Software > Instant messengers >

(on Wikipedia)
naim.n.ml.org (archive)

A client for AI, AOL, ICQ, IRC, and the lily CMC.

• Used until at least 2009-04-26

• 2009-04-07 - 0.11.8.3.2 on PCLinuxOS 2007

terminal.sh -geometry 80x24+0+0 -font 9x15 -exec /usr/local/bin/naim

2009-04-07 - 0.11.8.3.2 ∞

• Trivial to compile. No dependencies, or I already had them kicking around. Always nice to see.
• Wow, I'm really impressed. There is still some awkwardness with some of the way it's used, but overall I like it. It's especially impressive for a text program.

• Unfortunately, I can't for the life of me figure out how to get the bell working. I found a whole lot of notes, and I'll take that as a serious mission if I'm unable to get another client working. It sucks that it can't just execute an external command. It also sucks that it doesn't have other sound triggers, it's just a couple of obvious things. I'm not bothered by that though.

--

• Sending a PM (personal message) doesn't open a "channel" to that user.
• Strange that it wouldn't automatically switch to the new window, when you use /join #channelname
• Took a little bit to figure out how to get it working with my common use case.
• Wonderful wonderful program.
• As was expected, it's a bit tough to keep track of where I last read. Thankfully every half an hour a line is drawn. That works ok.

• Other people's names aren't coloured when they chat. Booooooooo.

  • /setcol doesn't seem to be the right way to fix it.
• Wow, I can use my scrollwheel to scroll up.

• home and end don't work. This seems to be an xterm issue.

  • control-a and control-e are the defaults. =/
  • Switching to Terminal shows that the keys work. But I'm expecting home to bring me to the beginning of the line.
  • alt-backspace works in Terminal but not xterm. I would like it to work in naim to delete the word to the left of the cursor.
• Uses alt-backspace but I prefer control-backspace.
• Is there a "clear the current line" command?
• name tab completion doesn't properly work. It should move the cursor to the end of the line when I press tab, but remember what I had typed so that if I press tab again it'll go to the next user (matching from what I typed).

• If I decide to delete the name I tab-completed when there's only one match, and I tab-complete again, it'll unnecessarily spam me with:

[TAB] Please do not complete the same name twice. It is likely that USERNAME_
              already saw your initial address and can track your messages without additional
              help, or USERNAME_ did not see your initial message and is not going to hear your
              followup messages either.

• It should put an @ the name of an admin when they chat, and not just in the /names list.

• The away notification being smack-dab in the middle of everything is rather annoying. It should just be an extra row at the bottom. Maybe overtop of the status bar, or just a symbol, or maybe even just a colour change of the status bar.

  • Wait a second, it already says "(away)", so how do I get rid of the big billboard notice that naim puts.

• If I control-alt-backspace out of alt, naim will linger around and take up as much CPU time as it can.

[unsolved] - Getting sound to work ∞

• Enabling the Linux PC speaker beep

/set beeponim 1
/set beeponim 2

I do 2 for testing - I see it flashes me, but I get no beep. Something's amiss. It must be my various preferences for beeping.

Connecting to an IRC network and joining a channel ∞

Just so others don't have to go through the hell of figuring out the basics, here's how you connect to an IRC network and join a channel. The rest is the regular slash commands everyone should be used to.

newconn Freenode IRC
connect username chat.us.freenode.net
(wait)
/msg nickserv ghost username password
/msg nickserv identify username password
/join #test
/save
/set autosave 1

Either /set autosave 1 or remember to /save before you quit, if you expect to rejoin the channels. I think the buddies concept relies on this too..

Usage notes ∞

• press tab to switch between people you're chatting with and channels.

• logging is done by default, see ~/.naimlog/*

  • It's HTML and has really horrifying colours.