Join the new world

So IRC. An antiquated communication method not too far removed from the telegraph. Seriously, go dig your top hat out of your wardrobe and wax your mustache, and set the way-back machine to 1970, and get ready for some IRC. Tailcoat optional.

Anyway, IRC is how most folks who are far too involved in eRepublik communicate. It is real-time, more free-form than a forum, and allows more efficient meetings and plottings. So much plottings.

If you don’t grok IRC, then head to mibbit via google, join up on whatever channel your e-country uses, and register your nickname.

The following assumes you know how to join channels, have a registered nickname, and so on. If you don’t, well, seek help outside this article.

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One issue with IRC, if you are an active user of it, is all the channel joining and passwords and extra typing you have to do when you want to connect.

So many channel passwords, so much extra typing every time you wanna log in.

Such behavior is non-optimal. Must avoid.

One way is to register with mibbit and have an account within mibbit, and use their drop down selectomatic stuff to set up your account and channels and all. I think you get the added benefit of advertising and looking at frogs.

I prefer doing things the hard way, so I went a different route.

The following allows you to set up a personalized link you can click on from your browser. Remember your customized link is going to have channel passwords and stuff in it,

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Mibbit has these magic incantations called URI Parameters that let you put all that extra channel and channel password crap into your web link, so one click and you are done (other than your IRC nick password). Just have to customize your link using percent signs, voodoo, and frustration.

So an example, with some stuff slightly changed to protect the identities of the (semi)-innocent:

http://widget00.mibbit.com/?server=irc.rizon.net&channel=%23Seal-Team-12,%23Swiss.Cabinet.Rules,%23eswitzerlandz,%23Swiss.MoDz,%20salamifan,greenslimey&noServerTab=false&nick=BlobbieHam&promptPass=true

by clicking that *but don't click it, it is just a random example, seriously, don't click the example*, I get access to the following channels:

#Seal-Team-12, which has a channel password of salamifan
#Swiss.Cabinet.Rules, which has a channel password of greenslimey
#eswitzerlandz (no channel password)
#Swiss.MODz (no channel password)

with my nickname of BlobbieHam

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so the format for setting up YOUR fantastical magical widget is:

%23channel1,%23channel2,…,%20channel1pass,channel2pass,…

so:
%23CHANNELNAMEWITHOUTTHE#THING,
%23secondchannelname,
%23thirdchannelname,
(additional channels, all with %23 before the channel name, and no #, followed by a comma, the last one gets a comma after it)
%20channelPasswordOfTheFirstChannelIfApplicable,
channelPasswordOfTheSecondChannelIfApplicable,
(additional channel passwords, separated by a comma, the last one doesn’t have a comma after it, only the very first channel password needs a %20)

Put channels with passwords FIRST in the list. If you don’t have any, great, but if you do, you need to have the corresponding passwords and channels match up, and if you list a channel that doesn’t need a password before one that does, it will try and connect with that password to the channel that doesn’t need one, mucking everything up.

The widget will ask you for your nickname password. Not entirely sure how to not have to do that, but such is life. Also keeps your skeevey roommate from scamming your password and impersonating you on #gimp

You’ll also have a server tab to check to make sure everything is running right. You’ll see there if you mistyped your nick password and stuff on the Rizon tab. If a channel password is wrong, that may show up in any of the tabs that opened (or if someone changes a channel password).

save your messy customized link as a bookmark in your favorite browser.

Anyway, enjoy.

PROTIP: use notepad or textedit in plain text mode when writing up your custom link. Avoids any sort of embedded html or such.