Visual IRC (VIRC) Setup

Online courses should have online office hours. Otherwise how could you the student get in touch with your instructor, in real time, if you are hundreds of miles away. There are several methods of meeting online, for this course we will use an Internet Relay Chat (IRC) program called Visual IRC (at this time available in Version 97, 1.0). For further information on IRC you should read here.

To get started you will need to download the VIRC'97 program by visiting the VIRC site, or for direct download click here. The VIRC'97 program is available in a compressed format, using the popular ZIP compression scheme (read more about compression here). You will need a program such as PKUnZip from PKWare or WinZIP from Nico Mak Computing, Inc.. to decompress the VIRC'97 install program. If you already have a "ZIP" program installed on your system proceeed to download VIRC'97 now. Otherwise it is recommended to download and install the "ZIP" program first, after which you should download/install VIRC.

After you have downloaded VIRC, use the Explorer to change to the download directory of VIRC. If you double-click on the "virc97_100.zip" file in that directory, and you have successfully installed a "ZIP" program, the "ZIP" program should start and show you that there is a compressed file in the "virc97_100.zip" file with the name "install.exe". You should pick this file to be extract into a temporary directory.

The next step is to start the installation of VIRC97. Go to the temporary directory to which you extracted "install.exe". Double click on the file and it will ask you to which directory you would like to install VIRC. You can pick the default or enter any other directory you like. After it installed it will tell you that when you first run it, it will take you through the setup steps.

Ok, now you are ready to start VIRC for the first time. Go to the directory to which you installed VIRC and double-click the "virc97.exe" file. The screen shot below will come up after the initial VIRC "splash screen". Since this is your first time using VIRC, select the "I am new to IRC and need detailed help" option and click on "Install".

The "novice user help" screen will guide you as you go about setting up the different parameters. If you think you don't need this extra help you can always close the screen by clicking on the "X" in the upper right hand corner of the help screen.

The next screen you will see asks you if you want to create a program group. You should answer this with "Yes" since it will allow you to start VIRC by going to your Start button, Programs, Visual IRC group, and clicking on VIRC97.

The first screen that requires real parameter input is the client setup screen. Lets go through each parameter you need to enter:

Nickname: You should enter your VT PID here. If you want to later use a different real name you can always go back to the client setup, but for the online office hours I want you to use your VT PID.
Backup nick: You should pick a backup nickname just in case that your nickname is already used by someone else online. Nicknames have to be unique in IRC and with thousands of users it is easy to pick the same nick twice. Regular IRC users are proud of their nicknames, it gives them a "life" on the Internet, and they will let you know if you logged on before them and used their nickname. Since this is all just a typed interface, people will know you only by your nickname. Their is actually a possibility for you to register your nickname such that only you can use it on IRC.
Email: enter your email address in here (that was easy ;-)
Real name/URL: enter your real name in this field and if you have a homepage that you would like others to know about/see, you can enter the address here too.M
Server: For the online office hour I would like for you to enter a specific server here, one on the Undernet. We all have to use the same Network so that you can find the office hour channel. The default is an EFNet server. Go down to the next screen to see how to set up the server in this field.

The screen shot shows you how I have my IRC client setup filled out (with exception of the Server).

Click on the down arrow to the right of the Server field to get to this next screen. A particular server name will be initial in the Server field. To install a new server you should click on "Add new server". After you clicked on it, the screen will look something like the one below.

Now click on the Server: field and enter "NewYork.NY.US.Undernet.Org" (without the double quotes of course). DO NOT change the port setting. Click on the down arrow to the right of the Net: field. From the list select "Undernet". If you did everything correctly your screen should like something like the one below. You can now click Ok to accept the settings for the server.

The completed client setup screen should now look similiar to the one below. You should click on Ok to start the actual IRC session.

VIRC will start with the screen is seen below. If you want to see a tip every time you start VIRC you can just hit "Close". If you don't want to see the tip screen every time, de-select "Show this Welcome Screen next time you start ViRC'97" (it shouldn't have a check in the left hand box) and click on "Close".

After closing the Welcome Screen (tip screen), you will see a screen similar to the one below. As you can see my pointer is sitting over the "Start" button. You should click on "Start" now.

After starting your IRC session you need to connect to a server. Notice on the screen below that the default server is the NewYork Undernet server you selected in the client setup. Now you need to click on the connection button to make a connection to the server. This button is the one under the pointer on the screenshot below. When you are connected, any type of server messages will be shown on this screen.

When are get connected to the server you will notice a lot of information scroll by quickly on the server screen. This information is part of the log-in on the server, as well as a possible "Message of the Day" (MOTD) from the server. As you see on the next screenshot, in the entry line I have entered the command to join the #CS1604VT channel. You should type in the same command on that line "/join #CS1604VT password" and substitute the password I send you for the online office hour where it says password now. If you want to join a channel that doesn't require a password, you can just type in the first part of the command without typing a password. Hit "Enter (or Return)" to issue the command and join the channel.

A new channel window will pop up when you join a channel. For each channel you join (and you may join multiple channels at the same time) you will get a new window. Below is the window for the #CS1604VT channel. The big screen on that window will show channel information as well as the "chat" from each user. The screen to the right will show those users that have joined the channel. Users with the "@" simple to the left of there name are channel operators. They have special permission on the channel to perform certain functions. If the channel is moderated, meaning that someone will have to give you permission to "talk" on the channel, users with talk permission will have a "+" symbol next to their name. The bottom small screen is where you enter what you want others to see. Although this seems like only a single line, you can type a lot of text in this line, it will scroll, and when you are ready to send what you typed to the channel you hit "Enter".
Well, I hope this helps everyone in setting up VIRC. The next thing you need to do is get connected on IRC and check out the thousands of famous, infamous, and outright bad channels. There is a lot of good stuff going on in the world of IRC. Every day thousands of people from around the world get online and chat about all kinds of topics. If you want to join a channel, go online, but sit back when you initially get to a channel to figure out the "rules and regulations" that are part of each channels "community" before you start talking.
Of course on our online office hour channel you can start talking right away, and ask me any question you like. If there is time I might even show you a couple of extra nice features that VIRC provides. See you online!

Author: Markus K. Groener