfer &lt;reject&gt;</syntax>
1813
1814                        <description>
1815                                <para>Rejects all incoming (not already transferring) file transfers. Since you probably have only one incoming transfer at a time, no id is neccessary. Or is it?</para>
1816                        </description>
1817
1818                        <ircexample>
1819                                <ircline nick="ulim">transfer reject</ircline>
1820                        </ircexample>
1821                </bitlbee-command>
1822        </bitlbee-command>
1823       
1824</chapter>
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