All MSN smileys (except one) are case insensitive and work without the nose too. (Y)Thumbs up (N)Thumbs down (B)Beer mug (D)Martini glass (X)Girl (Z)Boy (6)Devil smiley :-[Vampire bat (})Right hug ({)Left hug (M)MSN Messenger or Windows Messenger icon (think a BitlBee logo here ;) :-SCrooked smiley (Confused smiley) :-$Embarrassed smiley (H)Smiley with sunglasses :-@Angry smiley (A)Angel smiley (L)Red heart (Love) (U)Broken heart (K)Red lips (Kiss) (G)Gift with bow (F)Red rose (W)Wilted rose (P)Camera (~)Film strip (T)Telephone receiver (@)Cat face (&)Dog's head (C)Coffee cup (I)Light bulb (S)Half-moon (Case sensitive!) (*)Star (8)Musical eighth note (E)Envelope (^)Birthday cake (O)Clock This list was extracted from http://help.msn.com/!data/en_us/data/messengerv50.its51/$content$/EMOTICONS.HTM?H_APP=. Since version 0.8x, BitlBee supports groupchats on the MSN and Yahoo! networks. This text will try to explain you how they work. 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 the control channel (or to root directly). Of course you can also create your own groupchats. Type help groupchats2 to see how. If you want to start a groupchat with the person jim_msn in it, just join the channel #jim_msn. BitlBee will refuse to join you to the channel with that name, but it will create a new virtual channel with root, you and jim_msn in it. Of course a channel with only two people isn't really exciting yet. So the next step is to invite some other people to the channel. For this, you can use the /invite command of your IRC client. 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. Some protocols (like Jabber) also support named groupchats. BitlBee now supports these too. You can use the join_chat command to join them. See help join_chat for more information. This is all you'll probably need to know. If you have any problems, please read help groupchats3. Obviously the (numbered) channel names don't make a lot of sense. Problem is that groupchats usually don't have names at all in the IM-world, while IRC insists on a name. So BitlBee just generates something random, just don't pay attention to it. :-) Please also note that BitlBee doesn't support groupchats for all protocols yet. BitlBee will tell you so. Support for other protocols will hopefully come later. As you might've expected, you can just use the /away command in your IRC client to set an away-state. BitlBee supports most away-states supported by the protocols. Not all away states are supported by all protocols, and some protocols have different names for them. BitlBee will try to pick the best available alias from this list for every connection: Away from computer, Away, Extended away NA, N/A, Not available Busy, Do not disturb, DND, Occupied Be right back, BRB On the phone, Phone, On phone Out to lunch, Lunch, Food So /away Food will set your state to "Out to lunch" on your MSN connection, and for most other connections the default, "Away" or "Away from computer" will be chosen. 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. Protocols like Yahoo! and Jabber will also show this complete away message to your buddies.