source: doc/user-guide/misc.xml

<chapter id="misc">
<title>Misc Stuff</title>

<sect1 id="groupchats">
<title>Groupchats</title>
<para>
BitlBee now supports groupchats on all IM networks. This text will try to explain you how they work.
</para>

<para>
As soon as someone invites you into a groupchat, you will be force-joined or invited (depending on the protocol) into a new virtual channel with all the people in there. You can leave the channel at any time, just like you would close the window in regular IM clients. Please note that root-commands don't work in groupchat channels, they only work in control channels (or to root directly).
</para>

<para>
Of course you can also create your own groupchats. Type <emphasis>help groupchats2</emphasis> to see how.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="groupchats2">
<title>Creating groupchats</title>

<para>
To open a groupchat, use the <emphasis>chat with</emphasis> command. For example,  to start a groupchat with the person <emphasis>lisa_msn</emphasis> in it, just type <emphasis>chat with lisa_msn</emphasis>. BitlBee will create a new virtual channel with root, you and lisa_msn in it.
</para>

<para>
Then, just use the ordinary IRC <emphasis>/invite</emphasis> command to invite more people. Please do keep in mind that all the people have to be on the same network and contact list! You can't invite Yahoo! buddies into an MSN groupchat.
</para>

<para>
Some protocols (like Jabber) also support named groupchats. BitlBee supports these too. You can use the <emphasis>chat add</emphasis> command to join them. See <emphasis>help chat add</emphasis> for more information.
</para>

<para>
If you don't know the name of a named groupchat, you can try the <emphasis>chat list</emphasis> command to get a list of chatrooms from a server. See <emphasis>help chat list</emphasis> for usage instructions.
</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="away">
<title>Away states</title>

<para>
To mark yourself as away, you can just use the <emphasis>/away</emphasis> command in your IRC client. BitlBee supports most away-states supported by the protocols.
</para>

<para>
Away states have different names across different protocols. BitlBee will try to pick the best available option for every connection:
</para>

<simplelist>
        <member>Away</member>
        <member>NA</member>
        <member>Busy, DND</member>
        <member>BRB</member>
        <member>Phone</member>
        <member>Lunch, Food</member>
        <member>Invisible, Hidden</member>
</simplelist>

<para>
So <emphasis>/away Food</emphasis> will set your state to "Out to lunch" on your MSN connection, and for most other connections the default, "Away" will be chosen.
</para>

<para>
You can also add more information to your away message. Setting it to "Busy - Fixing BitlBee bugs" will set your IM-away-states to Busy, but your away message will be more descriptive for people on IRC. Most IM-protocols can also show this additional information to your buddies.
</para>

<para>
If you want to set an away state for only one of your connections, you can use the per-account <emphasis>away</emphasis> setting. See <emphasis>help set away</emphasis>.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="nick_changes">
<title>Changing your nickname</title>

<para>
BitlBee now allows you to change your nickname. So far this was not possible because it made managing saved accounts more complicated.
</para>

<para>
The restriction no longer exists now though. When you change your nick (just using the <emphasis>/nick</emphasis> command), your logged-in status will be reset, which means any changes made to your settings/accounts will not be saved.
</para>

<para>
To restore your logged-in status, you need to either use the <emphasis>register</emphasis> command to create an account under the new nickname, or use <emphasis>identify -noload</emphasis> to re-identify yourself under the new nickname. The <emphasis>-noload</emphasis> flag tells the command to verify your password and log you in, but not load any new settings. See <emphasis>help identify</emphasis> for more information.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="channels">
<title>Dealing with channels</title>

<para>
You can have as many channels in BitlBee as you want. You maintain your channel list using the <emphasis>channel</emphasis> command. You can create new channels by just joining them, like on regular IRC networks.
</para>

<para>
You can create two kinds of channels. Control channels, and groupchat channels. By default, BitlBee will set up new channels as control channels if their name starts with an &amp;, and as chat channels if it starts with a #.
</para>

<para>
Control channels are where you see your contacts. By default, you will have one control channel called &amp;bitlbee, containing all your contacts. But you can create more, if you want, and divide your contact list across several channels.
</para>

<para>
For example, you can have one channel with all contacts from your jabber account in it. Or all contacts from the group called "Work".
</para>

<para>
Type <emphasis>help channels2</emphasis> to read more.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="channels2">
<title>Creating a channel</title>

<para>
When you create a new channel, BitlBee will try to guess from its name which contacts to fill it with. For example, if the channel name (excluding the &amp;) matches the name of a group in which you have one or more contacts, the channel will contain all those contacts.
</para>

<para>
Any valid account ID (so a number, protocol name or part of screenname, as long as it's unique) can also be used as a channel name. So if you just join &amp;jabber, it will contain all your jabber contacts. And if you have a Facebook account set up, you can see its contacts by just joining &amp;facebook.
</para>

<para>
To start a simple group chat, you simply join a channel which a name starting with #, and invite people into it. All people you invite have to be on the same IM network and contact list.
</para>

<para>
If you want to configure your own channels, you can use the <emphasis>channel set</emphasis> command. See <emphasis>help channels3</emphasis> for more information.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="channels3">
<title>Configuring a control channel</title>

<para>
The most important setting for a control channel is <emphasis>fill_by</emphasis>. It
tells BitlBee what information should be used to decide if someone should be shown
in the channel or not. After setting this setting to, for example, <emphasis>account</emphasis>, you
also have to set the <emphasis>account</emphasis> setting. Example:
</para>

<ircexample>
        <ircline nick="wilmer">chan &amp;wlm set fill_by account</ircline>
        <ircline nick="root">fill_by = `account'</ircline>
        <ircline nick="wilmer">chan &amp;wlm set account msn</ircline>
        <ircline nick="root">account = `msn'</ircline>
</ircexample>

<para>
Also, each channel has a <emphasis>show_users</emphasis> setting which lets you
choose, for example, if you want to see only online contacts in a channel, or
also/just offline contacts. Example:
</para>

<ircexample>
        <ircline nick="wilmer">chan &amp;offline set show_users offline</ircline>
        <ircline nick="root">show_users = `offline'</ircline>
</ircexample>

<para>
See the help information for all these settings for more information.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="nick_format">
<title>Nickname formatting</title>

<para>
The <emphasis>nick_format</emphasis> setting can be set globally using
the <emphasis>set</emphasis> command, or per account using <emphasis>account
set</emphasis> (so that you can set a per-account suffix/prefix or have 
nicknames generated from full names for certain accounts).
</para>

<para>
The setting is basically some kind of format string. It can contain normal
text that will be copied to the nick, combined with several variables:
</para>

<variablelist>
        <varlistentry><term>%nick</term><listitem><para>Nickname suggested for this contact by the IM protocol, or just the handle if no nickname was suggested.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
        <varlistentry><term>%handle</term><listitem><para>The handle/screenname of the contact.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
        <varlistentry><term>%full_name</term><listitem><para>The full name of the contact.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
        <varlistentry><term>%first_name</term><listitem><para>The first name of the contact (the full name up to the first space).</para></listitem></varlistentry>
        <varlistentry><term>%group</term><listitem><para>The name of the group this contact is a member of</para></listitem></varlistentry>
        <varlistentry><term>%account</term><listitem><para>Account tag of the contact</para></listitem></varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para>
Invalid characters (like spaces) will always be stripped. Depending on your
locale settings, characters with accents will be converted to ASCII.
</para>

<para>
See <emphasis>help nick_format2</emphasis> for some more information.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="nick_format2">
<title>Nickname formatting - modifiers</title>

<para>
Two modifiers are currently available: You can include only the first few
characters of a variable by putting a number right after the %. For
example, <emphasis>[%3group]%-@nick</emphasis> will include only the first
three characters of the group name in the nick.
</para>

<para>
Also, you can truncate variables from a certain character using
the <emphasis>-</emphasis> modifier. For example, you may want to leave out
everything after the @. <emphasis>%-@handle</emphasis> will expand to
everything in the handle up to the first @.
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="identify_methods">
<title>Identifying to your BitlBee account</title>

<para>There are several methods to identify (log in) to your registered BitlBee account. All of these are equivalent:</para>

<variablelist>
        <varlistentry>
                <term>The 'identify' command</term>
                <listitem><para>sent to &amp;bitlbee or root. See <emphasis>help identify</emphasis> for details.</para></listitem>
        </varlistentry>
        <varlistentry>
                <term>/msg nickserv identify</term>
                <listitem><para>Same as above, but sent to NickServ. Useful with some auto-identify scripts.</para></listitem>
        </varlistentry>
        <varlistentry>
                <term>/nickserv or /ns</term>
                <listitem><para>Same as above, but using the command aliases to NickServ.</para></listitem>
        </varlistentry>
        <varlistentry>
                <term>Server password</term>
                <listitem><para>A field in the server connection settings of your irc client.</para></listitem>
        </varlistentry>
        <varlistentry>
                <term>SASL PLAIN</term>
                <listitem><para>A newer method, good choice if your client supports it. (Note: "SASL" is <emphasis>not</emphasis> related to "SSL")</para></listitem>
        </varlistentry>
</variablelist>

<para>To configure your client to auto-identify, the last two methods are recommended. SASL if you have it, but server password is often the easiest.</para>

<para>Note: If you changed bitlbee.conf to have <emphasis>AuthMode = Closed</emphasis>, server password will be used for that instead. If you have never heard of that setting before, you can ignore it and just use it.</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="whatsnew010206">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 1.2.6</title>

<para>
Twitter support. See <emphasis>help account add twitter</emphasis>.
</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="whatsnew010300">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 1.3dev</title>

<para>
Support for multiple configurable control channels, each with a subset of
your contact list. See <emphasis>help channels</emphasis> for more
information.
</para>

<para>
File transfer support for some protocols (more if you use libpurple). Just
/DCC SEND stuff. Incoming files also become DCC transfers.
</para>

<para>
Only if you run your own BitlBee instance: You can build a BitlBee that uses
libpurple for connecting to IM networks instead of its own code, adding
support for some of the more obscure IM protocols and features.
</para>

<para>
Many more things, briefly described in <emphasis>help news1.3</emphasis>.
</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="whatsnew030000">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.0</title>

<para>
BitlBee can be compiled with support for OTR message encryption (not available
on public servers since encryption should be end-to-end).
</para>

<para>
The MSN module was heavily updated to support features added to MSN Messenger
over the recent years. You can now see/set status messages, send offline
messages, and many strange issues caused by Microsoft breaking old-protocol
compatibility should now be resolved.
</para>

<para>
Twitter extended: IRC-style replies ("BitlBee:") now get converted to proper
Twitter replies ("@BitlBee") and get a reference to the original message
(see <emphasis>help set auto_reply_timeout</emphasis>). Retweets and some
other stuff is also supported now (see <emphasis>help set commands</emphasis>).
</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="news1.3">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 1.3dev (details)</title>

<para>
Most of the core of BitlBee was rewritten since the last release. This entry
should sum up the majority of the changes.
</para>

<para>
First of all, you can now have as many control channels as you want. Or you
can have none, it's finally possible to leave &amp;bitlbee and still talk to
all your contacts. Or you can have a &amp;work with all your work-related
contacts, or a &amp;msn with all your MSN Messenger contacts. See <emphasis>help
channels</emphasis> for more information about this.
</para>

<para>
Also, you can change how nicknames are generated for your contacts. Like
automatically adding a [fb] tag to the nicks of all your Facebook contacts.
See <emphasis>help nick_format</emphasis>.
</para>

<para>
When you're already connected to a BitlBee server and you connect from
elsewhere, you can take over the old session.
</para>

<para>
Instead of account numbers, accounts now also get tags. These are
automatically generated but can be changed (<emphasis>help set
tag</emphasis>). You can now use them instead of accounts numbers.
(Example: <emphasis>acc gtalk on</emphasis>)
</para>

<para>
Last of all: You can finally change your nickname and
shorten root commands (try <emphasis>acc li</emphasis> instead
of <emphasis>account list</emphasis>).
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="whatsnew030005">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.0.5</title>

<para>
OAuth2 support in Jabber module (see <emphasis>help set oauth</emphasis>).
For better password security when using Google Talk, Facebook XMPP, or for
using MSN Messenger via XMPP. Especially recommended on public servers.
</para>

<para>
Starting quick groupchats on Jabber is easier now (using the <emphasis>chat
with</emphasis> command, or <emphasis>/join</emphasis> + <emphasis>/invite</emphasis>).
</para>

<para>
SSL certificate verification. Works only with GnuTLS, and needs to be enabled
by updating your <emphasis>bitlbee.conf</emphasis>.
</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="whatsnew030200">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.2</title>

<para>
Upgradeed to Twitter API version 1.1. This is necessary because previous
versions will stop working from March 2013. At the same time, BitlBee now
supports the streaming API and incoming direct messages.
</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="whatsnew030202">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.2.2</title>

<para>
The OTR plugin now uses libotr 4.0 (AKA libotr5 in debian based distros)
</para>

<para>
A few minor fixes/additions, like being able to use /oper to change
passwords with <emphasis>account tag set -del password</emphasis>
</para>
</sect1>

<sect1 id="whatsnew030400">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.4</title>

<para>
Lots of bugfixes! <emphasis>Important:</emphasis> Recompiling third party plugins such as bitlbee-steam or bitlbee-facebook is <emphasis>required</emphasis>!
</para>

<simplelist>
        <member><emphasis>twitter:</emphasis> Filter channels - Search by keyword/hashtag or a list of users. See the <emphasis>HowtoTwitter</emphasis> wiki page for more details!</member>
        <member><emphasis>twitter:</emphasis> Add "rawreply" command, like reply but bitlbee won't add @mention. Also add "favorite" / "fav" command aliases.</member>
        <member><emphasis>twitter:</emphasis> Start stream from last tweet on connect/reconnect to avoid showing duplicate tweets</member>
        <member><emphasis>jabber:</emphasis> Fixed crashes with file transfers (they still fail at bypassing NATs, but at least they fail without crashing)</member>
        <member><emphasis>purple:</emphasis> Improved support for gadugadu, whatsapp and telegram.</member>
        <member><emphasis>msn:</emphasis> disabled in this release since the protocol we used (MSNP18) stopped working.</member>
        <member>Add a 'pattern' parameter to the blist command, to filter it.</member>
        <member>The <emphasis>utf8_nicks</emphasis> setting should be more reliable now.</member>
</simplelist>

<para>
See the full changelog for details!
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="whatsnew030401">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.4.1</title>

<simplelist>
        <member><emphasis>msn:</emphasis> Upgraded protocol version to MSNP21, works again</member>
        <member><emphasis>jabber:</emphasis> Add "hipchat" protocol, for smoother login. Takes the same username as the official client. Note that unlike the 'hip-cat' branch, this doesn't preload channels. See the <emphasis>HowtoHipchat</emphasis> wiki page for details</member>
        <member><emphasis>jabber:</emphasis> Gmail notifications support</member>
        <member><emphasis>twitter:</emphasis> Show quoted tweets inline. Added "url" command, can be used to quote tweets.</member>
</simplelist>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="whatsnew030402">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.4.2</title>

<simplelist>
        <member><emphasis>irc:</emphasis> Self-messages (messages sent by yourself from other IM clients), see <emphasis>help set self_messages</emphasis>. IRCv3.1 support and part of 3.2. Many important groupchat related bugfixes.</member>
        <member><emphasis>jabber:</emphasis> Carbons, see <emphasis>help set carbons</emphasis>. Removed facebook XMPP, use bitlbee-facebook instead. SASL ANONYMOUS login, see <emphasis>help set anonymous</emphasis>.</member>
        <member><emphasis>hipchat:</emphasis> Channels can now be added with <emphasis>chat add hipchat "channel name"</emphasis> which tries to guess the channel JID.</member>
        <member><emphasis>skype:</emphasis> Show all messages as groupchats since we can't tell which ones are private. This plugin is mostly-deprecated and mostly-broken, use the skypeweb purple plugin or msn instead.</member>
        <member><emphasis>purple:</emphasis> Fix problems remembering SSL certificates as trusted. Groupchat related fixes. Better error reporting. Fixed setting jabber away states.</member>
</simplelist>

<para>
        And lots of bugfixes / stability improvements. See the full changelog for details!
</para>

</sect1>

<sect1 id="whatsnew030500">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.5</title>

<simplelist>
        <member>New commands: <emphasis>chat list</emphasis> and <emphasis>plugins</emphasis>. New settings: <emphasis>nick_lowercase</emphasis>, <emphasis>nick_underscores</emphasis></member>
        <member><emphasis>twitter:</emphasis> Hide muted tweets / no-retweets, add mute/unmute commands. Show full version of extended tweets.</member>
        <member><emphasis>jabber:</emphasis> <emphasis>always_use_nicks</emphasis> channel setting. Don't send parts in a chat if someone is still connected from other devices. Personal oauth token login for hipchat.</member>
        <member><emphasis>purple:</emphasis> Setting /topic. Fixes for SIPE and LINE. Don't ask for password if not needed (hangouts, telegram). Set nicks to %full_name for a few protocols (hangouts, funyahoo, icq, line)</member>
</simplelist>

<para>
See the full changelog for details!
</para>


<sect1 id="whatsnew030600">
<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.6</title>

<simplelist>
        <member>Removed msn, skype, yahoo, oscar. Use the skypeweb and icyque purple plugins.</member>
        <member>Fix twitter (disable stream setting, set tweet length to 280)</member>
        <member>Add server-time IRCv3 capability</member>
        <member>Large performance improvements for large contact lists</member>
</simplelist>

<para>
See the full changelog for details!
</para>

</sect1>

</sect1>

</chapter>