What is a good low-noise IRC client?

April 3, 2009 10:55 AM

What is a good low-noise IRC client that will notify me of posts to a channel without requiring user intervention to make the notification go away?

My work place currently uses mIRC to communicate. When something is posted to our channel, it is usually idle chit-chat, or something similarly negligible, but from time to time it will be some Earth-shattering catastrophe that demands immediate attention.

For that reason I have mIRC set to flash when there are updates, but I end up needing to click on (or alt-tab to) the window about 40 times a day and it's only about 1/20 of the time when I need to read what's being posted in the channel. If I don't click the window or it's location on the taskbar it will continue it's seizure-inducing flashing while I try to do my work.

I'm wondering if there's a IRC client that will do something similar to Outlook 2007 when mail comes in (e.g. a pop-up in the lower right that fades away gently) giving me time to read the message but not requiring user intervention to make it go away.

posted by scharpy to computers & internet (6 comments total)

What causes notification? Can you try a social convention instead for stuff you need to read? Have your client raise an alert on an uncommon word. "scharpy" maybe or "HELP"? Or, start a new channel "#emergencies".

On Unixes, "xchat" does this, at least. See also "bitchx", a terminal-based client that is very configurable.
posted by cmiller at 11:31 AM on April 3

Colloquy + Growl on the Mac does exactly what you want.

Sorry for the annoying just change OS and Computer post.
posted by low affect at 11:51 AM on April 3

There seems to be a version of Growl for Windows. If mIRC knows about it already or supports sending notifications to external programs you should be good to go.
posted by harmfulray at 12:22 PM on April 3

also, Miranda-IM can do IRC and it looks like there are pop-up plugins.
posted by low affect at 12:32 PM on April 3

We idle in an irc room at work as well. What we have is an @project alert, typically shortened to two letters. @pr. We also setup an alert like @co (where co is short for company). That way you can turn off notifications in general, except when you get one of the short list of @ codes, or your name.

scharpy: this pings you
@co ahh crap, thing blowd up! Pings you too...
but generic chats don't.

That's the way we solve this problem.

(looks like this functionality to add notices is a 3rd party plugin like: http://www.hawkee.com/snippet/1553/)
posted by cschneid at 12:37 PM on April 3

Another thing to consider, although it would require a change of habits rather than a technology change, would be to /notice the channel when something requires everyone's attention... idle chit-chat could go along without alerts, but when you receive a /notice event, have it play the Star Trek Red Alert sound or whatever.

/notice #ourchan OMG! Timmy's stuck in a well!

It'd appear like this (colored different if notices are set as such in mIRC).

<nick1> haha. that's the greatest lolcat ever.
<nick2> no more lolcat pictures. seriously.
-jeversol:#ourchan- OMG! Timmy's stuck in a well!
<nick1> !! i'll go get lassie!

etc.
posted by jeversol at 1:01 PM on April 6