source: doc/user-guide/misc.xml @ 8ca172f

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1<chapter id="misc">
2<title>Misc Stuff</title>
3
4<sect1 id="groupchats">
5<title>Groupchats</title>
6<para>
7BitlBee now supports groupchats on all IM networks. This text will try to explain you how they work.
8</para>
9
10<para>
11As 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).
12</para>
13
14<para>
15Of course you can also create your own groupchats. Type <emphasis>help groupchats2</emphasis> to see how.
16</para>
17
18</sect1>
19
20<sect1 id="groupchats2">
21<title>Creating groupchats</title>
22
23<para>
24To 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.
25</para>
26
27<para>
28Then, 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.
29</para>
30
31<para>
32Some 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.
33</para>
34
35<para>
36If 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.
37</para>
38</sect1>
39
40<sect1 id="away">
41<title>Away states</title>
42
43<para>
44To 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.
45</para>
46
47<para>
48Away states have different names across different protocols. BitlBee will try to pick the best available option for every connection:
49</para>
50
51<simplelist>
52        <member>Away</member>
53        <member>NA</member>
54        <member>Busy, DND</member>
55        <member>BRB</member>
56        <member>Phone</member>
57        <member>Lunch, Food</member>
58        <member>Invisible, Hidden</member>
59</simplelist>
60
61<para>
62So <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.
63</para>
64
65<para>
66You 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.
67</para>
68
69<para>
70If 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>.
71</para>
72
73</sect1>
74
75<sect1 id="nick_changes">
76<title>Changing your nickname</title>
77
78<para>
79BitlBee now allows you to change your nickname. So far this was not possible because it made managing saved accounts more complicated.
80</para>
81
82<para>
83The 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.
84</para>
85
86<para>
87To 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.
88</para>
89
90</sect1>
91
92<sect1 id="channels">
93<title>Dealing with channels</title>
94
95<para>
96You 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.
97</para>
98
99<para>
100You 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 #.
101</para>
102
103<para>
104Control 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.
105</para>
106
107<para>
108For example, you can have one channel with all contacts from your jabber account in it. Or all contacts from the group called "Work".
109</para>
110
111<para>
112Type <emphasis>help channels2</emphasis> to read more.
113</para>
114
115</sect1>
116
117<sect1 id="channels2">
118<title>Creating a channel</title>
119
120<para>
121When 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.
122</para>
123
124<para>
125Any 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.
126</para>
127
128<para>
129To 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.
130</para>
131
132<para>
133If you want to configure your own channels, you can use the <emphasis>channel set</emphasis> command. See <emphasis>help channels3</emphasis> for more information.
134</para>
135
136</sect1>
137
138<sect1 id="channels3">
139<title>Configuring a control channel</title>
140
141<para>
142The most important setting for a control channel is <emphasis>fill_by</emphasis>. It
143tells BitlBee what information should be used to decide if someone should be shown
144in the channel or not. After setting this setting to, for example, <emphasis>account</emphasis>, you
145also have to set the <emphasis>account</emphasis> setting. Example:
146</para>
147
148<ircexample>
149        <ircline nick="wilmer">chan &amp;wlm set fill_by account</ircline>
150        <ircline nick="root">fill_by = `account'</ircline>
151        <ircline nick="wilmer">chan &amp;wlm set account msn</ircline>
152        <ircline nick="root">account = `msn'</ircline>
153</ircexample>
154
155<para>
156Also, each channel has a <emphasis>show_users</emphasis> setting which lets you
157choose, for example, if you want to see only online contacts in a channel, or
158also/just offline contacts. Example:
159</para>
160
161<ircexample>
162        <ircline nick="wilmer">chan &amp;offline set show_users offline</ircline>
163        <ircline nick="root">show_users = `offline'</ircline>
164</ircexample>
165
166<para>
167See the help information for all these settings for more information.
168</para>
169
170</sect1>
171
172<sect1 id="nick_format">
173<title>Nickname formatting</title>
174
175<para>
176The <emphasis>nick_format</emphasis> setting can be set globally using
177the <emphasis>set</emphasis> command, or per account using <emphasis>account
178set</emphasis> (so that you can set a per-account suffix/prefix or have
179nicknames generated from full names for certain accounts).
180</para>
181
182<para>
183The setting is basically some kind of format string. It can contain normal
184text that will be copied to the nick, combined with several variables:
185</para>
186
187<variablelist>
188        <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>
189        <varlistentry><term>%handle</term><listitem><para>The handle/screenname of the contact.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
190        <varlistentry><term>%full_name</term><listitem><para>The full name of the contact.</para></listitem></varlistentry>
191        <varlistentry><term>%first_name</term><listitem><para>The first name of the contact (the full name up to the first space).</para></listitem></varlistentry>
192        <varlistentry><term>%group</term><listitem><para>The name of the group this contact is a member of</para></listitem></varlistentry>
193        <varlistentry><term>%account</term><listitem><para>Account tag of the contact</para></listitem></varlistentry>
194</variablelist>
195
196<para>
197Invalid characters (like spaces) will always be stripped. Depending on your
198locale settings, characters with accents will be converted to ASCII.
199</para>
200
201<para>
202See <emphasis>help nick_format2</emphasis> for some more information.
203</para>
204
205</sect1>
206
207<sect1 id="nick_format2">
208<title>Nickname formatting - modifiers</title>
209
210<para>
211Two modifiers are currently available: You can include only the first few
212characters of a variable by putting a number right after the %. For
213example, <emphasis>[%3group]%-@nick</emphasis> will include only the first
214three characters of the group name in the nick.
215</para>
216
217<para>
218Also, you can truncate variables from a certain character using
219the <emphasis>-</emphasis> modifier. For example, you may want to leave out
220everything after the @. <emphasis>%-@handle</emphasis> will expand to
221everything in the handle up to the first @.
222</para>
223
224</sect1>
225
226<sect1 id="identify_methods">
227<title>Identifying to your BitlBee account</title>
228
229<para>There are several methods to identify (log in) to your registered BitlBee account. All of these are equivalent:</para>
230
231<variablelist>
232        <varlistentry>
233                <term>The 'identify' command</term>
234                <listitem><para>sent to &amp;bitlbee or root. See <emphasis>help identify</emphasis> for details.</para></listitem>
235        </varlistentry>
236        <varlistentry>
237                <term>/msg nickserv identify</term>
238                <listitem><para>Same as above, but sent to NickServ. Useful with some auto-identify scripts.</para></listitem>
239        </varlistentry>
240        <varlistentry>
241                <term>/nickserv or /ns</term>
242                <listitem><para>Same as above, but using the command aliases to NickServ.</para></listitem>
243        </varlistentry>
244        <varlistentry>
245                <term>Server password</term>
246                <listitem><para>A field in the server connection settings of your irc client.</para></listitem>
247        </varlistentry>
248        <varlistentry>
249                <term>SASL PLAIN</term>
250                <listitem><para>A newer method, good choice if your client supports it. (Note: "SASL" is <emphasis>not</emphasis> related to "SSL")</para></listitem>
251        </varlistentry>
252</variablelist>
253
254<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>
255
256<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>
257
258</sect1>
259
260<sect1 id="whatsnew010206">
261<title>New stuff in BitlBee 1.2.6</title>
262
263<para>
264Twitter support. See <emphasis>help account add twitter</emphasis>.
265</para>
266</sect1>
267
268<sect1 id="whatsnew010300">
269<title>New stuff in BitlBee 1.3dev</title>
270
271<para>
272Support for multiple configurable control channels, each with a subset of
273your contact list. See <emphasis>help channels</emphasis> for more
274information.
275</para>
276
277<para>
278File transfer support for some protocols (more if you use libpurple). Just
279/DCC SEND stuff. Incoming files also become DCC transfers.
280</para>
281
282<para>
283Only if you run your own BitlBee instance: You can build a BitlBee that uses
284libpurple for connecting to IM networks instead of its own code, adding
285support for some of the more obscure IM protocols and features.
286</para>
287
288<para>
289Many more things, briefly described in <emphasis>help news1.3</emphasis>.
290</para>
291</sect1>
292
293<sect1 id="whatsnew030000">
294<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.0</title>
295
296<para>
297BitlBee can be compiled with support for OTR message encryption (not available
298on public servers since encryption should be end-to-end).
299</para>
300
301<para>
302The MSN module was heavily updated to support features added to MSN Messenger
303over the recent years. You can now see/set status messages, send offline
304messages, and many strange issues caused by Microsoft breaking old-protocol
305compatibility should now be resolved.
306</para>
307
308<para>
309Twitter extended: IRC-style replies ("BitlBee:") now get converted to proper
310Twitter replies ("@BitlBee") and get a reference to the original message
311(see <emphasis>help set auto_reply_timeout</emphasis>). Retweets and some
312other stuff is also supported now (see <emphasis>help set commands</emphasis>).
313</para>
314</sect1>
315
316<sect1 id="news1.3">
317<title>New stuff in BitlBee 1.3dev (details)</title>
318
319<para>
320Most of the core of BitlBee was rewritten since the last release. This entry
321should sum up the majority of the changes.
322</para>
323
324<para>
325First of all, you can now have as many control channels as you want. Or you
326can have none, it's finally possible to leave &amp;bitlbee and still talk to
327all your contacts. Or you can have a &amp;work with all your work-related
328contacts, or a &amp;msn with all your MSN Messenger contacts. See <emphasis>help
329channels</emphasis> for more information about this.
330</para>
331
332<para>
333Also, you can change how nicknames are generated for your contacts. Like
334automatically adding a [fb] tag to the nicks of all your Facebook contacts.
335See <emphasis>help nick_format</emphasis>.
336</para>
337
338<para>
339When you're already connected to a BitlBee server and you connect from
340elsewhere, you can take over the old session.
341</para>
342
343<para>
344Instead of account numbers, accounts now also get tags. These are
345automatically generated but can be changed (<emphasis>help set
346tag</emphasis>). You can now use them instead of accounts numbers.
347(Example: <emphasis>acc gtalk on</emphasis>)
348</para>
349
350<para>
351Last of all: You can finally change your nickname and
352shorten root commands (try <emphasis>acc li</emphasis> instead
353of <emphasis>account list</emphasis>).
354</para>
355
356</sect1>
357
358<sect1 id="whatsnew030005">
359<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.0.5</title>
360
361<para>
362OAuth2 support in Jabber module (see <emphasis>help set oauth</emphasis>).
363For better password security when using Google Talk, Facebook XMPP, or for
364using MSN Messenger via XMPP. Especially recommended on public servers.
365</para>
366
367<para>
368Starting quick groupchats on Jabber is easier now (using the <emphasis>chat
369with</emphasis> command, or <emphasis>/join</emphasis> + <emphasis>/invite</emphasis>).
370</para>
371
372<para>
373SSL certificate verification. Works only with GnuTLS, and needs to be enabled
374by updating your <emphasis>bitlbee.conf</emphasis>.
375</para>
376</sect1>
377
378<sect1 id="whatsnew030200">
379<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.2</title>
380
381<para>
382Upgradeed to Twitter API version 1.1. This is necessary because previous
383versions will stop working from March 2013. At the same time, BitlBee now
384supports the streaming API and incoming direct messages.
385</para>
386</sect1>
387
388<sect1 id="whatsnew030202">
389<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.2.2</title>
390
391<para>
392The OTR plugin now uses libotr 4.0 (AKA libotr5 in debian based distros)
393</para>
394
395<para>
396A few minor fixes/additions, like being able to use /oper to change
397passwords with <emphasis>account tag set -del password</emphasis>
398</para>
399</sect1>
400
401<sect1 id="whatsnew030400">
402<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.4</title>
403
404<para>
405Lots of bugfixes! <emphasis>Important:</emphasis> Recompiling third party plugins such as bitlbee-steam or bitlbee-facebook is <emphasis>required</emphasis>!
406</para>
407
408<simplelist>
409        <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>
410        <member><emphasis>twitter:</emphasis> Add "rawreply" command, like reply but bitlbee won't add @mention. Also add "favorite" / "fav" command aliases.</member>
411        <member><emphasis>twitter:</emphasis> Start stream from last tweet on connect/reconnect to avoid showing duplicate tweets</member>
412        <member><emphasis>jabber:</emphasis> Fixed crashes with file transfers (they still fail at bypassing NATs, but at least they fail without crashing)</member>
413        <member><emphasis>purple:</emphasis> Improved support for gadugadu, whatsapp and telegram.</member>
414        <member><emphasis>msn:</emphasis> disabled in this release since the protocol we used (MSNP18) stopped working.</member>
415        <member>Add a 'pattern' parameter to the blist command, to filter it.</member>
416        <member>The <emphasis>utf8_nicks</emphasis> setting should be more reliable now.</member>
417</simplelist>
418
419<para>
420See the full changelog for details!
421</para>
422
423</sect1>
424
425<sect1 id="whatsnew030401">
426<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.4.1</title>
427
428<simplelist>
429        <member><emphasis>msn:</emphasis> Upgraded protocol version to MSNP21, works again</member>
430        <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>
431        <member><emphasis>jabber:</emphasis> Gmail notifications support</member>
432        <member><emphasis>twitter:</emphasis> Show quoted tweets inline. Added "url" command, can be used to quote tweets.</member>
433</simplelist>
434
435</sect1>
436
437<sect1 id="whatsnew030402">
438<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.4.2</title>
439
440<simplelist>
441        <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>
442        <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>
443        <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>
444        <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>
445        <member><emphasis>purple:</emphasis> Fix problems remembering SSL certificates as trusted. Groupchat related fixes. Better error reporting. Fixed setting jabber away states.</member>
446</simplelist>
447
448<para>
449        And lots of bugfixes / stability improvements. See the full changelog for details!
450</para>
451
452</sect1>
453
454<sect1 id="whatsnew030500">
455<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.5</title>
456
457<simplelist>
458        <member>New commands: <emphasis>chat list</emphasis> and <emphasis>plugins</emphasis>. New settings: <emphasis>nick_lowercase</emphasis>, <emphasis>nick_underscores</emphasis></member>
459        <member><emphasis>twitter:</emphasis> Hide muted tweets / no-retweets, add mute/unmute commands. Show full version of extended tweets.</member>
460        <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>
461        <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>
462</simplelist>
463
464<para>
465See the full changelog for details!
466</para>
467
468
469<sect1 id="whatsnew030600">
470<title>New stuff in BitlBee 3.6</title>
471
472<simplelist>
473        <member>Removed msn, skype, yahoo, oscar. Use the skypeweb and icyque purple plugins.</member>
474        <member>Fix twitter (disable stream setting, set tweet length to 280)</member>
475        <member>Add server-time IRCv3 capability</member>
476        <member>Large performance improvements for large contact lists</member>
477</simplelist>
478
479<para>
480See the full changelog for details!
481</para>
482
483</sect1>
484
485</sect1>
486
487</chapter>
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